This is the 2nd of our Home Church Leadership videos. The purpose of these videos is to equip and encourage our Home Church leaders in the vital task of leading Home Churches.
Begin by clicking the play button in the above video. Listen to the video. You may want to take notes.
Next, read any comments posted below, then type and post your own thoughts and comments in the comment box. Interact with other leaders. Feel free to offer new or creative ideas and to ask questions of other leaders. This simple forum will allow us to exchange our ideas and challenges about this topic. After a few days, come back to this page and see what others have shared.
Click here to download a list of Icebreakers that can be used to open a Home Church service.
Click here to download my notes for this video and part 2 of this video.
For Christ and His Kingdom,
Paul
P.S. You can always find this Home Church Leaders Blog under the "Home Churches" pull down menu, which can be assessed from any page of our website.
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6 Comments
Brian at November 15th, 2010 12:44pm
Agreed. Home church services need to be both natural and supernatural, natural in the elements that Paul has described - the eating of a meal or food, the sharing of life stories and establishing traditions, even icebreakers - and supernatural in the sense that we don't do this as a contrived gathering, but one where the Spirit of God is truly present and makes this different from any other gathering that we might participate in our week.
This is why what Paul describes is so important. Because, in these ordinary things are the conduit for the Spirit of God and the Church to really be evident in our lives individually and as a community. I can think of several New Testament cases where Jesus performed powerful miracles or offered deep insight in the context of something as simple as a meeting in a home where he was a guest.
Thanks, Paul for the reminder of how these simple things can really be important for setting the stage for a home church service.
On a practical note, the Wednesday night church meeting can sometimes be really small, so flexibility and sensitivity to the group are also important when opening a home church service. A small home church shouldn't act as though its a big one and vice versa.
Paul at November 5th, 2010 1:57pm
Good stuff, Paul.
I echo Juli's sentiment that these things can translate into our youth meetings as well as any meetings that we regularly have together as brothers and sisters in Christ.
I appreciate the part about making efforts to allow people to speak and to share from their lives, because being a church is about cultivating the way God is bringing us to turn from our sins and toward Jesus on a daily basis and it is difficult for us as a community to help each other along that road if we don't hear and learn from that person.
I am looking forward to developing traditions within our own home church and seeing us grow as a family!
Jim at November 5th, 2010 9:50am
I liked your good spirit in communicating this information (i.e. friendly, smiling, encouraging). These short videos are good for us now and can be instructional for leaders of future home churches, also. The concept of tradition breeds consistency and expectation. Well done.
Ann at November 4th, 2010 8:45pm
I really liked the birthday cake tradition. I also liked the thoughtful way that you approached the topic so that a leader can think about whether the main things are getting done. I think people like something unexpected but also some things that they know they can expect every week.
Ed at November 3rd, 2010 2:53pm
Paul,
thank you again for putting this together. I like the reminders of things like monthly birthday cake or just recognizing them. this year my family was invited to be part of a Jewish Passover Seder dinner and it was so neat.
We had written scripts of all the different parts to be read by different people there including the children. Something like that done as a home church could be a really neat experience.
thanks again for this.
Julianne at November 1st, 2010 9:54pm
Paul,
Great job on the video, I like this format. Even though I don't currently lead a home church, this translates into the GO youth meetings very well.
I agree that there is something special about sharing a meal together. Even when we are just snacking, there can be something unique in how each person approaches what he/she will bring to share with the group. For home churches that don't do a meal every week, it may be a nice tradition to have the person bringing snack that week share if that pie/cake/cookie/salsa recipe is special to their family and why.