When a thing is right you know it in every cell in your body. There are no discords, no disharmony, no sense of unease. When you are centred in God's will there is that same sense of rightness even if there is turmoil all about you, even if you are in the midst of grief or conflict. That is how church should be. It has been a long time since we have felt that sense of absolute rightness.
As Paul instructs in Corinthians the coming together of God's people for worship should edify & build up that they might go out into the world to do every good deed He has prepared for them to do. One of my gripes with our church was they wanted to run before they could walk, not having built up the people & strengthened them so they could withstand the world, & standing, move effectively for God in it.
Dearest keeps saying, 'humble beginnings, humble beginnings.' Thank goodness. I'm not interested in how many of us there are, only that we are right before God.
So we did some tweaking through the week & things ran much more smoothly this week. Firstly one of our members is ill so to accommodate him we moved fellowship to his house so if he was tired he could lie down & his wife didn't have to stress about leaving him. Secondly we'd preprepared the meal in such a way that Liddy could help herself & eat while we fellowshipped so that there was no real disruption to the flow of fellowship. This worked much better.
Apart from Ditz we have no real musician so music is not really a part of our worship at present. We have had Christian music playing softly in the background as people arrive & maybe a song to listen to but this has worked well & I can't really say we have noticed the absence of music as yet as God knows the way the service is evolving & it is not needed. Because we are such a small group, & the beauty of being small, is that no one person is dominating, though I guess a really strong personality could.
Once we are all gathered we open with prayer. This has rotated & will probably continue to rotate. Then we read directly from the scriptures. At present we are going chapter by chapter through Philippians. I feel that as a group we have been given the Philippian church as our example. It was a very small, monetarily poor church, the first one on European soil, but it was mighty in God's eyes. They were generous & faithful & so spiritually strong they survived the onslaught of the Ottoman Empire & were still in existence in the 13 century! I mean, seriously, Wow!
Everyone knows what we are doing & comes prepared & here is where the real difference lies between homechurching & a regular church. We have no nominal Christians. We may have in the future but at present we have no nominal Christians. We all have our faults & failings but our desire is to know the Lord better & to do His good will. So there were 7 of us & all seven of us brought something to our worship & contributed in a way that edified & uplifted all of us ~ yes, even our girls. Me, I love research so I did the background check. lol. Those of you who've known me for a while will know how much I enjoyed doing that! The other male had several pertinent readings we could discuss. We had a prayer warrior with us. Liddy is our logical thinker & debater. Ditz used the gift of helps with the other lady, Dearest cooked the meal.
Having read the 2nd chapter of Philippians we paused for reflection & discussion. This got pretty lively but not chaotic & we finished with prayer again ~ all very simple & direct. I can't help but think of the first churches meeting in one another's houses who would have been so excited to get a letter from Paul, a letter that would have been read & reread & handled by everyone amidst much excitement.
We finished with a prolonged meal. Seriously 3 hours after we began Dearest's back began giving out on him but everyone was loath to go home. We had had a wonderful time of fellowship, been refreshed spiritually from the streams of living water & feel strengthend in our commitment to live out our faith in the strength of the Lord.
This is not for everyone...a bit like homeschooling. Some people take to it like ducks to water but for others the lack of known structure, the backing of a known denomination, the security of having everything laid out for you, is just too frightening. There are dangers. Of course there are dangers. There are dangers in a regular church too & that is even scarier in my book because when they depart from the narrow way they are backed by a whole superstructure & lead many astray. We do feel it is very important that everyone feels important & included & that no~one feels overlooked or disregarded. This is scriptural. Everyone has been given spiritual gifts which are to be used for the up building of the body of Christ, so everyone needs an opportunity to exercise their gift. So long as we listen carefully to the Spirit everything will be done in good order & a way that will please Him because God is not a god of chaos & He brings everything in to unity in Him.
Do I really need to say how much I am looking forward to worship next week?
6 comments:
That is beautiful, Ganeida. I hope your fellow worshipper is feeling better soon but meanwhile, that is a very nice accomodation.
I am following this journey of yours with great interest... your little "congregation" is in my daily prayers. this type of thing seems so *right* to me. i do love my church, but there is so much distraction by all the organizational issues, so much fluff that insists on being attended to. hours and hours are spent at church and only a small fraction is spent actually in the word or being taught. thanks so much for sharing the details- i am enjoying the experience vicariously;)
Oh it sound so wonderful! Were there not thousands of miles - and much of them quite wet - between us, I'd love to come along. Bit of a swim right now though. :-P
MrsC: the beauty of being small is that it isn't a drama. We all fitted very nicely.
Persuaded:Your prayers are very much appreciated. The girls & I tried several churches on the Mainland but oh my! The distractions! I never really felt like I had worshipped.
Moly: you ever feel you want to take that *swim* there's a place round my table for you girl!
Thanks for all the lovely details. I personally enjoy singing quite a bit, and so your meeting wouldn't be ideal for me, but it sounds decidedly Biblical. "Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity." Why would one have to be in charge when we are all equal before the Lord? Keep it real, and keep each other in check and it will continue to be a blessing to all.
My church is just one step up from a home church. It is very small. In fact, we meet in a rather small two or three bedroom house. My daughter often plays the keyboard during the service. I really don't like organized religion that much but I like this place.
There are plans to build a larger building in about two or three years, and I have mixed feelings about it, as I do with all changes, I suppose.
Ganeida, I think what you have is simple and lovely. I am there with you in spirit.
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