Quote:
Originally Posted by randyabrown
Mostly because I'm not comfortable having house Church in my aunt's home and my home is too small (24x36 double-wide). When my pastor died, his son (along with his wife and two kids) moved in with my aunt. It doesn't feel as free as it was, and there isn't as much room and there are too many distractions. It was never really respected as Church and now that pastor Larry is gone it's even worse. If I had a large enough room in my home I would be fine with that. I'm not against that at all.
We have Church exactly the same way we did before but now we can get loud and not worry about it (we're out in the country) and we have more room to move around during worship. No one walks in front of me as I preach to get their kids breakfast. Also, we've been able to get people to visit that never came before.
It's also easier to get others to participate. We now have room for drums (my son just started playing electric drums) and keyboard (my wife is learning).
We had a Church from AL join us last night. I asked their pastor to preach (his Church is a daughter work of ours, but he has a large building). He brought 7 members with him. We had 16 total. I enjoy having Church in the tent and I hope to keep it going for as long as possible.
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Modern American homes are generally not suited for house church meetings, unlike apostolic era houses, that much is true.
I am thankful the Lord has blessed us. For a long time we were limited to a very small living room. Now, our living room is actually closer to a 1st century 'living room' - it has a large open area and we have plenty of room to worship. This by the way is one thing that bugs me about a lot of house church videos I've seen on the uto0b - their meeting space is crammed with furniture and there is no room to do ANYTHING but sit like sardines in a can. Turns the meeting into a simple glorified bible study.
Of course, I have seen Chinese and other Asian house church meeting videos where the people are packed in like sardines but they get rid of all the furniture and they stand, bow, prostrate, dance whatever anyway.
I think a lot of modern American house church meetings are probably no closer to apostolical house church meetings than a lot of traditional institutional meetings are. Somebody who desires to host the church needs to consider their available architecture, and make necessary changes designed to accomodate a group of people not merely sitting facing each other but standing, kneeling, worshipping, etc.
You mentioned it is easier to invite people and get them to come to a tent meeting than to a private residence. Is your tent on a public roadway where people can see it and might be inclined to stop in? How are you getting the word out about your meetings?
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