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How To Start Holding Family Church at Home?

Froggie

Member
DocInKorea said:
I would recommend that husbands as the the high priests of their homes set up a regular time of worship and study from the Word involving the whole family. This could eventually turn into a weekly home group involving others as you become comfortable with that step.

Blessings

Doc

Sadly, Mr. Froggie has never really been the spiritual leader of our home. Rather, I have. And as a result of my longing for stronger spiritual unity within our home, and a longing to share worship with my family, I have tried for several years to convince my family to join me in worshiping the Lord at home. Unfortunately, the idea has never really appealed to them. :(

However, my longing for family worship services in the home has never left me.... So, supposing I can convince my family to go along with the idea, and start holding "church" at home, how would be the best way to start? We would have a few obvious obstacles to overcome at first. 1) At first it is going to feel awkward and silly. 2) We now have the addition of some young children with very short attention spans, mixed with intellectual adults/teens.

* How do we gear the service to appeal to both age groups? Or do we simply hold two separate services at different times? (The younger children do attend a local church twice a week, but I also see the value in worshiping together as a family)

* How long should the service be to start with?

* What kind of elements would you put in your program? (i.e.; a song, a prayer, a sermon, a game, a story, reciting something, communion, etc.?)
 
Good one, Froggie.

Let's see you answer THAT, Doc! *big grin*
 
Well, since we kind of have our own 'home-church' since we lost our last church (I should post that story here sometime, actually) here's a general idea of what we do and why.

Liturgy (order of worship) is a fairly flexible thing, and with a family church meeting it becomes more flexible because scheduled are more flexible.

I suppose the core elements are study (doctrine), worship, and communion. A lot of people would include group prayer on that list, and its good if you like that kind of thing, but to me that's not really what prayer is about. I wouldn't put community prayer as a core or central thing, I'd emphasis the need for 'closet prayer' and 'prepetual prayer'.

I'm very strongly opposed to modern didactics in a church setting. That is I'm against the model of one person talking and everyone listening, then its done. That is somewhat appropriate when dealing with new Christians who know very little about scripture, but with established believers (even kids raised in a Christian home who know the basics) I take a dialectic approach.

We generally take a book of scripture, I read it section by section (not verse by verse or topic by topic, but varying amounts depending on how much commentary is needed), give a general statement on its meaning and application, and asks if she understands it and what she thinks of it. In a multi-person (such as with kids) environment I pick someone depending on who has said the least and who appears to have the most to say on that particular topic. The discussion is often very brief, everyone agrees with what it means and we move to the next section. Even in that case its important that someone re-tells the passage in their own words as it shows they understood it and will remember it. Other times the discussion goes on and branches into discussing the history of the passage, how people use or misuse it and why, discussion on various ways it can be interpreted and which is most likely, and sometimes there are even disagreements that need to be worked through. That can take quite a long time but is well worth it, and since we're not bound to a 'lesson plan' or a deadline we can go through things like that.

We also do topic studies if something comes up. A few weeks ago I was discussing the meaning of 'women saved through childbearing' at the end of Timothy chapter 2, I mentioned it to her and she said she didn't know the details of that verse, so our next bible study covered Timothy Chapters 1 and 2, and we discussed it in detail.

We tend not to do as much with the kids under 5, though we do include our 6 year old from time to time, though she mostly listens. I probably should do some lessons designed for her though.

Time runs anywhere from half an hour to three hours depending how engrossed in the discussion we get.

We usually do worship related things at a different time or day than this. And worship can be anything from an acapella hymnsing to playing music and dancing.

Communion is very important, some people have made a very good case for doing it daily. I'd recommend it as a family on a regular basis.



As to how to get people interested. What does Mr. Frog study and what are his interests? If he plays his strengths and sees people listening to him he'll probably be fairly inclined to teach more. In a similar way if you find out what your teens don't know and want to find out you can grab their interest in this kind of meeting. Part of it is about meeting needs, a father needs to teach and kids have things they want to know about. If you can get that happening fairly regularly and everyone feels they are involved it could become something very grand.
 
Thanks for the question. The best place to start is with hospitality. Simply invite a family or two over to your house. It doesn’t have to be a big production. It doesn’t need some sort of higher approval, nor does it need to be official. You don’t need to establish by-laws. You don’t need to have a set agenda or a schedule. You don’t even need a plan. You can even start by inviting a brother or sister over for a coffee or organize a camping trip. Build relationships that are focused on God.

The point is not how to get together with people, that’s common sense. It’s what to do when you are with people. Having an outgoing attitude and being somewhat hospitable will allow you to be around plenty of people. As you are hanging out with others, you have to learn how to touch the Lord together. Depending on where the other people are at in their heart and relationship with God, will depend on how far they will go with you and how long it will take. Building relationships takes time. But eventually, and if they are willing, you all can open the Bible, pray together, worship, and share hearts.

Begin by just eating supper together. Talk, visit, and share what the Lord has been doing and showing each of you in your lives. Take turns reading a few verses in a particular passage. Talk about those passages, pray together and worship with songs. After a couple of meals together, use a few of the questions in the following chapter to turn the focus to deeper things.

As you meet non-Christians in everyday life, invite them over for a monthly discussion in your home that deals with controversial issues. Questions like, “Why does God let children in poor countries starve and die? How could a loving God send people to Hell? Do you really have to go to church to go to Heaven?” Unsaved people love this kind of stuff. Over time you can build relationships. Some of them will be born again and be a part of the church in your house. You can even encourage others to open their homes so you can move around where you meet.

As you continue to open your home and others join you, over time things will change. Organically (naturally), things will evolve and change as the Lord leads. Be flexible, don’t force anything, focus on Jesus, and enjoy New Testament body life!

Remember, all the churches you read about in the New Testament were HOME CHURCHES!
 
Wow. So it really is about as simple as talking about a certain Bible passage in the car on the way to town, isn't it? If that's the case, then we have "church" as a family all the time! :lol:






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We had church at home from the time I was about 9 to when I left home. The format was extremely simple - we all read the Bible for half an hour. Anything we were interested in, and a bible version that was age-appropriate (we actually had the whole bible in comic form for younger children, which is an awesome way to engage kids in the Bible, those ones disintegrated eventually they were read so much!). You just had to be reading that whole time. My father also told us (and our cousins, although they didn't have church with us) he'd give us $100 if we read through the entire New Testament (proper version, not comics!). That got us into bible study very enthusiastically!

Then after half an hour we would discuss whatever each of us had been reading. Very brief. Then we'd either go and do something else or keep reading if we were engrossed in it. Dad prayed at some point, can't remember if it was the start or the end.

We didn't sing worship songs then, but we often had evening family singalongs whenever we felt like it, very unstructured.

We also had lots of other resources to read. Although during "church time" we had to be reading the Bible, Sunday afternoon was often spent reading Creation science resources (particularly Creation magazine), and novel-form stories of historical Christians. We had a very unstructured way of learning about God, and I think that helped Him to be part of our entire lives rather than just someone we though about on Sunday. This all set me up very well for the debates I had in high school with my biology teacher over evolution, and for discussions at youth group when I started attending a local one in later years.

Having said that, the one downside was that we were isolated from other Christians. Once I started attending home groups run by the local Baptist youth group as a teenager I had a lot more fellowship with other believers and grew in my faith still more, but I think the purely Biblical focus of those home "church" times gave me a very solid foundation in true Christianity, rather than "I-believe-what-the-preacher-said" style faith. You need both home bible study and interaction with Christians outside your family.
 
Yeah, I really don't like that 'daze'. It makes me think someone is not paying attention if they aren't interacting. I agree with how you see Pauls vision. Thank you for your post.
 
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