Brainstorm
December 7, 2009
Sunday night at the Sellers (12-06-09)
Well, we are getting more excited than ever about hosting a community-wide house church interest meeting here in Arkadelphia. After a good meal and a scripture reading/share time from Bonnie we spent a good deal of time in this meeting freely brainstorming about the logistics of hosting an interest meeting.
We came up with the following Topics:
- Location
- Speakers
- Advertising
- Content
- Child Care
- Time
- Refreshments
- Financing
We then proceeded to Brainstorm through each of these topics a bit and you can read the product we came up with by clicking here .
We also prayed for Bonnie and her family since they lost her grandad earlier in the day, and for April that her baby would come out already, and we proclaimed that anything and everything on our brainstorm list is subject to the will of God and we are very willing to trash/add to anything on the list according to his will. May he guide us in unanimous decisions every step of the way!
Vision
November 15, 2009
Sunday at the Maisens house.
We started our meeting today with a baby shower for Brandon and Becky Harris which was loads of fun and transitioned right into our house church meeting.
We opened with one of the brothers (Adam) reading the first chapter of Hosea which we all had decided to read through this past week and come together to discuss. We discussed the forgiveness that God has even after he cuts off his love from those who have chosen to refuse it and spit in his face with their self-proclaimed independence from him. “In the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ they will be called ’sons of the living God.’” -Hosea 1:10b
Then one of the sisters (April) shared a scripture that had been on her heart this week, Mathew 14:22+, about Peter walking on water toward Jesus but then sinking because he took his eyes off of Jesus and on to the storm around him. This raised the question of what we can do to keep our eyes on Jesus and not the storms that surround our lives.
We took a look at the past 3 or 4 years weve been doing house church and decided that the times that we had been the most Christ centered corporately and individually have been the few weeks surrounding some spiritually edifying event, namely the annual house2house conference and our church “encounter God” retreats. We then broke down the aspects of those events that seemed to really help our Christ-focus.
The events all…
- …gave us a break from the daily grind.
- …had intentional preparation and execution.
- …left us with a vision of what could be.
- …had other like-minded believers sharing with and encouraging one another.
So we decided that while we don’t want to program our meetings or anything we would like to see more intentionality in what we do. We also decided that we need more events like this throughout the year, even if on a much smaller scale. During this time we came to the consensus view that God is leading us to host an interest meeting for house church in our area, where anyone could come to learn more about house church. We haven’t heard what all the details will look like yet but we know we want to do it soon. We’ll advertise it to the community and use it to cast the vision of what could be to those that want to be involved in house church ministry or to those who simply want to hear what a house church even is or does or looks like. Which hopefully is a group of people sharing life with one another and setting their eyes on Jesus together.
Imagine if the whole group got out of the boat and walked toward Jesus. How much easier would it have been to not be distracted by the storm?
Distractions
October 26, 2009
Sunday Night at the Sellers 10/25/09
We started off with Les reading John Ch. 6 before we passed around the bread loaf and glasses of grape juice that symbolized Jesus’s body and blood that we need in order to have the eternal life that he so abundantly gives to those who believe. We did this in the context of a church family checking in with one another over a wonderful meal of Tortilla soup and Quiche ala Chicken Florentine.
We then transferred the meeting to the living room where the Lord brought about a conversation of “things that distract us from Jesus.” We talked about how one of the most attractively sinful TV channels that plagues the American Christian is HGTV. Many in our group love this show but recognize that it can produce the mindset of focusing on one’s stuff. Everything is about making your stuff look better or getting better stuff.
We talked about Jesus being the light and how John Chapter 3 is a tough verse for the average American because it talks about men loving darkness and hating the light so their deeds won’t be exposed, and how most americans would disagree that they hated light and loved darkness. But we have a veil over our eyes and don’t realize that our sins are sometimes less obvious but still very deadly.
Everyone shared and participated and no one “took over”. It was mutual edification of the Body of Christ.
P.S. We also prayed for Adam,who’s stomach problems subsided afterward.
STMR
September 28, 2009
Sunday night at the Sellers’ house:
We had some very awesome visitors with us tonight! Besides the Maisens, Harris’s, Sellers’s, Runyan, and Patsy, Leroy and Deana from Gurdon came for the very first time and we had a great time getting to know them. Also we were very excited that Lon and Amanda Vining, missionaries in Montreal CA, were able to come and share with us. They started the ball rolling here in Arkadelphia 10 years ago which eventually turned in to the church group we are today. So it was very special to re-connect with them.
We checked in using “SASHET” over dinner, which was amazing btw! Bonnie made chicken and dumplings and everybody else brought a veritable feast of goods. Then we retired to the living room to pray, sing, and hear from the Lord from each other.
Lon shared the four foundations that God put on his heart for what a church should be which has really shaped his ministry in Montreal and became the theme of the rest of the evening. The acronym for the four are “STMR”. STM happens to be the name of the Montreal public transportation system and the R represents the rails of the subway system (just to help remember the acronym).
A church should be…
- Scriptural
- Transformational
- Missional
- Relational
We then read through Mathew 28:16-20 (the great commission) and looked at how STMR are all in that passage. Without even one of these four legs a local expression of church will fall off course and eventually freeze up and die.
From Rest to Revival
September 22, 2009
Sunday night at the Maisen’s house.
What a great time in the presence of the Lord! I say that, but I don’t mean it like most people would think. We didn’t have some kind of mountain top experience of energy and excitement. There wasn’t even any singing or typical “worship service” type stuff involved. But there was deep worship.
One of the major concepts God is teaching us right now is that the end goal should inform the journey to get there, and the end goal of everything is for the created to be intimate with the Creator, Jesus. And since intimacy cannot be achieved unless we share our own hearts with the one(s) we want to be intimate with, we started off the evening sharing our emotions with each other and the Lord using SASHET (Sad, Angry, Scared, Happy, Excited, Tender). We did this while sharing the Lord’s Supper and a meal that everyone contributed to. This was the first time we really incorporated the meal time as an integral part of experiencing God together. It was sweet.
As usual we came without a set plan for the evening, except that almost everybody had something ready to share from what God had been teaching them. And as usual, when everybody is centered on Christ and encouraged to share their gifts as the Lord leads, the meeting flowed more freely and deeply than any plan could have achieved.
The theme for the evening was excitement about a revival coming to Arkadelphia and Henderson State University but that we have to devote ourselves to prayer and intimacy with Christ. And out of this place of rest (not out of our hard work and achievement) revival will come.
Talk about some much needed R&R…
Back at it!
September 15, 2009
Wow it’s been a while since we’ve had an update on this site. Now that I am back from Basic Combat Training however, I will continue to post updates about what our meetings look like and our journey of trying to find what God is doing and join him there.
The biggest thing we see God doing is bringing the two house churches in Arkadelphia together to a network of intimacy. We don’t quite know why but we are all just bubbling with excitement and anticipation about an outpouring of the Holy Spirit on our lives and the town we live in.
Stay tuned to find out with us how that will look…And if you read this please intentionally and verbally pray for His movement to be made known!
-Les Sellers
A newcomer’s observations
May 19, 2009
We met Shannon and her daughter walking around the neighborhood and invited her to our meetings. She has been coming to our house church for about 3 weeks now and she wanted to share what it has meant to her:
- Gathering with fellow believers in this intimate setting has revealed to me the unity that is in Christ–there aren’t any separations with the body. It has been amazing to me that those things that I have learned through the Holy Spirit, and during my own personal bible studies, are the same things this group has been taught as well–by the Holy Spirit! Christ never meant for the church to be separated by doctrine!
- I have observed that if there are any unrighteous attitudes, words, deeds, evil intentions or motives–they will be revealed, and handled in a Christ-like manner with love. The church is unshakable. I am fully confident that Satan could not go in and have his way!
- I love the family atmosphere! It’s real and genuine. I know that if there is a need, it’s going to be met. It is so refreshing to gather with fellow believers who truly love and want to serve God.
- My soul leaves completely satisfied!
- When I enter into the work week, I am reminded even more that I AM the Church. I have been more sensitive to the Holy Spirit. I have even began to feel something that I haven’t felt in a long time:I’m falling back in love with Jesus! I find myself going to bed thinking about Him, I wake up thinking about Him! And I’m lovin it!
We love you Shannon! And we are so glad that you and your family are a part of our little (yet big) expression of the Body of Christ.
Give to God what is God’s…
May 14, 2009
Thursday night meeting, Patsy’s house
One of the greatest things about doing house church is not having the financial overhead of a building and a paid clergy. So, if our little group of 10-15 gives generously we can have the same financial giving power as traditional church of 100-150!
Adam started the meeting with a prayer request letter of our close friends Lon and Amanda Vining who are leading and planting traditional and house churches alike in Montreal Canada. Like most missionaries, their financial needs are great. We immediately went to the Lord in prayer for them.
During the prayer time the Lord raised a question through one of the brothers. “What would it look like to center every single dollar you have, you spend, and you receive on Christ?” Everybody then busted out the bible and began sharing verses about money. It was very edifying and encouraging!
This Led to us making some very practical decisions about money as a local expression of Christ. Through a complete consensus we came to 3 major financial decisions:
- We are going to close out the church’s bank account and give the remaining $600.00 to Lon and Amanda. (if we continue to use a bank account we will be subject to report spending as a non-profit organization. We don’t need the headache.)
- We are going to start a “lock-box” to collect money at our meetings. (Each meeting the amount in the box will be reported to the group and spending from it will be decided corporately by whoever is present at the meetings.)
- We decided to change our former $300.00 a month commitment to Lon and Amanda to a no-lower-than-but-usually-much-higher-than $25.00 a month. (We made the original commitment over a year ago and have experienced a lot of changeover in the church. There were a few months we were unable to make this commitment due to lack of people. So, we decided to have a minimal commitment that could always be met no matter what. We expect, however, to give much greater amounts than that!)
We are excited to see the cool things that are going to happen as we center every dime on Christ!
Christ is the it.
May 11, 2009
Sunday night meeting, the Sellers’ house
Well, this meeting definitely gets the largest-amount-of-food-we’ve-ever-had-at-one-meeting award. No one left hungry and our fridge is stuffed with leftovers! We enjoyed the re-visit of Becky’s parents Dave and Lynda (who are former south American Missionaries) as well as Becky’s grandma. We even had the pleasure of a new person who had never come before. There’s nothing like like the bountiful blending of food, friends, and family.
After dinner everyone moved to the living room to see where the Lord would take the meeting. April kicked it off with an excerpt from Frank Viola’s From Eternity to Here. The first part of the pages she read describes Frank’s journey through a myriad of Christian fads/focuses the outcome of which reads:
All of the churches and movements I was involved in had effectively preached to me an it. Evangelism is an it. The power of God is an it. Eschatology is an it. Christian theology is an it. Christian doctrine is an it. Faith is an it. Apologetics is an it.
I made the striking discovery that I don’t need an it. I have never needed an it. and I never will need an it. Christian its, no matter how good or true, eventually wear out, run dry, and become tiresome.
I don’t need an it, I need a him.
And so do you.
We do not need things. We need Jesus Christ.
This sparked an amazing conversation about how Jesus Christ is the embodiment of all things good. And the only it you need is him. We discussed how his blood fully covers all of our sins and his death on the cross completely destroys our sin nature and his resurrection gives us a brand new life in him! It was so sweet to discuss the beauty and centrality of Christ so deeply.
We then spent a good deal of time hearing the story of Becky’s parent’s ministry in Florida. And Becky’s g-ma shared (through many tears) how wonderful these past few days have been for her visiting with us. She was beside herself with the love and encouragement that she recieved from our fellowship. It was very moving to be a part of. We spent a good deal of time praying for them.
We convened with the group decision to meet a Patsy’s house for Thursday night meeting again this week and talked with joy about how wonderful it would be if anybody from her neighborhood could experience the intimacy of this kind of community. People want to be loved and they want real authentic community that is deep, joyful, and vivacious. They look for it in their own families. They look for it in their friends. They look for it in their work places. But…Christ is the it, and we are his body.
Real Church “Service”
May 7, 2009
Thursday night meeting, Patsy’s house
OK. So we decided as a church a couple of weeks ago to start meeting two nights a week, Thursday and Sunday nights. The only difference between the two meetings is that Sunday we start with a pot-luck meal @5:00 and Thursday we start @6:00 without a meal. Otherwise no specific agenda is set for either.
We decided this for a few reasons:
1. We want to practice depending on the Holy Spirit to guide the meetings. (Although we are open to the H.S. leading us to plan something specific at any time.)
2. We have been wanting to meet more often than once a week as a church family.
3. Sometimes the Lord has lead us to go out and do things for people on our meeting night, and if that is our only meeting that week than we miss on our intimate fellowship time for two weeks until our next meeting.
4. Often times schedules just don’t line up and meetings get canceled.
5. This frees us up to just spend a meeting “hanging out” and not feeling like we “missed out” on church that week.
That having been said…
We spent this past Thursday night meeting at Patsy’s house so that we could help her with her much needed yard work. Some worked outside, while others met, read the bible, and prayed inside. Patsy gave the money she would have given to a hired worker to the church and we all decided to give it to a couple in our fellowship in financial need.
Ever since I was a kid I wondered why church meetings were called “services” when it really meant an hour of boring lectures and bad music at some churches and exciting lectures and good music at others. Either way it’s not service. Last night’s meeting seemed more like a real church “service”.
