Church Change

We love the folks at the house church we have attended for the past 3 years but most of them live at least a 30-minute drive away.  We live a 30-second walk from a Baptist church!  So we've started attending. We know most of the families there so it's not a difficult transition. What is difficult for me personally is not being able to model house church for my Arab brothers. We've made it our goal to attend house churches for the past 20 years. That was easier to do overseas than here in our home state where there are SO MANY solid churches that virtually no one considers attending a house church.

Since everything needs an acronym :-) there are PERKS when it comes to gathering in a smaller, house church...

(1) more thorough discipleship by allowing PARTICIPATION during the church gathering, under the oversight of the pastors

(2) EATING the Lord's Supper weekly as a full meal together like the churches in the New Testament

(3) Kingdom expansion through private churches (not public) that are more REPRODUCIBLE among all people groups

(4) KNOWING one another well enough to discern one another's salvation through baptism and church discipline if needed

(5) STEWARDING financial resources more strategically by giving more to missions.

Our elders at the Baptist church know that we would like to see biblical house churches planted in our city and are supportive of that. Until then, we will enjoy growing in Christ and serving God with them together.

I leave soon for my next trip. Pray for new friendships as I may add 2 or 3 new cities in the Arabian Peninsula to the itinerary. I will most likely not be able to visit Nazareth due to the war.