Sojourners = House Church (part 1)

Some months have gone by and our house church activities and participation have continued on.  So many times people will ask, "How's house church?"  Lots of curiosity.... I really never quite know what to say. As I look at why that is, I am struck with a bit of a picture.  These last months have been spent on different "moving parts" such as best way to handle children, inter-personal challenges, growth, how best to divide, core group principles, best way to facilitate etc.  I imagine a brick layer constructing a house.  All day he focuses on portions of a wall or a doorway.  If asked how he likes the house he too may be stumped and not have a short answer as the work is still so in progress. There is yet to be the perspective that comes from stepping back and appreciating what will someday be a more complete, well-functioning entity called a brick house.

Recently I had the opportunity to speak at what we call "learning community" which is the first Saturday of every month. Here, all the house church groups come together as one and we enjoy the company of those we now only get to see once a month. We enjoy a potluck, a teaching time and a time of worship and prayer. I love these nights together.

The overall house church effort at WH was celebrating it's one year anniversary at this particular learning community night.  We were gathering to have a time to remember and I had prepared an overview of what we had learned.  I likened the pre-classes we had all gone through prior to actually embarking into live house church as having Spanish lessons before we entered Mexico.  But now things were different, we are now actually living in Mexico. It seemed good to take a quick overview of the principles and practices we had learned about which were now far more real and necessary in order to navigate the realities of Mexican life together.

There were two things that I mentioned as observations that I believe are some of the biggest ongoing challenges we face moving forward.  My caveat was that these two items were not official- from- on- high, merely in my opinion. Nevertheless, they remain as critical in my mind and I have been encouraged to "un-pack" (why do I bristle at what I believe to be the overuse of this term in church circles?) them and blog away.  It seemed a good and reasonable thing to do, I haven't blogged in months, I have noticed some rust on 500' Flyby and so.....Onward!

The first of the two challenges has to do with the consumeristic mindset that has pervaded Christiandom in these modern times.  Without belaboring the supporting arguments for this too much, I will write as though this is more or less self-evident.  Many have written about this elsewhere. Suffice it to say, I am a firm believer in this as a fact and see consumerism and our addiction to it as an ongoing hurdle as we pursue maturing our house church community.  You may ask, "Why is this Kem-o-sabe?"

As we Sojourners have stepped away from the world of rows and chairs all facing a stage, from the world of passively sitting through a concert and a speech, of brief hellos and three-sentence catchings up in the lobby post-service (and calling it "fellowship") we have entered into a different approach altogether. One marked by a controlled size (15-30) to promote something approximating "doing life together" and practicing radical four directional love towards ourselves, each other, God and the world we live in.  This effort is not for the faint of heart or, for that matter, for the overly-shy.  It's a world where everyone is looked to for what they can bring to each meeting. We encourage transparency and participation in the messiness of all being on a sort of camping trip together with all of our wet, soggy stuff strewn all over the campsite.

The word 'radical' has been used regarding Jesus and what he came to do.  No sane man would argue against the fact the the message and lifestyle of Jesus was radical.  And as we seek to follow hard after him, we too bandy about that term 'radical'. And here is where consumerism weighs in and begs to differ.  For each one of us participating in Sojourners is a well-honed consumer.  We have been trained and fed from the troughs of the most consumer-driven nation ever conceived. We invented Madison Avenue!  We have been blitzed by media images since we were toddlers and we have all become experts at knowing just what we would love to have, where best to find it, about how much it usually costs and where the best deals are to be had.

Overlay this addiction and our inability to see through anything but our eagle-sharp consumer eyes with the demands of the 'one-anotherings' of house church and you have a problem in River City folks. We have all learned to expect the features and benefits of our church to be just as satisfying to our personal lifestyles as our Keurig coffee makers are to our coffee needs.  We look for where "our needs are met" and we are experts in judging the merits of the youth program, the style of worship, the pertinence of the pastor and a host of other items that float around as invisible score sheets in our heads.

But in house church everything is, comparably-speaking, inconvenient.  There is no "they" to take our issues and complaints to, there is no map store where a previously plotted course can be found to guide our way.   We have no one to send problem situations to for remedial work, for counseling or whatever fix-it seems to be called for....we are the bottom line.  We create the needs/problems/situations and we get to deal/correct/balance/process those same situations.  What normal consumer, educated in ease of use at every level, wouldn't rise up in a fit of "not meeting my needs" and march right out the door!

Imagine, when Jesus sent out the disciples he didn't let them bring an extra tunic...how amazingly inconvenient for their hot, dusty travels staying wherever they could find to stay.  Just think of it, their counsel was to "take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money: and do not have two tunics."  Folks, that radical advice and direction has become very foreign  to today's modern church. Our productions are top-notch, the bands of Grammy quality, studio lighting and sound, heh, our church doesn't live in the shadow of any secular competition! We have worked hard at being just as good as they are......

I don't know, perhaps this will need 2 blogs.  It's just that I believe our addiction to consumerism runs so deep, is so invisible to ourselves, and is so potentially disruptive in our house church efforts. Geesh, every week and into the mid-week we Sojourners must deal with the realities of actually rubbing organic shoulders with other organic souls that are not  necessarily our personally, hand-picked allies.  We have been more or less thrown together. Much as the original 12 were put together.  Oh sure, we share in  the same common heart tugs that drew us away from the traditional way of "doing church".  But heh, what's with this tax collector that shows up every week, and who is this zealot in our midst, and why does John always get to sit so close to Jesus? Where oh where is the fairness, when do I get it my way, just the way I like it, not too hot and not too cold?

To be continued......