My theatre professor said she likes house church, so I figured I would tell her more about it...

An assingment this week in theatre was this:

Choose any familiar space where people gather. Discuss the dynamics involved in how people move in this space, how they address one another, and how the experience allows for any sort of communal engagement.

And I answered it like this:

Text below includes a bit of commentary that is in orange.

When asked to name a familiar place where people gather, the first place that comes to mind is Bob’s house. Every Sunday morning, and even during the week, multiple people gather there to discuss what God has shown us in our time with Him. This is where we, the Church, meaning the people who make up the body of Christ - not a building, meet. Bob’s house is not huge, but it holds the 10-15 of us who comprise this house church. We move and function rather like a family in a house does. At any time I could go grab a bit to eat out of the fridge ( It's not like it's not on the counter waiting for me to snatch a piece), or hop on the computer to “Google” something ( or get Bob or Beege to look up what the thorax of a monkey is so that I can continue to make my stinkin' note cards) , just like a member of the household. I may even go pick up the living room. ( Not that Mrs. Sharon keeps a messy house, just that all us cold people like to drag out every blanket ever made and then leave them all over the place with our pillows)I address everyone as if they were my family (essentially we are family in Christ), and they address me like-wise. People gather in the living room, kitchen, or around the table and just “hang-out” until everyone gets there. Then around 10:30am (if we are lucky) everybody goes into one room to collectively talk about all that God has shown us. It’s not any formal meeting with one person talking the whole time telling you how to be a Christian; it is the body of Christ communing. Here there is no “head-honcho”; there is no child, simply Saints. Every person has the exact same opportunity to hear from God as a “pastor” or “preacher” does. And in the house, everyone can share the revelation from God that they have received. Or they can share the verse that has made the difference in how their week has gone, or simply how they have been changed to be more like Christ that week. There is no one person who is too young to speak, some house churches have 4 and 5 year olds that bring a Word from the Lord that revolutionizes the way that we see things. If you have a question, you ask it. If you have a Word, you speak it. If you have a song, you sing it. No one is spoken down to and no one is demeaned. Everyone is there to uplift and exhort the body of Christ, even in a gentle rebuke. This is the “communal engagement”. ( Just so you know, the term "communal engagement" was how my Anth. teacher described the gathering on monkeys, and now that I have related that term to house church, I automatically picture us as the gathering of a bunch of monkeys).The entire lifestyle of the Saints is a “communal engagement”. Think about it like the human body. Each part of the body is in constant communion with the rest of the body. Each part works together in harmony (communion) to function; the heart, lungs, hands and feet all have their role, and if they don’t fulfill that role then the entire body is hindered and can’t function as it was designed to. The arm simply cannot pop off and decide not to function for a day, it must fulfill its role every moment of every day. If it did pop off, then the blood would not be able to get to it, and it would eventually loose everything that made it alive. Like-wise, a member of the body if Christ must be in constant communion with Christ, and His people. I cannot cease to function without hindering the rest of the body of Christ. And choosing not to function would mean that the blood of, which gives me life, would no longer be able to flow in and through me. The gathering of the Saints is the communal engagement, and it just happens to be at Bob’s house.




Oh, and this is my official 200th post. I didn't want that last goofy thing to be my real 200th post, not that this is much better, but still...