house church intro

We have a house church in our home on Tuesday nights at about 6:30 in Wood River, IL, about 20 minutes northeast of St. Louis. Right now it is my daughter, husband, and sister-in-law. We have a small house but we would love to make this even better by having more people come over who would like to be up built in/with/by/for Jesus. We have dinner, along with passing/partaking (whatever you feel) of the bread and wine, then we move to the living room, just a couple steps away, and have worship. Worship includes singing along with acoustic guitar, shakers, a tambourine, and a djembe drum. After songs we talk about things we have on our minds or maybe that we've been thinking about through the week. We read scriptures and talk about whatever we're moved to say. We ask questions and discuss them although we may not have answers. Then we talk about anyone who may be going through a hard time and pray for them in our concluding prayer. This lasts until 9:00/9:30.


What's nice is that anyone is welcome. My hopes are that all who come will eventually become true Christians, who can truly follow in Jesus' footsteps, in love, in compassion, in righteousness, in forgiveness, in kindness, in truthfulness, in courage, in love for our Father, in persecution, and in death. I am out of religion because of many reasons, but one is that I find religion to be judgmental toward people who are not the ideal christian. My feelings are that if you show them Jesus, they will change for him, or they won't. Jesus befriended, healed, and was actively loving toward sinners, greedy persons, and fornicators. Shouldn't we be?

Everyone can talk, anyone can pray, or give their ideas on scriptures or offer up praise by speaking or singing or showing art or poetry or whatever else moves them. There is no one man that speaks and everyone else just listens. Everyones thoughts are equally needed, appreciated and important.

We are new to singing songs that other Christians have written. We, of course, know Amazing Grace, though it's a different version than the traditional one. My husband and I are probably going to try to write some new songs. We have one so far. And a few other songs. We're hoping to learn one new song a week, whether it's one we make or someone else's. We just bought a djembe and tambourine. Those will be a nice addition to our music time.

So it's really great. We just need some more people to make it a nice, warm family, united under Christ.