Home Meetings

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> Since we are a home missions church, home meetings are what we do during the
> week, since we rent the church we hold Sunday services in.

The church I am a member of, Apostolic Life UPC, started as a home
church.  It grew to the point that we were required to rent a small
hall for our meetings.  We now rent a somewhat larger meeting place,
and we are growing at the rate that we have purchased property and
are now reviewing plans for building.

I am an advocate of home churches.  Many times, though, the
congregation will grow to the point where the ministry needs of the
congregation almost require a physical plant of some sort.

Let's take Apostolic Life, for example.  Almost all of the members are
between 25 to 35 years old.  Pastor and his wife are just over 40, as
are one other couple.  There's one couple in their fifties, and we have
one member who is 99 years old.  As you can see, this is a fairly young
and homogenous congregation.  A home church would work just fine for
this core group of about forty adults.

But we also have close to fifty children, ages five to 11, for whom the
home church setting would be inappropriate.  Our "SuperChurch" Sunday
school and van ministry is our most effective outreach tool.  Probably
half of our adult attendance are because their children started coming
to Sunday school.

Our congregation is still small enough that we're just one big "cell
group."  I'm told that large congregations also pretty much require
cell groups in order to maintain a sense of fellowship and
accountability.

I know some individuals feel cell groups serve to undermine the
authority of a pastor.  My response is that faith is spelled RISK (as I
heard Bro Wayne Mitchell preach one time). A pastor who does not have
confidence in his ministry staff will be handicapped in his ability to
be an effective sheppard.

Richard Masoner
Champaign Illinois USA