We are way too concerned about what churches we belong to. We ask people what church they go to and we size them up, like we determine who we agree with based on their politics or fashion. Do we agree with that church’s teaching, type of worship, formality/informality? So we rate them. Some are awesome, and some are woefully misguided, according to us.

I love home churches. I love the intimacy of the fellowship, the worship, and care. I belong to two different home churches. One was formed on purpose, and the other by accident.

A few years ago, I had three different people ask to meet with me regularly for fellowship/prayer/friendship. It felt like mentoring and I didn’t feel that I had the bandwidth to meet with each of them separately, so I suggested that we meet as a group and we could encourage each other. Two of the three agreed to do that, so we did. At first it was awkward because we had no agenda or format, but soon we were a tiny home group fitly knit together.

In this little group, our main reason for meeting is worship. We sing out of tune with a freedom that blesses my heart. Our worship is passionate and honest. Then we pray over each other with love and kindness. We talk about what we have learned from God and how He is blessing and teaching us. Then we share communion to honor Jesus and all that He did for us.

And it recently came to me that what we had was church in it’s purest form. We didn’t mean to start a church, we just wanted to get together to encourage each other and worship with a freedom that we don’t get in churches with agendas and time schedules. Sometimes others will join us when they can. It doesn’t matter. We’re not trying to grow. It doesn’t matter if we never do. What we have is fantastic and blessed with the presence of God every time we get together.

Don’t get me wrong, I think that traditional churches have a lot to offer, especially with the ability to touch the community, but they will never be for me what my small family is.