It’s easy to get out of balance. To get in a rut and keep doing what we’ve always done.

It can happen to churches. Some emphasise Bible teaching. Other focus on worship. For others, Christianitry is all about serving, helping others. And sometimes churches can even become little more than a social club.

House churches and other forms of simple church can be especially prone to lack of balance.

Here’s what our house church has done to ensure we keep a balance between different aspects of Christian faith and life.

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A monthly pattern

The original idea came from Soul Survivor, whose motto is “Word . Spirit . Action”. Its programs are built around teaching, worship and serving the world in the name of Jesus.

We added “community” to focus on our relationships and fellowship. It also allowed us to set up a monthly program where we focus each week on a different one of Word, Spirit, Action & Community.

We’re not rigid about this, but it provides a pattern. When there is a fifth meeting night in the month, we pick up whatever seems most useful at the time.

Word

Bible study is probably the staple of most home groups and we certainly believe it is important. But we don’t believe knowledge for knowledge sake is very useful, so we try to orient our studies and discussions to issues or passages people are finding important or troubling.

This year we have considered Jesus’ most basic commands – love God & love neighbour (Matthew 22:36-39) and make disciples, baptise, teach and obey (Matthew 28:19-20). Last year (among other things) we took turns to tell an Old Testament story simply as a story, using visuals or dramatic story-telling, to help us see the big picture of stories like Job, Ezekiel or Jonah.

We’ve also discussed the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-11) and the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23), one night at a time, then tried to put what we have learnt into practice in our lives, then reported back next week.

Spirit

If “word” appeals to the mind, I guess the “Spirit” night is aimed at the heart. We are not a “charismatic” group, but we want to be led by the Spirit.

• We have done meditations and reflections,
• stations church,
• sharing & prayer,
• a musician in the group has sung a song for us,
• different people have shown a video of a meaningful song,
• watched videos of teaching on the Holy Spirit and discussed spiritual gifts.

Action

Action nights have been a mixture of learning and doing.

We have learnt together about:

• the policies of the candidates at an upcoming election,
• sustainable electricity providers, and
• ethical problems in the fashion industry and how to find clothing whose manufacture is environmentally sustainable and provides a living wage and healthy working conditions for workers.

And “doing” nights (and an occasional day) have included:

• making hampers for people we felt needed encouraging (as in main photo),
• collecting money or items for different charities – e.g. blankets and other items for people sleeping rough, backpacks full of school supplies for struggling families,
• security cameras and lights to give assurance to women seeking help from domestic violence situations,
• a backyard clean-up,
• participating in a climate march.

Community

On community nioght swe focus on having fun and getting to know each other better. We’ve shared dinner, played games, taken turns at sharing issues on our hearts, and shared “testimonies”. We also meet for breakfast at a local cafe every few months.

Everybody’s happy!

We find different people have a preference for different nights. The good thing is they know their preference will be coming around again soon, while feeling enmcouraged to focus on aspects they may value less.

Photo: An “action ” night where we made up small hampers for people we wanted to encourage.

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