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Originally Posted by KeptByTheWord
Esaias - can you tell us about your home church experience?
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We had been meeting with several families previously. They would meet on Wednesday evening and twice on Sunday. Unfortunately, we have moved too far from there to meet with them and plus I heard they may not be meeting regularly anymore anyway since most of the families have moved too far apart from each other.
They were Oneness Pentecostal, did not belong to a denomination, believed in modesty but did not preach a clothesline 'standard' like many Pentecostal churches (although I would say most of them dressed more modestly than most of the UPCI folks I have seen the last several years...and I'm talking those who still adhere to 'standards'...)
We did not believe the same about everything, as our family believes in the Lord's Supper with one loaf and one cup and they apparently believed in 'spiritual communion' whatever that is. They also did not believe in head coverings for the sisters but believed their hair was their covering.
They had been meeting in one another's homes all their lives except for the eldest brother who had been converted from catholicism back in the 1960s or so. The eldest sister would tell us of home church meetings back when she was a kid (that would have been the 50s) so apparently they have connections with apostolic house churches that are just as old as, if not older than, the UPCI's existence as an organization. Most of them were from Louisiana but had connections with brethren in Alabama and Mississippi.
They also had some fellowship with some Church of Jesus Christ folks up in Tennessee (but those people were not house church people as far as I know).
Meetings began with prayer and nothing else started until everyone was done praying. There was no official 'calling to order' that would end the prayer, something I liked and believe in whole heartedly. The entire meeting would usually just flow right out of the prayer meeting. If anyone had anything they wanted to share they did, whether it was a teaching, a question, a song, prayer request, testimony, whatever. The eldest (who had no title but was the de facto elder of the assembly) would often share some teaching or insight as well. Another thing they did regularly (though not every single time as nothing was really set in stone) was to read Scripture, and whoever had any insight into it's application would share as we went along.
I think in one week we would read through more scripture than the entire time I have ever been in a denominational church, whether UPCI or ALJC or independent or charismatic or Baptist or whatever, lol. They liked going through the bible chapter by chapter, book by book, verse by verse (another thing I whole heartedly agree with).
If someone had a prayer request, the elder would grab a chair and set in the midst of us, the one requestng prayer would sit there and the church would gather around and pray for them or their need. Often people would volunteer to 'sit in' or 'stand in' for someone who was absent, wayward, or sick but unable to be there.
These people had a genuine love for God, and you could not miss it. I think I can honestly say my wife and I were ministered to more abundantly in those simple meetings than in any other church we attended. Not saying we weren't blessed and strengthened in those other churches, but nothing as solidly consistently edifying and encouraging as meeting with the brethren 'who met in their homes'.
I also have to say this - those meetings were consistently 'Pentecostal', each and every time, which is more than I can say for most institutional churches I have attended. They had no choir, no 4-piece rock band or anything like that, but there was more soul-touching moving of the Spirit and honest heart-felt worship and openness and 'body ministry' and genuine praise and worship there than anywhere else I have ever been with one exception - the little UPC I attended where I was baptised which was in the middle of a full blown revival (what I call a 'real' revival, not those 'scheduled for this weekend only' type 'revivals'). I have not seen THOSE types of meetings since then (back in the early 90s).
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