The group that came alive

A year and a bit ago, Nicole and I started a small group with some friends. We set out calling it a ‘house church’, because we wanted the group to understand itself as doing all the things a church should do – a gathered body of believers, building each other up and worshipping our Lord Jesus with our hearts and minds and our words and deeds.

We’ve been meeting in East Victoria Park and just lately, the group seems to have come to life! We’ve got eight regulars and several visitors. We now meet on every second Sunday night for a shared agape meal.

Recently, we’ve started breaking a loaf of bread and sharing a cup of wine before each meal, consciously celebrating the shared meal as a part of the Lord’s Supper. This is, we believe, similar to how the early church would have celebrated the Lord’s Supper.

At first, we tried reading a book together – Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster. It’s an excellent book, one of those that has changed my life, but I’m beginning to think that reading a book together is not the best way to do things.

Since April we changed the way we do things and I think it’s made it so much better. Now, each person is responsible for organising a week. After dinner, we do whatever they have for us.

It’s unleashed an incredible number of gifts and interests giving people this responsibility. Here’s some activities we’ve done:

• An art night where we drew and painted in response to God
• A presentation about a trip one of our members made to Indonesia, helping women in poverty.
• A sing-along night where everyone who could play brought an instrument and we sang whatever people requested. We had three guitars, a Spanish drum, a viola and a shaker.
• An alternatives to violence workshop.

For me, it’s been a wonderful testimony to the presence of the Spirit in each believer. Everyone has something to contribute, some passion or talent. When we give people an opportunity to express these, the body of Christ, the church, comes alive!

If you’d like to join us, you’d be welcome. You can send me an email – nathanhobby at gmail.com, or talk to me at NVC on Sunday.

- Nathan Hobby