Let's review the first part of this message: There are at least 3 real movements in the life of a Church that is seriously aimed at functioning as a Church:
1.-Movement of attitude: From «Believing Values» to «Practicing Values».
2.- Stage movement. From «Run in a building» to «Run in homes»
3.-Focus Movement. From «Working with programs» to «Working with people»
In this issue we concentrate on the second them:
Stage movement. From «Run in a building» to «Run in homes»
The return of the Church (group of people) to work in homes can be seen from three different aspects.
The first aspect is related to the geographical or physical.
The Home as a place where we refocus the ministry, the natural place where we are, act and live our faith with all the actions that this implies.
The Lord Jesus left us his example by teaching, performing miracles, healing, offering forgiveness, preaching, eating, blessing, communing with his disciples and celebrating the Lord's Supper in homes. (See Biblical basis in "8 lessons for the transition").
The first church (from so much to see Jesus) naturally acts in the same territory, praying, persevering in the doctrine, preaching, visiting, teaching, etc. (See Biblical basis on "8 lessons for transition") in homes.
Finally, the apostle Paul continues in Acts and his letters showing that he also carried out most of his ministry in homes. (See Biblical basis in "8 lessons for the transition").
Jesus, the first Church and Paul give us accurate evidence that home was the place used by them for the church to develop its ministry in an informal, personal, natural and participatory manner.
The second aspect is related to the meaning or meaning of the home as a place where we live the different actions that involve the church
The home is the place where a family lives.
It will be impossible to generate in a home the sense of the organized meeting of an institution, in the home the family atmosphere is breathed.
The level of relaxation achieved in a home can not be compared to the defensive attitude of a person entering a building for the first time.
The home includes informality, the common, the daily, the unforeseen, the closeness, the shoulder to shoulder and many other aspects that contribute to people enjoying another feeling.
Open our home or go to the home of a person includes on our side or the other person an opening of ourselves that is perceived, that unites us and frees us.
When one goes through the door of a home, they are being allowed to enter the life of a family.
When the other enters our home he knows that we are opening to him, including our life.
For none of us and especially non-Christians, it is very different for us to open the door of a building to open the door to our home.
Transmitting our values and being a church from the familiar heat of our homes impacts from the moment of opening until the moment of farewell.
Few people can stay cold before someone who opens their doors wide and they share the intimacy of their home with other people in order to be of help.
The third aspect is related to our IR responsibility
If we look at the attitude of Jesus in his days here on earth we see that he was "going" towards people.
When he leaves and leaves us with his two clear mandates, "Preach (Mark 16.15) and" Make Disciples "(Matthew 28-.18-20), he is responsible for placing the little word" ID "in front of each one of them. .
Those two little letters kill the current attitude of many of us.
Jesus was remedying the passivity of his Church.
When the first church was born, he said that they also "preached and taught (Acts 5:42) not only in the temple (what IR meant anyway because that was not their temple) but also in the houses. This was a church mobilized throughout the city, in a continuous and daily "IR".
Paul himself adopts this "IR" attitude constantly to homes as a natural way of extending his ministry.
The homes are the possibility of the church to finish with the "COME TO OUR BUILDING" and to put the "GO" to people.
In our experience all the aspects (Adoration, evangelism, discipleship, counseling, teaching, prayer, Lord's Supper, etc.) of the church are lived much richer in the context of the Home than in that of a building.
We gain participation, informality, personal contact and trust.
To all this, we add that we are being "light" where it is necessary, in the midst of the people of our environment.
Without realizing it, we extend the gospel to other communities and enter into the concept of the global mission that Jesus left us in Acts 1.8. (Our community, those next door, the most distant and to the last »)
If you already have in your Church a small group of people who have taken the first step and moved from «Believing Values» to «Living Values», now encourage yourself and take the second step.
Place before them the challenge of "stop doing everything they do in the building" and move to do it in homes.
Only by doing so will you know the difference.