The girl beside me drew this:

The priest told me my drawing was very good but that hers captured the true meaning of church. He went on to explain the Body metaphor, but I had no idea what he was getting at. Feeling embarrassed at my ignorance, I stopped attending the class and tried looking elsewhere for God—if he was really out there somewhere.

I soon found a Christian group on my university campus called the Navigators. After mustering up courage, I went to one of their evening meetings where I found about two dozen friendly people my age who welcomed me and showed some interest in getting to know me. The meeting started off by having us sing several songs together, then someone prayed, after which the group's leader stood up and began talking. He started by reading Luke 18:18-23 which goes like this:

A certain ruler asked him, "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"

"Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honor your father and mother."

"All these I have kept since I was a boy," he said.

When Jesus heard this, he said to him, "You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was very wealthy.

The speaker went on with his message, but my attention remained fixed on what Jesus had said:

"Sell everything."

After the meeting was over I nervously approached the speaker and asked if Jesus's words meant that if someone wanted to know God he had to give up everything he had or wanted to have in life. The speaker hemmed and hawed a bit and replied, "Well, no, that's not necessarily true."

But the idea stuck with me and a plan began forming in my heart. The next morning I wrote some letters to say that I was turning down the graduate program, scholarship, and prestigious summer job I had been offered. Somehow I had come to the conclusion that the moment I dropped these letters in the mailbox, something big would happen—that God would reveal himself somehow. So I took the bus to the university, walked up to the mailbox, lifted the slot cover and slipped the letters inside.

Nothing happened.

I went home and sat in a daze for the remainder of the day. Then late that evening I phoned the friend who had first told me about God and explained what I had done.

"You're crazy!" was the reply.

"Well, what should I do now?" I asked.

"Ask Christ into your life."

I hung up and lay there in bed and said out loud, "Christ, come into my life. I don't know if you're there, but if you are then help me. I've just given up my whole future and I don't know what to do, so if you're there please show yourself to me and come into my life."

As I prayed I sank deeper and deeper into despair, but something inside me kept speaking these words out loud. Then at the point where I felt myself helplessly falling towards total nothingness, I suddenly had a vision of a man hanging on a cross on top of a dark hill with light shining all around. And I heard a voice saying:

"Hah! You've taken everything important to you, your whole future, and you put in on the altar as a sacrifice hoping I would reveal myself. But the sacrifice that I made for you is infinitely more than you could ever do for me!" 

When I heard those words I laughed out loud and said, "Hah! I have eternal life!" Then I rolled over and went to sleep, and when I awoke the next morning, everything felt new.

Now what?

Finding church

On Sunday that week I walked into my friend's church. It was the first time I had ever been in a church, and it was exciting! The church was Evangelical and non-denominational and it was bursting at the seams. The preacher was well-known in the Evangelical community and his sermon that morning was on Isaiah chapter 6. When he raised his hands at the end of his message and said, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" I wanted to jump up and shout, "Here am I! Send me!!" But I didn't, because it was obvious from the behavior of others that you just didn't do that sort of thing in church.

When they discovered I had certain interests and talents I was quickly funneled into the workings of the church. Since I was classically trained musically, I soon became their go-to pianist for hymn singing on Sundays. And being an avid bookworm, I also found myself helping out a lot in the church library. I began devouring Christian books and attending Bible studies, and soon my head was swelling with knowledge. Invited to bring the message one Sunday evening, I preached through the entire Book of Judges in half an hour!

During that first year of my new life in Christ I also experienced another kind of fellowship. The Navigators ran a six-week communal living program called Hothouse that was intended as a kind of crucible for discipleship formation. We met together daily in small groups for prayer and Bible study. We shared meals and took turns cooking and cleaning up. We went out in pairs to a park and spoke to strangers about Jesus. It was challenging and exciting, but I experienced a huge letdown when the program finished. What should I do next?

I decided that I needed to find out more about this thing called "church" by visiting some other churches. So I looked through the Yellow Pages (it was the 70s) and picked out four churches from different denominations: Presbyterian, Quaker, Baptist and Eastern Orthodox. Note that the reactions I describe below are those of a recently converted pagan who had zero prior experience going to church!

First, I visited the Presbyterians. ("Wow, that pulpit is high! Why is the preacher wearing clothes from the eighteenth century?")

Then I hung out with the Quakers. ("Man, this is weird, that woman is shrieking like she's having hysterics!")

After that I checked out the Baptists. ("Well that was very nicely choreographed, almost Hollywood in terms of production quality.")

I even tried visiting an Eastern Orthodox church. ("Hmm, this is fascinating but I can't understand a word the guy is saying.")

My brief denominational excursion was a strange experience for me, but as a new believer it also made me excited to learn more about church and about the history of Christianity. I was glad however to return to my plain old vanilla Evangelical church, mostly because I was finally getting to know some people there.

When the year had passed I found myself in West Africa working for a development agency. I had gone there in obedience to a vision God gave me, and during the three years I was there I attended an Evangelical mission church and continued to grow spiritually. When I came back to my home in Canada however, I discovered with consternation that the preacher had left my old church and was now meeting in a home with about two dozen former members of the church. Not knowing what to do, I began alternating my attendance between my old church and the house church. After a few visits however I realized that most of the people I knew and liked were in the house church, so I started attending there regularly.

I soon discovered that house church was quite different from "normal" church. We sang together, prayed together, laughed together and cried together. We shared our problems and helped one another out—we were like a family. We even took turns teaching from the Scriptures. ("Wow, Mitch, I never knew one could talk a whole hour explaining one single verse from the Bible." I wasn't sure whether Cliff was praising me or being sarcastic.)

House church was also where I first began experiencing spiritual gifts. I didn't realize this at the time since by then I had adopted a cessationist position, though this was more due to my scientific training than my leanings towards Calvinist theology. On one occasion for example, I drifted off into a daydream during someone's boring sermon, and through my dream I learned for the first time that God was really my Father. When I was asked after the sermon if I had any comments, I shared my daydream and everyone went "Woahhh!!" indicating it clearly had a prophetic impact on them. I had never seen this kind of thing happen in my old church, probably because everything was carefully choreographed on Sundays. Perhaps church bulletins for Sunday services should include a line that says "Time for expression of spiritual gifts (optional)" or something similar.

Eventually some disharmony arose within our house church. The argument was over whether it should remain a house church or start meeting in a public setting with intent to grow into a "real" church. Some valued it as their church family and wanted it to remain small so they could continue sharing their joys and struggles with one another. The preacher however told us that churches were supposed to grow, so at his insistence we rented a meeting room in a downtown hotel and our Sunday services were opened to the public. A few people left the church because of this change, but many more joined us and soon we had doubled in size.

At this point the preacher pressed me and another young man into service for doing some of the preaching. He then began stepping back from preaching as it turned out he had never actually wanted to start a church in the first place, especially a house church. Then one day he and his wife were gone, and the two of us were left on our own to lead the church. We had no idea how to run a church, and the older people who had previously attended the house church left began leaving since they had only joined it in the first place because the preacher had been there. Everything quickly fell apart at this point and we closed down the church.

I felt devastated. I had failed at my first try at church leadership, though in actuality I had received no instruction or training on how to lead or plant a church. I had also by this time experienced several different kinds of church ranging from traditional to home-based and even some communal living. I had enjoyed house church the most, but I would probably have never had that experience if I hadn't joined a traditional church first. But my varied experiences with church and my magical mystery tour to different denominations left me with a nagging question growing in my heart:

What actually is this thing called church?



2

What is church?

 As I mentioned earlier in the Introduction, John Wimber in his book Power Healing developed what he called an "integrated model of healing" by which any Christian can learn how to pray for the sick. Wimber's actual purpose in writing his book however was to help churches learn how to incorporate healing ministry into their overall mission. My goal in writing this book is similar, except it deals with growing home fellowship ministry not healing ministry (although healing often takes place within home fellowships). In addition, the model I present applies to implementing home fellowships both within and independent of a larger congregation or denomination.

In outlining his approach for implementing healing ministry in a church, Wimber used the analogy of trying to build a house. To accomplish this you first have to lay down a solid foundation. Then you put up your walls, after which you add wiring, plumbing, air ducts, and so on. In Wimber's understanding the foundation for doing any kind of ministry is the set of principles on which the ministry is based. These guiding principles are non-negotiable and are solidly rooted in Scriptural truths and tested by experience. Principles are then expressed through values, which are like the walls that establish the identity and presence of your home in the neighborhood. Values are things we feel are important and govern how we allocate our resources of time, energy and money to the ministry. Principles and values then guide the development of practices (learned behaviors), programs (steps for achieving goals) and procedures for identifying and training personnel to accomplish our ministry aims. While principles never change and values are relatively constant, practices, programs and personnel must be adapted to meet specific situations and circumstances for the ministry to remain viable.

This chapter begins answering the question of what is church by identifying four key principles that help us understand the purpose and nature of church. While these principles apply to church in general in all its forms of expression, the particular focus here is on doing church in home fellowships. The next chapter explores how these principles determine our values for home fellowships. These values will be illustrated through stories of some of the things that I and others have seen God doing in home fellowships. Chapter 4 then explores some of the mechanics of doing home fellowships, how to start and run one so that fundamental principles are adhered to and values are properly expressed. The chapter covers the three p-words of practices, programs and personnel along with a few other practical matters. Chapter 5 then deals with another p-word that probably should have been explicitly included in Wimber's paradigm but wasn't. I'm talking about how to deal with and survive the various kinds of problems and challenges that typically arise in home fellowships.

One final word before we proceed. Wimber expressed something important in his book Power Healing that is often overlooked when pastoral leaders try to birth an effective healing ministry in their churches. He wrote that he often received letters from pastors saying they had tried doing the things they had learned from his healing seminars—using the five-step model for healing prayer for example—but had grown discouraged because they weren't seeing the kind of results Wimber saw when he prayed for the sick. Wimber's response was that at least part of the problem may involve their not having fully grasped and assimilated the principles and values underlying the Vineyard's approach to healing the sick.

I believe that this same consideration applies to starting and growing home fellowships. If you focus only on the mechanics of how to do a home fellowship but don't fully grasp the underlying principles behind what home fellowships are supposed to be (i.e. the church in its most authentic form) then you're probably going to miss out on much of what God can (and wants!) to do in your home fellowship. So please don't jump ahead and try to get to what you feel must be the meat of this book, the nuts and bolts of how to do home fellowships. Instead make sure you read this chapter carefully and ponder it thoroughly, even if it seems a bit theoretical. Don't worry, we'll get to more exciting stuff soon!

Guiding principles

Some years ago I was trying to understand the concept of the kingdom of God as it is presented in the New Testament. I had read several books on the subject including Wimber's Power Evangelism and also some books by George Eldon Ladd that Wimber recommended. But I was still struggling to grasp the essence of what the kingdom of God meant. At one point I threw up my hands in frustration and said, "Lord, I don't understand! What is this thing you call the kingdom of God?" Immediately a scene from the movie Fight Club with Brad Pitt came to mind. In the scene Pitt is explaining to the club's wannabe participants that "The first rule about fight club is you don't talk about fight club. The second rule about fight club is you don't talk about fight club." Then suddenly it hit me: the first rule of the kingdom of God is that God is king and I'm not. I'll let you guess what the second rule is!

This gives us our first foundational principle concerning church, which simply states that Jesus is king. (Matthew 28:18, Ephesians 1:20-21) I don't think any of you reading this will dispute this important truth, but what are the implications regarding church including home fellowships? It simply means that Jesus is the head of the church, not you or me. We may cooperate with him in achieving his goals and purposes, but the bottom line is that we're labor, not management. Think about that for a moment, especially if you're a pastor or home fellowship leader.

Our second guiding principle is that the purpose of the church is to advance the kingdom of God. An assumption behind this principle is that the church is defined by its purpose, not by its practices, programs, personnel or property. Jesus came to announce that the kingdom of God had arrived (Matt 4:17). He demonstrated this by healing the sick (Matt 11:2-6), casting out demons (Matthew 12:28) and doing other signs and wonders through the power of the Holy Spirit (Luke 4:18). Jesus then commissioned his followers (us) to do the same (Luke 9:1-2 and 10:9; also John 20:21).

A straightforward reading of the Book of Acts makes it clear that the remarkable growth of the early church resulted from a combination of bold proclamation of the kingdom message and its demonstration through signs and wonders. Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8) and we are called to carry on his work in the same way that he did—through words and supernatural works by the power of the Holy Spirit. Not that we are capable of doing any of this ourselves, but we can expect our King to rule when we proclaim the message of the kingdom.

Our third principle builds on the second one by stating that to accomplish its task the church must make disciples (Matt 28:19). But what does making disciples actually mean? Let me digress here with another story from my early years as a Christian to illustrate some of the difficulties with making disciples.

After I had been born again, I began devouring Christian literature to try and understand what it was that I had been born into. Being used to learning academic subjects through concentrated study, my first attempt at learning Christianity involved reading theological books by Bultmann, Barth and Bonhoeffer. The preacher at my church did me good service at this point by suggesting I put that sort of stuff aside and read books by John Stott and C.S. Lewis instead. So I continued reading voraciously, but this time all kinds of solid Christian books. But I soon came to the conclusion that I still didn't understand what it really meant to be a Christian. I knew I was a Christian, because I had met the living God! But I didn't know what I should be focusing on doing, other than trying to stop sinning, which was difficult.

In desperation one Sunday morning after the service I approached the preacher and asked whether he could possibly disciple me. Unfortunately he replied that he couldn't as he was just too busy, so once again I found myself left on my own. I was also involved with The Navigators during this period, and my Nav leader told me that he wanted to disciple me. But he wouldn't explain up front what discipleship involved or how the Navigator discipleship program worked, and this made me feel suspicious of his motives so I stopped attending Nav meetings.

By this time I had been a Christian for several years, but I still didn't know what my role in the church was supposed to be or how I could learn to be a disciple. I used to think that if the church was the body of Christ and Christians parts of the body, then I was the left earlobe, or maybe a pimple on the tip of the nose.

Then one day I encountered the teachings of John Wimber and the worship songs of the early Vineyard movement. At this point several significant changes happened in my Christian life. First, I learned how to worship, which caused my heart to begin growing instead of just my head. Second, I discovered that while Evangelicals place high value on Jesus's redemptive work, they often give little attention to the works he performed during his life. This realization flipped my theological grid and I soon began learning how to "do the stuff" as Wimber taught. And third, Ingrid and I started a home fellowship with some people and we soon began to see the kingdom of God coming in power. It was in our home fellowship that I began to learn what being a disciple is all about and how disciples are made.

My point in sharing all this is that it's not enough for the church to believe that we're supposed to make disciples; we also need to understand what it means to be a disciple. The answer is actually quite simple. What did Jesus teach his disciples to do? To heal the sick, cast out demons and proclaim the kingdom of God. What did the disciples do after Jesus left them and ascended into heaven? They healed the sick, cast out demons and proclaimed the kingdom of God.

But this can't be all there is to being a disciple, can it? No, of course not. As disciples we're also called to live lives devoted to God like Jesus did, walking in holiness and resisting the Devil. We're called to build up one another in love, do good to the poor, welcome those society rejects, and so on. The problem however is that when the church teaches us to do these kinds of things but doesn't teach us how to do the stuff that Jesus taught us as essential to being a disciple—healing the sick, casting out demons and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom—then the result is usually incomplete disciples who can do some good but don't have the power to transform people's lives by extending God's rule over their hearts.

There is one additional principle that helps us answer our question about what church is, and it specifically deals with home fellowships. This fourth and final principle is that home fellowships are where church really happens. Although I could argue this position from Scripture, I'll simply present it here instead as a pragmatic conclusion. Based on my personal observation and experience over several decades, home fellowships are the ideal place for believers to learn how to worship, minister, serve, help, love, forgive, move in spiritual gifts, reach out to others, walk in holiness, and so on. Home fellowships are also a place where new leadership can emerge and be nurtured in areas such as teaching, healing, evangelism, the prophetic, pastoral care and ministry to the poor. And new church plants can even be birthed as the Holy Spirit imparts vision and authority to home fellowship leaders.

A corollary to this last principle as far as large churches are concerned is that your home fellowship leaders are the real pastors of your church. Pastors of churches having hundreds or thousands of members face the difficulty of knowing what the needs of their people are and how best to meet those needs. This usually leads to increasing church staffing levels, which brings extra financial burden upon the church. Leaders of home fellowships however only have to oversee a small number of individuals. As a result, they usually know exactly what's happening with each person, provided the environment in the group makes people feel comfortable with opening up to share with one another.

Churches have traditionally viewed home fellowships as programs that fill needs that Sunday gatherings aren’t able to fulfill. They may see them as a point of entry for newcomers into the community, and as a place for members to provide support to one another during the week. This is fine and good, but home fellowships are—or can be—much more than that. In the next chapter we'll examine what home fellowships can be if only we choose to let God do what he wants us to do with them. 

3

Advancing the kingdom

 Ken was trembling uncontrollably as he finished handing out the last communion cup.

"Are you OK?" I asked.

"The Lord," he replied in a shaky voice. "He's here with us, I just saw him."

We had just finished our worship time and Ken was leading the communion service. He had looked around at the people in our small house church and poured nine servings of grape juice into small plastic cups. He then knelt by the coffee table and said "The body of Christ" to each member of our group as he handed them their cup. But he had poured one cup too many, and kneeling before the empty sofa seat he explained what had happened.

"As I was getting ready to do communion, I looked around to see how many servings of grape juice I should pour. I had my head bowed, so I could only see people's legs. I counted nine people present including the guy sitting at the end of the sofa who was wearing jeans. So I poured out the juice and moved around on my knees distributing it. When I got to the end of the sofa, the guy wasn't there. Then I realized that none of us were wearing jeans today—it was the Lord who came to share communion with us!"

We looked at each other in amazement at what Ken had just shared. Why would the King hang out with a handful of ordinary disciples like us? What could we be doing that could possibly interest him? The truth however is that this isn't the only time something like this has happened in our home fellowships over the years.

Making disciples

Recall from the previous chapter where we identified four guiding principles that help us answer the question of what is church. Instead of repeating these principles in point form, let's combine them into a single "mission statement" for doing church:

The mission of the church is to advance the kingdom of God. This is accomplished by making disciples who are obedient to Jesus as King. Discipleship primarily takes place in home fellowships because that's where church really happens.

Home fellowships are the crucible where disciples are formed. Once formed, disciples are then able to take the blessing and power of the kingdom of God out into the world. To illustrate the process of forming disciples, this chapter examines some of the ways that disciple-making happens, formally or informally, in home fellowships. Nine key areas of discipleship will be covered here: healing, deliverance, inner healing, the prophetic, evangelism, teaching, leadership development, loving relationships, and ministry to the poor. Each area will be brought to life through real stories shared of things that happened in home fellowships.

Healing

Let's start with healing. Jesus healed the sick and told his disciples to do the same (Matthew 10:7; Luke 9:2 and 10:9; also implicit in Matthew 28:20). This means we should do it too, but first we need to learn how. Jesus basically used a "show and tell" approach for teaching his disciples how to heal the sick. His disciples began by watching him model for them how to heal the sick. Next, the disciples tried healing the sick and Jesus gave them feedback. Then once his disciples were trained, Jesus sent them out on their own to heal the sick. Wimber called this the "discipleship loop" method and it can be used for training in any kind of ministry.

Unfortunately we didn't have Wimber around to instruct us in our early home fellowships. But we did have his series of teaching tapes Healing 1 through 4 and we used them as our instruction manual. Very soon we saw healing begin to occur, sometimes dramatically and other times gradually over a period of time. Ken shares this story for example:

When I joined the house church I was experiencing back pain almost continuously. The group prayed for me every Sunday for over a year until my back was finally healed. I received a lot of love from that group and it encouraged me to pursue God and pray for healing for others.

Ken's story illustrates the persistence we had in our fellowships for praying for the sick. Ingrid's story next illustrates another aspect of illnesses and praying for healing:

I was asked by a member of our fellowship to pray with him for a lady who had cancer. After our first prayer session I discovered a lump in my breast. I told Mitch and we laid hands on it and commanded it to leave. Nothing happened immediately, but the next morning the lump was gone. I was relieved!

This story illustrates another key point about healing ministry: once you start praying for the sick you can be certain of experiencing spiritual warfare! The story also raises another issue worth reflecting on. I've often heard stories from missionaries about how those converted to Christ through their efforts still end up turning to witch doctors and similar traditional healers when they experience a serious illness. Western Christians sometimes make fun of this, but is it any different if the first thing we do when we become ill is visit our doctor or go to emergency instead of asking those in our church to lay hands on us and pray for healing?

Interestingly, it was not only illnesses that got healed when we prayed for people and their needs. Ken tells another story from one of our early fellowships which illustrates that as God's children we can ask our heavenly Father for anything:

During this period I was attending both an independent midweek home fellowship and a local charismatic church. On Wednesday at our fellowship Mitch said we should never be afraid to ask God for anything. Then on Sunday as I was coming out of church I met Betty and she lamented about her car. She said she kept getting it repaired but it kept breaking down again. Suddenly I remembered what Mitch had said and I felt the Spirit tell me to be bold. So I said to Betty, "Why don't we pray for your car?" She agreed, so I laid hands on the hood and said "Let this car be healed in Jesus' name!" Betty got in the car and it started OK and she drove off. Three weeks later I saw her again and she said, "You wouldn’t believe it! I haven't had any problems with my car since you prayed for it!" Her car continued running well until she sold it six months later, and it still ran well for the new owner!" This experience convinced me that God really cares about all the needs in our lives.

Ken's story is one of many similar ones I could share about laying hands on appliances, vehicles, electronics, even house plants. The lesson perhaps is that when something breaks down, the first thing we should do is pray and ask the Father for help, either to fix the problem or provide direction about what we should do. And we should pray with expectation in our hearts.

We had a fair amount of success praying for the sick in our early home fellowships. I kept extensive notes during this period and after ten years had passed I analyzed them and discovered that about 15-20% of people Ingrid and I had prayed for were healed immediately while about 40% either saw some improvement in their condition or experienced gradual healing over time with persistent prayer. The rest at least felt loved, for if anyone didn't get healed we blamed ourselves for lack of faith, not the person being prayed for. Those who were healed often went on to pray for others who needed healing, and they carried this ministry out into the world by praying for their family members, at their workplace, and even in the streets. Having taught and modeled healing ministry for those in our home fellowships, Ingrid and I eventually led ministry teams and held workshops where people from different churches could learn how to pray for the sick.

Deliverance

Jesus also cast out demons and gave his disciples authority and mandate to do the same (Mark 6:1). We have the same authority and mandate for advancing the kingdom of God. In one of our early home fellowships a young theology student joined us. He told us he had been experiencing horribly immoral dreams and asked for prayer. Upon interviewing him it was revealed that he had dabbled in Eastern religious practices while travelling overseas. Suspecting that a demon might be afflicting him, we arranged a time for him to visit us privately. He came to our apartment the next evening, and I began ministering to him as Ingrid prayed for me. It's always good to work as a team when you minister to the demonized.

I was nervous because I had never done this kind of ministry before. I commanded the demon—if one was present—to manifest itself. The young man shrieked loudly and ran into the corner of the room. I followed him there and looked into his eyes, and I was relieved to discover that the demon was more frightened of me than I was of him! Eventually after repeatedly commanding the demon to leave and with much bedlam and noise resulting (yikes! what's our neighbor going to think?) the demon left and things calmed down. The young man's demonic dreams stopped at this point and he stayed with our fellowship several more months. Then a few years later I heard that he was now happily married and doing well.

While deliverances like this can take place in Sunday church services, my experience is that they don't happen there very often. The reason for this may be that it's easy to hide your problems when you're surrounded by people you don't know well and who don't know much about you. Churches that encourage their members to also attend midweek home fellowships likely can see more people freed from demonic oppression as well as more sick people healed.

Not all deliverances need be so dramatic. One time there was a lady in one of our fellowships who had been experiencing frequent dizzy spells for several weeks. I volunteered to pray for her and asked if I could lay my hand on her shoulder. She agreed and closed her eyes and I began to pray. After a while I asked her if anything was happening, and she replied "Still dizzy." I prayed again for a while, but still no healing occurred. Then I thought, I'm doing this wrong, I need the Spirit's help.

So I laid my hand on her shoulder again and told her we would wait awhile for God to direct us how to pray. After several minutes the word "stroke" came into my mind and also a sense that there was some sort of spirit involved. Speaking softly I said "Spirit of stroke I command you to leave." The woman trembled for a few seconds, then she opened her eyes and said "I feel like something is gone." Are you still feeling dizzy, I asked? "No" she replied. A few days later I called her on the phone and she said her dizziness hadn't returned. Several weeks later I checked in with her again and she was still feeling fine.

Discipling people in deliverance ministry also necessitates teaching on the subject of spiritual warfare which is really something that all Christians need to know about. Such teaching should focus on the reality of Satan and his opposition to God's kingdom. Satan's strategies commonly include tempting, deceiving and accusing God's children. If these efforts fail he can also stir up persecution against us. Remember that whatever he tried to do to Jesus, he'll also do to us his followers (John 15:20).

Inner healing

Inner healing can be variously defined but essentially involves helping an individual become emotionally whole through the intervention of God's power. Individuals are often hampered in their spiritual growth by painful things that happened to them in their childhood and growing years. Often the person is not even aware of the problem or what may have caused it. Others may be aware however that the individual has a problem, typically because of unhealthy behaviors they manifest such as chronic anxiety, depression, substance addiction, or suicidal tendencies.

Home fellowships can be the place where those in need of inner healing can receive it because the love they experience from others in the group fosters a sense of trust that gives them courage to share their deepest hurts. Ken, who had been healed from self-destructive behaviors including drug abuse and suicidal thoughts when he became a Christian, shares next how he received inner healing in a home fellowship from feelings of rejection and abandonment:

I always did risky things as a kid, like drinking heavily and mixing different kinds of drugs together. I overdosed a couple of times, and I often felt like I had some sort of "suicide mark" on me. One winter day as a teenager, I decided to end my life. So I went to the highway and drank a whole bottle of booze and lay down in the culvert thinking I'd slowly pass out and freeze myself to death. But the trouble was, I got so cold I couldn't fall asleep! So I got up and went home.

A few years later after I had become a Christian, my mom confessed to me on her deathbed that she had tried to abort me when she realized she was pregnant. I began wondering if this might lie behind my suicidal behaviors, so I went to see the couple who led our house church and told them about it. After I shared my story, the woman picked up her guitar and began singing a Vineyard worship song that starts with "I will change your name, you shall no longer be called wounded, outcast, lonely or afraid." I immediately flopped on the floor and thought "This is so weird." A deep feeling of rest then came over me. I felt something break and I forgave my mom.

Inner healing like this can also occur in home fellowships that are part of the infrastructure of a larger church. Ken tells another story of a time when he and his family were attending an inner city church:

The church we attended had lots of needy people, so the leadership decided we should start meeting in homegroups for encouragement. So we started a group in our neighborhood together with another couple. We tried to make our group open and inviting, and one day one of the fellows in the group confessed that he had been molested as a child. We gathered around him and prayed for him and he was soon on the floor weeping. When we finished praying he said that at last he felt clean. His life was healed and soon he was on fire for the Lord. Afterwards he married a great girl and they had kids.

Not every God story ends happily however, and we'll return to Ken's story later in Chapter 5. But both of the above stories illustrate how genuine love combined with Spirit-led ministry can heal the deepest needs of people's hearts.

The prophetic

In his first letter to the church in Corinth, Paul encourages them to eagerly desire manifestations of the Spirit and especially those associated with the prophetic (1 Cor 14:1). My first remembrance of this happening in the church was in one of our early home fellowships. We were feeling discouraged as a group because some sick people we had been praying for weren't improving. As we were earnestly praying for God to send his power to help us, I suddenly noticed that Ingrid was trembling. Then she groaned deeply and said, "Use what I have given you." This struck me deeply as it made me realize again that Jesus has already given us as his disciples both the authority and power to heal the sick. All that remains for us to do is actualize the presence of the Holy Spirit who dwells within us. The group took encouragement from Ingrid's word which had been delivered to us through the gift of prophecy. We continued praying for healing for the people we had been praying for. Some of them got healed but others didn't.

The gifts of word of knowledge and word of wisdom are closely associated with the gift of prophecy, and home fellowships are a safe place for people to begin to move in these gifts. My own first experience exercising these gifts happened in a ministry training workshop I had signed up for at a Vineyard church we had started attending. After the instructor finished teaching us, he told us we were all going to wait on the Lord and see what he wanted to do. He then encouraged us to ask God if he had anything for us as we waited upon him. 

I sat there with my eyes closed and waited together with two dozen other participants of the class. Nobody said anything and several minutes passed away in silence. Then I noticed something like a tiny round disk in the center of my field of vision. That's probably just an artifact of my visual nervous system randomly firing away, I thought to myself, or maybe a burnt-out spot on my retina from when I used to stare at the sun when I was a kid. But then I thought, what the heck, maybe it might be something from God since it looked a bit like the disk on the kind of medal soldiers get for exhibiting bravery. Not sure what to do next, I asked God to show me more. Immediately I thought I heard the word "burt" whispered to me. Could there be someone here named Burt? Maybe it was just my imagination. So I waited some more and then I thought I heard another word "hurt" whispered to me. At that point I mustered some courage and put up my hand saying "I think I have something. Is there someone here named Burt who maybe is hurting in some way?" I turned around and looked at the group and one man seemed to be leaning sideways looking at me. Nobody responded however, and I quickly grew embarrassed. The instructor asked why I was asking this, and I shared how I also thought I saw something that looked like a medal that's awarded for something. At that point the man who had looked at me said he felt the medal was a word for him and that God was telling him "job well done" by it as he had been struggling over some issue which I can't recall. I asked him what his name was and he replied "Hubert." I said "Hurt. Burt. Hurt-burt. Hubert. Ha! I'm in touch with the supernatural!" The group erupted in applause and the instructor came over and gave me a hug.

After this initial experience I began asking God for words of knowledge in the home fellowship meetings we attended, and soon I was receiving accurate words like knowing people's names and things that had happened to them without any prior knowledge. Often such revelations led to fruitful ministry to individuals in the group. Of course I also got some words wrong, but with practice I slowly improved. Soon I began receiving similar revelations when I met people in public places like shopping centers. Eventually I started giving out words of knowledge during ministry times on Sunday mornings and at a few Vineyard conferences, sometimes with dramatic results.

My point in sharing all of this is that it was in the safety of home fellowships that I grew in this gifting area, and I believe that spiritual gifts are most easily learned through practice in such environments.

Evangelism

Evangelism typically doesn't take place in home fellowship gatherings since those who attend are usually Christians seeking fellowship and/or discipleship. Time spent in home fellowships however can imbue those participating with skills both spiritual and practical—and also with compassion for the lost and hurting. Singly or together, members of home fellowships often end up sharing their faith with their extended families, work colleagues, and strangers they meet on the street.

For example once Ingrid and I found ourselves praying for a man who was related to someone we knew from a previous home fellowship we had been involved with. The man had a serious lung condition that required constant supplemental oxygen. He wasn't a Christian but he was willing to let us pray for God to heal him. Both of us felt helpless as we'd never prayed before for someone in such a state of ill health. We began by asking the man to close his eyes and invited the Holy Spirit to come and minister healing to him. A short time passed when I suddenly heard Ingrid quietly speaking what sounded to me like a bunch of nonsense syllables. The man suddenly burst into tears at that moment and cried out "Jesus come into my life!" We were stunned but recovered quickly and continued to pray for healing. I asked Ingrid afterwards if she had spoken in tongues since neither of us had experienced that gift previously. She nodded and said "I think so" and we reflected on how God seemed to have released power unto salvation through that gift.

We continued praying once a week for the man over the next few weeks. He was having his blood oxygen level tested weekly during this period, and it appeared to be slowly inching upwards. He was even willing to let us take him to a Vineyard conference happening locally, and I still remember him up there on the stage with people surrounding him laying hands upon him. Shortly after that however a friend suggested he seek a medical treatment being offered at a prestigious hospital. At that point he placed all his hope upon this treatment and lost interest in being healed spiritually.

After expending a great deal of money, the man gave up on medical treatment and returned home in disillusionment. His heart appeared to be hardened towards any further prayer ministry. But something must still have been happening inside him, because some months later he invited his daughter and her husband who were Christians to come over for a visit. He then asked them a series of questions about what it meant for someone to repent, and they excitedly tried to answer all his questions honestly. When the discussion was over he thanked them for coming and clammed up again. Several months later the man died. But we're hoping that God honored his request for Jesus to come into his heart, because "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved" (Romans 10:13).

Reflecting on this and similar experiences confirms why Jesus linked preaching the gospel of the kingdom with demonstrating God's ruling presence through healing and deliverance miracles. In Luke 9:1-2 it says that Jesus gave his disciples "power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal." Healing those who are suffering from illness or demonic oppression often provides an opening to share the good news about Jesus and lead them into God's eternal kingdom.

Teaching

Teaching is an important ministry of the church. We know this because Jesus taught frequently and so did his disciples. Sound understanding of the Scriptures is essential both for spiritual maturity and Christian ministry. The best place to learn and grow in this gifting area is of course in home fellowships.

I call teaching ministry a gift because true teaching is inspired by the Holy Spirit. "I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment—what to say and what to speak" (John 12:49). If this was true of Jesus then it's also true for his disciples, which means us. "Whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God" (1 Peter 4:11).

The wonderful thing about teaching in home fellowships is that you can fall flat on your face and get up again more easily than if you preached on Sunday to hundreds of people. In a healthy home fellowship people know and love each other, so there's less embarrassment when you goof badly compared to in a regular church service.

I had the fortune (and misfortune) to be offered opportunity to preach several times from the pulpit of several churches during the first few years of my being a Christian. The leaders of these churches made the mistake of thinking my rapidly expanding head knowledge qualified me for teaching Sunday mornings. I won't share the incredibly dumb things I said in some of my early sermons, but will simply mention that it soon became clear to me when God was giving me something to teach and when it was merely my own overly inventive mind at work. Ken already shared earlier in this chapter how something I taught in our early home fellowship sunk into him and led to fruitful ministry in healing someone's car. I don't recall saying that at all, which is probably a good way to evaluate whether something you taught is from you or from God! The main thing I want to recommend here is that if you're ever asked to bring the message at your next home fellowship meeting, cry out to God and ask him what he wants you to say. You'll walk in good footsteps if you follow this advice. John Wimber's own two favorite prayers were "Help!" and "O God O God O God."

Leadership development

Different denominations have argued for centuries about what the right model is for church leadership. One thing they all agree on however is that churches need leaders. Home fellowships are no different in this regard as a leaderless group is unlikely to make much headway in advancing the kingdom. Bonnie shares a story from the time of the Jesus People movement concerning a mission-style house church called the House of Peter:

The House of Peter arose on the heels of the Jesus People movement. It was filled with new believers from different walks of life including former gang members and people from off the street. We were mostly young people—untrained, inexperienced, fresh, impressionable, and eager. We met twice a week for church and Bible study in a storefront building in downtown Winnipeg. The place had a coffee house type of setting where we all sat around tables. It was an exciting time, one felt free-spirited and there was a sense of a "first love" revival happening. But discipleship was loosely organized and there was no central leader or core teaching/training. No one was really held accountable and as a result there was the potential for wrong teaching to arise. For example one individual who led a Bible study had a controlling personality, and he tried to implement an extreme form of discipleship among us. Later we found out he had no job and had been in prison. The lack of good leadership and young age of most of those involved also resulted in romantic liaisons happening with no teaching or oversight. Some who were new believers left the faith because they weren't really being discipled.

Stories like this might make some Christians shy away from independent house churches. But the reality is that these kinds of problems can (and do) arise in traditional churches, and one can make an argument that the damage there can be greater because of the greater number of people who are affected.

One can make a good argument that home fellowships, whether church-affiliated or not, are the best place for identifying, recruiting, nurturing, training and releasing new leaders, both for starting new fellowships and for church planting initiatives. In this regard the key thing is that emerging leaders can fall flat on their faces in a home fellowship and get up without feeling too embarrassed because of the small size and level of intimacy in the group. Leadership development in home fellowships is thus similar to how training in teaching ministry takes place, with the same key principle that leadership, like the ability to teach, is a gift from the Holy Spirit.

Ingrid and I once experienced this ourselves at a Vineyard church we attended in another province. When we first joined the church we looked for a homegroup to attend in the part of town where we lived. We ended up attending a group of around 30 people who were led by a mature couple. The teaching was good and the fellowship vibrant, but the group was too large, so after several months they decided to split into three smaller homegroups. Three couples including ourselves who were already attending the group were identified by the leadership couple as potential leaders for these new, smaller groups that were planned. The pastors of the church invited the three couples along with several other couples to a six-week leadership development program. After completing this program, the large homegroup split into three smaller groups and all three groups did well the following year. Eventually the couple who led the original homegroup were released to start a new Vineyard church in another part of the city.

Independent house churches can also develop new leaders that can successfully start new house churches. The difference is that leadership development usually proceeds organically using the discipleship loop approach rather than programmatically as is usually done in large churches. While I have no problem with programmatic discipleship and have used this approach myself for equipping people to heal the sick, my experience is that the show-and-tell approach Jesus used to train his disciples is usually more effective. Perhaps the main reason for this is because the approach Jesus used is based on relationship: "He appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) so that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach" (Mark 3:14, emphasis mine). And relationships are easier to establish and maintain in smaller groups.

Loving relationships

Which brings us to the issue of relationships between Christians attending a home fellowship. Another story shared by Bonnie is of crucial importance here:

My first real understanding of what Paul means when he talks about the church being the Body of Christ came when I started attending a home fellowship whose members were stable and mature, not new Christians. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12:26 "If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together" and that's what it was like—one felt like you were growing together by sharing and experiencing one another's lives through their struggles and challenges. It was there that I had my first experience of personal ministry and found myself being held accountable for my spiritual walk.

I said previously that home fellowships are where church really happens. And a big part of "doing church" is to learn to love one another. "A new command I give you: Love one another" (John 13:34). Loving one another is something that Jesus commands his followers to do. But you can't learn to love people if you don't get close to them. Home fellowships are where people learn to encourage one another, exhort one another, forgive one another, even rebuke one another. Home fellowships are where sin rises to the surface instead of being hidden down among the pews or in the pastor's backroom office. Home fellowships are by their very nature relational in expression, where you can find fellowship with God and with one another.

Ministry to the poor

So many broken people came to our home fellowships over the years! Those of us who started and led the groups were still broken ourselves to some degree, but the needs—material, emotional, spiritual—of many who came overwhelmed us! We had widows and unloved wives join us. Orphans and unfathered men. Couples who were struggling financially and even bankrupt. People with deep needs for acceptance. Our fellowships had single moms, couples having marital problems, parents in pain over their children, men fresh out of prison, women in bad relationships. Some had been sexually abused as children, a few had even attempted suicide. Then there were those who hid their pain or shame and lived lives of quiet loneliness and despair.

When Jesus said in answer to John the Baptist's query that "the poor have good news preached to them" was evidence of who he was, Jesus meant the whole spectrum of people I've just described above. And also the sick, and the infirm, and the elderly, and the mentally ill, and those suffering demonic oppression. Ministering to the poor is part and parcel of the church's mission to advance the kingdom of God. But you often don't need to go out looking for poor people to minister to—they're right on your doorstep or in the apartment next door.

Many who came to our home fellowships over the years received comfort, counsel, guidance, even financial help as we were able. Some matured towards healthy, confident, self-reliant individuals; others did not. The reason is that while the kingdom of God was inaugurated with the arrival of Jesus, it's not yet fully here. The powers of the age to come are breaking through today into our fallen world, but the fullness of God's kingdom won't be here until Jesus returns.

Fundamental values

Reviewing the stories in this chapter enables us to express some key values concerning home fellowships. In simple point form, home fellowships are:

• A place where you can experience God's kingdom in this present life.
• A place where you can learn to love and receive love from others.
• A place where everyone gets to play and not just the select few up front.
• A safe place where you can step out into ministry and leadership without worrying about failure.
• A place where you can become more like Jesus.

In the next chapter we'll talk about how this happens from a practical point of view. 

4

The mechanics

 When I'm asked what it takes to do a home fellowship, I usually reply that you only need three things: a Bible, a guitar, and a room with some nice comfy sofas. Over the years I've learned that it's a bit more complicated than that, but there's no magic formula you can follow other than the one I've already identified: stick to the guiding principles and values we've expressed earlier concerning what it means to do church. Let's review these again in the form of an expanded mission statement for doing church:

The mission of the church is to advance the kingdom of God. This is accomplished by making disciples who are obedient to Jesus as King. Discipleship primarily takes place in home fellowships because that's where church really happens. Home fellowships are where people can experience God's kingdom and learn to love one another. They're also where everyone gets to play, which allows them to safely develop ministry and leadership skills without worrying about failure. In short, home fellowships are where people can become more like Jesus by learning to do the stuff he did (and continues to do through us).

Having examined principles and values in the previous chapters, let's move on to the how-to side of things and examine the practices, programs and personnel associated with doing home fellowships.

Practices

All forms of ministry can be broken down into a series of practices that can be taught, modeled and learned. Home fellowship ministry is no different in this regard. Practices are the attitudes and skills necessary for advancing God's kingdom through home fellowships. The following are some key practices we've learned, taught and modeled in our home fellowships over the years.

1. Depending on the Holy Spirit. In John 5:19 Jesus said "Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. He followed this up in verse 30 by saying "I can do nothing on my own." If this was true of Jesus, how much more will it be true of us his followers? Learning to depend on the Holy Spirit is a key skill we need to learn if our home fellowships are going to be successful in furthering God's kingdom.

Dependence upon the Holy Spirit is a skill that can be learned through practice. The basis for learning this skill is to understand that our relationship with the Lord is asymmetrical. While Jesus may be our friend (John 15:15) he is also our Teacher and Lord (John 13:13) which in the context of home fellowships means we are to obey him. Home fellowship leaders in particular must always remember that Jesus is the head of the fellowship, not themselves.

To obey Jesus we need to know what he wants us to do. Studying the Bible with a focus on applying what you learn from it is one way of growing as a disciple. The other way that's equally important is to learn to hear the Holy Spirit and be sensitive to his promptings. I shared briefly in the previous chapter in the section titled "The prophetic" how I began to learn how to receive words of knowledge in various situations. This kind of learning involves the risk of looking foolish if you should mistake indigestion for the Spirit telling you that someone in the group is suffering from stomach pain. Fortunately, making this kind of mistake among friends in a home fellowship is much less embarrassing than doing it in front of a large Sunday morning congregation!

From a practical standpoint there are several things home fellowship leaders can do to help others in the group learn how to be led by the Spirit. You can start the home fellowship gathering by inviting the Holy Spirit to come and lead the meeting. This can be done with words like "Come, Holy Spirit" or "We welcome you Lord" or something similar so that the group's attention is focused on the Lord instead of each other or on our own problems and worries.

Listening to the Holy Spirit and obeying him is actually how many of the home fellowships we've led got started. Ingrid shares a story to illustrate how this can work:

We started attending a large Charismatic church that someone in our former house church had told us about. One day as we were about to leave the church, I saw a young girl sitting against the wall beside the door. I could see she was in some kind of emotional pain. As I looked at her it seemed like the Holy Spirit was saying I should talk to her. So I said hello and asked her some questions and she responded and we struck up a conversation. Somehow I got on the topic of homegroups and their importance for the church, and she immediately asked if we could come and do one at her parents' home. She was living with her parents at the time and said her mom was a Christian and needed fellowship. In a way she was hiding her own needs by saying this. So we started a fellowship at her parents' home and soon others joined us from several different churches. We continued attending the Charismatic church on Sundays, but we started this fellowship on our own and it was independent of the larger church. Over the next year we helped the girl through a difficult time in her life and the whole family was strengthened and encouraged. Once we felt our work was over we ended the group but kept in touch as friends.

Ingrid's story also highlights something that you can frequently see in the life of Jesus as recorded in the Gospels, namely the value of ministering to a single person as opposed to trying to gather a crowd. Helping one lost sheep back into the fold brings joy to our heavenly Father.

2. Listening to one another. An important skill for everyone to learn to use in home fellowships is to listen to one another. Jesus commanded us to love one another (John 13:34-35) and love begins with listening. As members of a home fellowship share their griefs, pains and worries during a meeting, others who are present need to learn to be patient and wait their turn. As Paul reminds us in chapter 13 of First Corinthians, love is patient and kind, doesn't envy or boast, isn't arrogant or rude, doesn't insist on its own way and isn't irritable or resentful.

3. Ministering to one another. Healing and deliverance are powerful and exciting ways we can minister to one another in home fellowships. But a hug or a few words of encouragement can also work wonders. One time at a conference some from our home fellowship attended, I met a relative of a close friend. As we talked I found out he had been experiencing problems in his marriage and at his workplace where he held a middle management position. Seeing he was distraught, I gave him a hug and held him in my arms for a while and I could feel the tension draining out of him. Sometime later I ran into him again and he told me that hug had changed his life and things were much better with him. Physical touch is an important way of ministering to those experiencing stress or sorrow, and we have modeled this and made it a practice in the home fellowships we've led or been involved with.

Another important way of ministering to one another is by providing practical help where it's needed. One time our whole homegroup got involved in painting the house of a couple in the church we attended. Afterwards we ordered pizzas and sat around talking which led into praying for someone. On another occasion when Ingrid and I were sick and couldn't attend our fellowship to lead it, the others in the group appeared on our doorstep that evening bringing prepared meals for us to eat. And in our early groups when most of those attending were young, we often helped one another move to new apartments or into their first home. One could almost say that in addition to having a Bible, a guitar, and a room with comfy sofas, another requirement for starting a home fellowship is that at least one of the members owns a pickup truck!

4. Speaking to one another. Paul says in Ephesians 4:15 that "speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ." Sincerity in speaking is essential if misunderstandings are to be prevented and for encouragement to find its mark. As members of one Body we are told to encourage one another and build each other up (1 Thessalonians 5:11). To do this we need to open up our mouth. Because of their intimacy home fellowships are difficult to stay silent in or hide from others. Scripture also tells us to exhort one another every day (Hebrews 3:13) so speaking sincerely is not something to be done only occasionally.

As Christians living in a society fractured by social media, we need to learn to get in each other's faces sometimes and have the boldness to say what needs to be said so none of us gets lost along the way. This is especially important for leaders in home fellowships since they are supposed to be models for the others. In 1 Timothy 4:2 Paul charges Timothy to "reprove, rebuke, and encourage with every form of patient instruction." Googling the word "reprove" indicates that it means to "reprimand or censure someone" while to "rebuke" someone is to "express sharp disapproval or criticism of (someone) because of their behavior or actions." Ken told me a story once about a Christian friend who started talking to him about how in some cultures flirting is acceptable and even healthy and how he had been trying to learn how to flirt. Ken felt uncomfortable hearing this as his friend was married, so he said sharply "What's all this about flirting?" The guy stopped talking at that point and their conversation shifted. Later the guy told Ken that his words had hit him like a thunderbolt and made him realize he was treading a dangerous path.

Programs

Programs provide specific ways for expressing the principles and values of a ministry. Although home fellowships because of their size tend to be informal, this doesn't mean they shouldn't be approached programmatically. In the Summer 1993 issue of Equipping the Saints magazine, John Wimber outlined five priorities he believed were key to expressing what the Vineyard movement represented. These five priorities are worship, training, ministry, fellowship and sending. We used this as the basis for how we approached doing home fellowships.

A typical meeting might start with people arriving and having coffee and chatting with one another. Never underestimate the importance of good coffee for home fellowships! At one point the worship leader would pick up his guitar and people would start to drift into the living room or den where we were meeting. Some would sit on the sofa, some on chairs; others would cross their legs and sit on cushions; one or two might even lie face down on the floor. After pausing and inviting the Holy Spirit to come, we would worship together for 20-30 minutes. We didn't need songbooks or an overhead because the songs we chose were simple love songs to Jesus and we all had them memorized. This enabled us to worship with our eyes closed and our hearts focused on our Lord.

At the end of worship time we sometimes did communion together. Often someone shared a picture they saw during worship or shared a verse that the Spirit had given them to share with the group. After this we usually either had someone teach from Scripture for 20-30 minutes or moved directly into a time of sharing by asking questions like "How's everyone been doing?" or "So what's God been doing in our lives this week?" Teaching would incorporate or be followed by discussion, and both teaching and sharing would usually lead directly into ministry time.

What typically happened is that several of those attending would be facing challenges in their lives: health problems, difficulties at work, problems with their kids, and so on. If only one or two shared and the group was small, we would gather around each individual in turn and lay hands on them and pray for them. If 3-4 individuals needed prayer and the group was larger, the leader would usually say "Let's break up into smaller groups and pray for these people, feel free to use the bedrooms or go downstairs if you need more privacy." Sometimes a situation required practical assistance and group members would offer to provide transport or help with cleaning or whatever might be needed. Occasionally a problem was serious enough that the leader would make arrangements for dedicated ministry to the individual on some other evening, for example when the person needed extensive counselling or there might be some degree of demonization involved. At all times when we were praying for people during ministry time we were also trying to model for others how to effectively pray for the sick and struggling. As ministry time drew to a close the leader would usually say a prayer to bless and protect them and tell everyone they can feel free to hang around for a while longer. Additional teaching, ministry and fellowship would often take place after the meeting was officially over.

As you can see from the above description of a typical home fellowship meeting, our "program" was simply to try and touch base with Wimber's five Vineyard priorities. Worship, training, ministry and fellowship all usually happened to some extent in each meeting. Sending was what happened during the rest of the week as we separated and went out into the harvest. God would set up divine appointments for some of us and this often resulted in inviting someone new to come to the group. The key of course was to keep our eyes on the kingdom and not on our own needs or problems. But it's relatively easy to get excited about God and share your faith with others when you see him working powerfully in your own life and other people's lives each week.

Personnel

Personnel concerns are easier in home fellowships than they are in traditional churches but they are still important. There are two things to consider here: those in leadership and those being discipled. In reality all of us are being discipled since Jesus is the only true disciple-maker. A leader who thinks he or she has already arrived is one that still has a long way to go to reach maturity. But in reality, some Christians are further along in their walk than others, and the job of the leader(s) of a home fellowship is to help others make progress—and to enable others to help others—towards spiritual maturity and kingdom effectiveness. One way of conveying this is to say that while only a few may get to lead, everyone gets to play. And the fun is in the playing, not the leading.

I said leader(s) not leader in the above sentence for a reason. Most home fellowships that I've been involved in had only one leadership couple with the husband and wife working in complementary roles and supporting one another. Complementary roles are effective not because equality is wrong but simply because each of us has different gifts. In the home fellowships that Ingrid and I led together, I usually led worship, did most of the teaching, and set the overall direction of the meetings. Ingrid on the other hand would teach when God gave her something specific to say, often in response to someone's question or a problem someone was facing. She also took the lead in praying for people where the special anointing for healing she received at a Vineyard conference was clearly evidenced by the many healings that occurred in our fellowships. Both of us would also talk together before and after the meeting to plan what we should do and process what had taken place, the goal being to understand more clearly what the Lord wanted to do in the group. Remember that Jesus is management and we're only labor.

Having two couples working together in leadership, or a couple and another individual, may sound like a better approach than just having one leadership couple. And perhaps it is, sometimes. After all, three or four people should have more accumulated life experience and a potentially broader gift mix. The challenge however in the team approach is that everyone needs to be on the same page, especially with regard to the principles and values underlying the fellowship. Rick shares a story of what can happen when two leadership couples see the fundamentals differently:

I had attended a Pentecostal Bible College and was looking to start a church with someone. There was another couple in the church we were attending, they were popular with the youth and my wife and I got along great with them. So we decided to dive in and start a house church with them. That's where I made my biggest mistake. Assuming that we all believed the same things and had the same goals and values, we just charged ahead believing God was calling us to do this. The reality however was that by not first making sure our foundational principles and values aligned with those of the other couple, we were destined to fail because we were actually miles apart from the start.

Instead of seeking a second couple to share the leadership burden with, a better approach in my opinion is to try and identify a couple that could possibly be future leaders for a new home fellowship. I believe this approach is superior because it focuses on advancing the kingdom through multiplication. Since as we said home fellowships are where church really happens, it's better to have two smaller fellowships than one large fellowship. While giftedness and assertiveness are qualities to look for in potential leaders, there's another quality that ranks even higher in importance. Josiah shares something that illustrates this as he describes something he learned while attending a fellowship Ingrid and I led and hosted in our home:

I remember one of the first meetings we had at your place. You had made some time for us to pray and wait on the Holy Spirit and God was really moving among us! I remember we gathered around one of the girls attending to pray for her. We were all quietly waiting on the Holy Spirit to speak, and I remember getting antsy and wanting to break the silence. So I prayed something over her but it was out of the flesh and not the Spirit, and of course nothing happened. Then you said, "Now let's just wait and be quiet." Then you prayed a simple prayer saying God just wanted her to enter into his rest and she burst out crying and shaking. It was amazing to watch as the Holy Spirit was working on her heart!

What this story illustrates is the heart of a potential leader. By recognizing that he had tried to make something happen from his flesh instead of waiting for God to lead, Josiah displays the character of a true leader: someone who is humble enough to be teachable.

Of course not every home fellowship experience is amazing; sometimes messes happen. In the next chapter we'll examine some of the problems that can arise with home fellowships and some ways of trying to deal with them.  

5

Problems and challenges

 When I think back on the different home fellowships we've started over the years and the people who came and problems that arose, I ask myself: Why would anyone ever want to do something like this? Here I am dealing with all this stuff that people have—and I'm not even getting paid for doing it! How smart is that?

And yet…

Leading a home fellowship does have its upside when you see people grow and get healed and learn to love one another. But it's also an undertaking fraught with numerous difficulties. It's a job that requires commitment on your part, and commitment always comes with a cost (Luke 14:28). As the title of this book suggests, my goal is not only to encourage and guide you on how to start a home fellowship but also to prepare you for some of the challenges you may face and equip you to handle various kinds of problems that arise.

And there are many of them—many, many challenges and problems. For two main reasons: first, you're dealing with people; and second, you're a human being yourself and have your own stuff to deal with. So while this chapter cannot be an exhaustive guide to surviving home fellowship ministry, it should cover enough ground to help you navigate the minefield without getting blown up—or at least without getting too badly maimed and shell-shocked.

To keep things simple we'll group together problems with home fellowships into three categories: personal problems, relational issues, and leadership challenges. And to keep this chapter from being too depressing we'll sprinkle in a little humor here and there.

Personal problems

Many of the people who come to your home fellowship will bring along personal problems they need help with. These might include problems with addiction, struggles with depression and anxiety, legal and financial problems, marital discord, mental instability, and so on. You'll probably feel overwhelmed at times as you try to help these individuals in your home fellowship. Ingrid shares an example with the following story:

We first met this couple at a celebration service where several Charismatic churches in the city came together. They were a young couple who loved the Lord; the husband was a mechanic. As we talked with them we learned they were looking for more fellowship, so we invited them to our home fellowship which met during the week and had people from several different churches coming plus a few who didn't attend a regular church. The couple came and joined us, and as we got to know them we soon learned they were facing bankruptcy. I felt overwhelmed, I had no idea how to help them since we were struggling with debts ourselves. Then I got the idea to ask whether they knew anyone who could counsel them concerning their financial situation. They said there was an accountant in their church that someone had suggested they talk to but they hadn't yet, so we encouraged them to see him. They did, and over time they slowly worked through their problems. During this period Mitch and I often visited their home and had fun playing games with them as we talked about God and life and stuff. Eventually they got over the worst of their situation, and we blessed them when they found a homegroup they could join in their church.

Ingrid's story highlights two important things about dealing with people who have serious problems with their lives. First, if you don't know how to help someone, try to find someone who can. For example, one time when we were leading a homegroup that was part of a growing Vineyard church, a woman showed up at our group and started causing problems. We tried to talk with her about her behavior but got nowhere, so we went to one of the pastors of our church and explained the situation and she replied, "Oh yes we know about her, she's tried to cause problems at some other homegroups. I'll deal with it." The pastor then met with the woman and told her she needed to get professional counseling before she would be allowed to join a homegroup. The woman refused and soon took her problems to another church.

The second important point to learn from Ingrid's story is that you can often help people work through their problems simply by walking with them in love. We couldn't help this couple financially, but we did give them some of our time. By sharing your life with those going through deep dark valleys, you can often keep them from falling by the wayside or giving up entirely.

Don't underestimate also the healing and nurturing power of love in a fellowship group. Just because you're the leader doesn't mean you have to carry the whole burden of caring for your people. Remember those diagrams in Chapter 1 about the church being a pyramid/hierarchy vs. being a body? If church is understood like this:



then this is what it must often feel like as the pastor or leader of your church or fellowship:



I don't know about you, but that's definitely not a place where I would want to be!

Marital difficulties like the one Ingrid described above are common in home fellowships simply because they're common in society generally. Money or sex are usually at the root of most problems in life, whether we're individuals or couples. One time we were leading a homegroup at the home of another couple we had befriended from the church we were attending. We enjoyed them as a couple and had been getting along quite well. Then one day we found out that the woman was handling all money-related matters while her husband, who seemed less mature to us, felt happy with this arrangement. Ingrid and I thought this wasn't very healthy (we manage our own finances together) so we arranged to meet with them privately and urged the husband to get involved in helping manage the family finances. This brought a chill on our relationship with them, which surprised us. But we kept doing homegroup with them. A few months later the woman shared privately with us that she felt some anxiety over her husband looking at pornography at night on the Internet. I decided to talk with him about this and share some of my own struggles in this area. But this just caused him to withdraw further and our relationship with the couple soon came to an end when summer arrived and the homegroups were shut down.

There are some lessons to be learned from our experience but also some questions to think about. Did we push too hard about how they should be handling their finances? Had we established enough trust with them before raising what some may consider a private matter? Should you only offer people advice if they ask for it? We talked about these things afterwards with one of the pastoral couples at our church and they confirmed that it's better to address things you see than to ignore them. But perhaps we could have soft-sold the couple on the idea instead of telling them this is what you need to do. Looking back, we probably should have met with the couple again and said "Look, we love you guys a lot and are sorry if we offended you or trespassed into areas of your lives we shouldn't have. Can we please talk about it and try to make it right?" or something similar. But unfortunately we didn't, and it's always easy to look back afterwards and realize what you should have done. Why didn't we do it? Perhaps because Ingrid and I weren't always on the same page ourselves as a leadership couple during that period. I generally lacked assertiveness and tended towards passivity because of my sheltered upbringing. Ingrid on the other hand had faced many difficult challenges in her early years which had forced her to become more direct in dealing with people and situations. I've since grown to become dominant and assertive, and Ingrid has to whip me at Rummy from time to time to help me remember my place in our marriage. ("You may be the head, but it's the neck that turns the head.")

Some sex-related matters in home fellowships can be more serious. In one of our earliest attempts at doing house church, Ingrid and I were faced with the problem of a young couple who were Christians and were living together but weren't married. This was open knowledge in the group and we realized as leaders that we needed to do something about it. So I met with the man for coffee and explained from Scripture that what they were doing wasn't right. He replied that he strongly disagreed and was determined to continue living this way, and the more I tried to convince him it was wrong the harder he pushed back. I finally realized I had no other recourse but to let him follow the path he had chosen, so following Paul's example in 1 Timothy 1:20, I informed him that I was handing him over to Satan so he could learn his lesson. He angrily stormed out of the coffee shop and the couple stopped coming to our fellowship.

Now perhaps the way I handled this situation may seem rather over the top. But the postscript to the story is that some years afterwards I happened to meet someone who knew the man I had tried to discipline. I asked if he knew what had become of the man and he replied "Oh he had to be delivered of some demons". I reacted with the thought: "Holy cow, it worked!"

The reality is that when we're dealing with issues of sin in the church we not only have authority to bind and loose (Matthew 18:18) but also the responsibility as leaders to use such authority. Certainly the goal of such discipline should be to restore the sinner to right relationship with God and with the church. And certainly our primary focus should be on dealing with our own sins and not the sins of others (Matthew 5:29-30). But those who refuse correction must be disciplined so others aren't led astray (Hebrews 12:15-17).

This matter of confronting others about their sin is difficult for most of us. "Live and let live" is deeply ingrained in our Western societies, perhaps because our high standard of living allows us to value our privacy and live mostly independently from one another. We also have a tendency to view sin and righteousness as various shades of grey instead of as black and white. But Scripture makes a number of things plainly clear concerning sin. It also says a lot about forgiveness and mercy and love and grace. Which is more important? The answer is that it's all important. You learn to deal with people's sins in home fellowship the same way you learn to heal their sicknesses: by trial and error. You learn on the job just like any other aspect of becoming a leader. You will make many mistakes (James 3:2) but that's just part of learning. And it's no excuse for not confronting sinful behaviors you see in others walking along the Way with you. Just look for example at how James addresses matters like self-righteousness, favouritism, jealousy, ambition and other sins in his letter—he doesn't pull any punches! And neither should we, especially those of us who are leaders—provided we are harder on ourselves than on others.

Fortunately we have a Helper who can come to our assistance when we are dealing with situations like confronting others with their sin. If we've welcomed the Holy Spirit not just into our fellowship meetings but also into our own hearts, He will help us when we feel inadequate and don't know what to do in a situation. One time for example I met with a couple we were having fellowship with who were experiencing some marital conflict. As I asked questions to probe what was happening, they began accusing one another, bringing up matters that had happened long ago but still triggered pain. I had shared previously with them my Number One Tip for Sustaining a Healthy Marriage (talk it out before going to bed—see Ephesians 4:26) but my advice hadn't seemed to take. As I sat there listening and wondering what to say or do, I suddenly became aware of a Presence standing behind my right shoulder. It was the Holy Spirit, and I understood he wanted me to move aside and let him come and deal with it. So I silently said to him "OK feel free to take control over my mouth" and suddenly—how can I describe it? He "entered" into me and it was now him speaking not me, saying to the couple, "You both know what you need to do, so the Holy Spirit says Will you obey me?" The words struck them like lightning and they became quiet. Their accusations towards one another ceased and the conversation shifted and I soon went home. I'm not sure if anything changed immediately in their marriage, but looking back several years later I could see they now seemed to be working more closely as a couple in advancing God's kingdom.

As an aside, after reflecting on this experience afterwards I concluded, "Aha! So that's what it's like being demonized—except that it sucks!" Now if only I could make this happen more often during ministry sessions—think how simple it would be to help people with their problems!

Relational issues

Relationships between individuals in a church are another area where problems frequently arise and need to be dealt with. If you read the epistles (letters) in the New Testament you discover that many of them are organized into two sections. First the writer glorifies what God has done for us in Jesus and then he tells us how to live—and how not to live—as Christians. Look at the letter to the Ephesians for example. In the first three chapters Paul describes Christ's redemptive work and how the gospel message has transformed the lives of those he's writing to in Ephesus. Now if you read only these three chapters, you could imagine that the Ephesian church had it all together. But then Paul starts chapter 4 by urging the Ephesian believers to live a life worthy of being called followers of Christ. He goes on by telling them to stop lying to each other, to resolve disagreements daily before heading off to bed, to get an honest job instead of trying to con others, to stop putting others down or being sarcastic or ironic or behaving like those who don't know Jesus talk and behave. And so on and so forth. Wow, that church must have been a mess!

Home fellowships are just like that. Not always, and in different degrees during different seasons. But because home fellowships consist of redeemed people, who are "saved but not yet" just as the kingdom of God is "here but not yet", and since sitting on sofas in a living room puts greater focus on relating to others compared with sitting in pews facing forwards listening to a preacher, relational problems tend to arise more often in home fellowships than in traditional churches. Bonnie shares this story about something that happened in one of the home fellowships Ken and she led:

Once it happened that two women in our homegroup had a fight right in the middle of one of our meetings. An outburst suddenly occurred and things escalated quickly and grew heated. It all lasted only a few minutes, and Ken and I weren't sure what had caused it—probably something one of them said to the other. We tried initially to diffuse the situation by moderating it, but then we decided to just let them get it out. Then one of them stormed out and told us she wasn't coming back to our group. Afterwards we met with her and asked what had happened. She explained why she had felt offended, and once we understood her backstory we went back to the other woman and said, "Look, we know you didn't mean to hurt her, but could you go talk to her?" An apology resulted and the woman who had left soon returned.

What was good about this whole thing was that the members of our group felt comfortable enough to share their views with one another. But in this case the views collided. We had become like a real family in our homegroup, and this kind of stuff often happens in families. Another good thing that came out of it is that after this happened, the people in our group were more careful not to offend one another. They kept expressing their opinions but not so boldly—they checked themselves. It was a growing experience for everyone.

I don't need to highlight the obvious lessons to be learned from this story other than to commend Ken and Bonnie for the low-key way they handled the situation. The crux of the matter is that conflicts will arise in home fellowships, but these can be turned into learning experiences for everyone involved if handled properly. Keep in mind too that we're all just disciples, even those of us who are in leadership. And a disciple is simply someone who learns.

Jealousy is another problem that can sometimes arise in connection with home fellowships. Back in Chapter 3 Ken shared a story that I said we would return to later. I'll begin by repeating his story:

The church we attended had lots of needy people, so the leadership decided we should start meeting in homegroups for encouragement. So we started a group in our neighborhood together with another couple. We tried to make our group open and inviting, and one day one of the fellows in the group confessed that he had been molested as a child. We gathered around him and prayed for him and he was soon on the floor weeping. When we finished praying he said that at last he felt clean. His life was healed and soon he was on fire for the Lord. Afterwards he married a great girl and they had kids.

Now what's interesting is what happened after this wonderful healing:

The man's fire soon spread to the others in our homegroup. We couldn't seem to get enough fellowship with each other during our midweek homegroup meetings—we wanted more! So on Sundays after services we talked with one another and encouraged and prayed for each other and went for lunch together. Other groups started noticing what was going on with our group and wondered why we were so on fire for the Lord and close to one another. The leaders of the church also noticed what was happening and became concerned that we were becoming like a church within a church. So they suggested we split our group up and try to help out other groups in the church, but the people in our group didn't want to do this. So then the pastor told the church we were shutting down all homegroups to focus on ministry to those in the surrounding inner city community. This left us feeling discouraged, and some of us soon left the church.

Although there was no explicit expression of jealousy on the part of the church leadership in this story, their actions suggest otherwise. What the leaders should have done in my opinion is blessed what God was doing in the homegroup and considered the possibility that it could become a new church plant.

Envy over another believer's material possessions can also result in conflict within a group. In a traditional church everyone shares ownership of the building and other tangible assets of the church (or perhaps the denomination owns it). Home fellowships are different however because unless you meet in an apartment, the gatherings take place in a home that belongs to someone in the fellowship. And if it's a nice home, some in the group may envy the owners. This happened to Ingrid and me in a home fellowship we started when we were going through a stressful time with our business. We felt we needed support from others, so we asked our friends if they wanted to meet with us regularly for worship and ministry to one another. Soon several others joined and before long we had a home fellowship going even though most of us still attended a larger church on Sundays. One of the couples in our fellowship was a very nice lady and a man who was on disability and couldn't work. Things went along fine for a while, and then one meeting during sharing time the man began grumbling about how we had this big expensive house while he and his wife lived in low-income housing. He went on talking more and more bitterly about how we could afford all these nice things and how he couldn't even afford to buy fish and had to catch them by fishing in our polluted river. As he continued complaining, my temperature began rising. Suddenly I had enough. I rose from the sofa and went down to the basement and filled a large shopping bag with frozen fish from our freezer. Then I came back upstairs into our living room and handed it to him saying, "Here's some fish for you to enjoy." Then I ended the meeting and hurried everyone out the door. After they were gone I closed the door and told Ingrid, "That's it! I'm done with home fellowships. I've had it with people and their problems! I never want to do another home fellowship ever again!!"

See what a great example I am as a leader? "A servant of the Lord must not quarrel but must be kind to everyone, be able to teach, and be patient with difficult people" (2 Timothy 2:24 New Living Translation).

Leadership challenges

Which brings us finally to the matter of leadership challenges. Where we probably erred in the above instance was in starting a new home fellowship mostly for our own benefit. Because of the difficulties we were experiencing with our business, we were looking to receive, not give out to others. And there's nothing wrong with that—we all experience such seasons in our lives. But what we probably should have done on this occasion is joined an existing home fellowship where we could receive encouragement, ministry and support. Or perhaps asked our friends the Lewises to lead the group while we hosted it in our home. The reality is that seasons of major change in our lives, like starting a family or building a business, are usually not the best times to step into the responsibilities of church leadership.

With the world, the flesh and the Devil arrayed against you, it can be challenging to keep a home fellowship on track. Focusing only on the personal problems of those attending can lead to naval-gazing that derails the fellowship from achieving its purpose of advancing God's kingdom. Vanessa shares a story to illustrate:

I was invited to join a homegroup in a Vineyard church I was attending. I couldn't have been more excited, because the homegroups seemed to be so exclusive and closed at our church. The homegroup started off great, we studied some books together including "Life of the Beloved" by Henri Nouwen. We also studied some books of the Bible. Our discussions were great! We learned a lot and felt the Lord drawing us close, and Josiah joined around this time. People also shared their prayer requests and we prayed for one another. But as time went on these times of sharing and discussion grew longer and longer, leaving us little or no time to pray. It felt like people were just wallowing in their problems, not leaving time for us to go to God about it. It became a drag, and the group began to unravel at that point. Josiah and I got frustrated with the shift from doing homegroup to just being a hangout, so we left the group and the church as well. Others in the group got busy and left the group too. So it had a great beginning, but a very sad ending.

Leaders of home fellowships need to be aware of this tendency towards naval-gazing and constantly reaffirm the purpose of the group. To understand how to combat this danger, let's take one more look at our mission statement for doing church:

The mission of the church [i.e. your home fellowship] is to advance the kingdom of God. This is accomplished by making disciples who are obedient to Jesus as King. Discipleship primarily takes place in home fellowships because that's where church really happens. Home fellowships are where people can experience God's kingdom and learn to love one another. They're also where everyone gets to play, which allows them to safely develop ministry and leadership skills without worrying about failure. In short, home fellowships are where people can become more like Jesus by learning to do the stuff he did (and continues to do through us).

The key here is that leaders are also (or should be) disciples. And as we said earlier, a disciple is simply one who learns. Healthy leadership involves constant learning and self-improvement in spiritual disciplines and practices. I'm not saying you need to pray three hours a day or fast twice a week or give 30% of your income away to be a good leader. In my experience however, if you're excited about God and learning how to minister effectively and seeing God do stuff and answer prayers, some in your fellowship will pick up on this and get fired up themselves and pass it on to others. In other words, if you're discipling yourself, it's easy to disciple others—you just be an example and model for them.

Being an example of course means you have to open up your life to those around you. Leaders who are insecure are often afraid to do this as it can lead to loss of control. Ingrid and I once joined a homegroup where the leader was a former pastor. The group had a positive vibe going, and soon others started attending. Then one day the leader said he felt we were becoming too inward-focused as a group. He then announced that we were all going to go out next week and do evangelism together in the inner city. Several in the group immediately pushed back against this and pointed out that we were just beginning to get to know one another and build trust within the group. An argument resulted and some ended up leaving, and the group never did go out and do evangelism.

Pushing people towards ministry is never a good way to disciple them. Leaders should lead the way, not lead from behind. If you want your people to do evangelism, go and do it yourself first. If you lead someone to Christ and bring the person into the group, you'll soon see others in your group trying to do the same, with varying results. Once you see the desire present in them, you can feed this by giving them some practical teaching on how to do personal evangelism.

Performance is another trap that leaders often fall into. I fell into this trap myself while we were church-planting interns at a Vineyard church we were attending. Thinking that I had to prove myself at all costs, I tried everything I could think of to grow our homegroup, but nothing seemed to work. The pastor in charge then told me, "You can't start a church with a group where only two are men and the rest are women." Feeling I had failed at internship, I ended our homegroup when summer arrived. Then when September came around, new couples began contacting us, wanting to join our group. The lesson here is to remember that our job is simply to plant seeds and water—it's God who gives growth (1 Corinthians 3:6). So forget about how well you're performing, just do the task that's required of you. Remember, Jesus is management; we're only labor (Luke 17:10).

Failure is something many leaders end up having to deal with. And it's something that good leaders always experience, often more than once. (I'm not making excuses here for my behavior in the "fish story" I shared earlier in this chapter—I paid for that dearly with repentance afterwards.) Wimber once said he would never trust a leader who didn't have a limp. In other words, a leader who hasn't been broken at some point—even several times—probably isn't mature enough to carry the burden of the church.

All the best leaders I knew or heard about in the early days of the Vineyard were characterized by vulnerability, brokenness and repentance. I see little of this among church leaders today. The bottom line is that the kingdom of God always starts with repentance (Matthew 4:17). And if we want to see God move powerfully again, we need to start by repenting and asking the Lord to forgive us for relying on ourselves instead of him. Repentance is the way into God's kingdom. And as Wimber said, the way in is also the way on. Repentance is also the key to surviving—and thriving—when it comes to leading home fellowships. 

Afterword: Where do I go from here?

Now that we have an understanding of the foundational principles, values, and practices of running a home fellowship—and are aware of some of the problems and challenges we're likely to face—how should one get started? I suggested earlier that you only need three things to start a new home fellowship: a Bible, a guitar, and a room with comfy sofas. That's not entirely true though; you also need people.

Jesus gathered a motley collection of people around him that included small business entrepreneurs (fishermen), a tax collector, a political activist (a Zealot), poor people, women of means, family members, and individuals who had been healed of infirmities or delivered from evil spirits (see Luke 5:1-11,27-32; 6:12-16,20-21; 8:1-3; 10:1-12,17-20; Acts 1:12-15). Don't be surprised if the home fellowship you start ends up becoming a motley crew too!

Start with other believers who are interested in learning more about God, who are hungry for more of God and want to grow spiritually. It might be only a few at first, perhaps two or three or four. Pray about it—God will show you who you should reach out to. Not everyone may come when you invite them, but some will.

Be alert also for opportunities to minister healing to those around you. Wimber reminded us that "the meat is in the street" so we need to be sensitive to the Spirit's leading as we meet with friends, classmates, co-workers, and people out in the marketplace. Perhaps God will show you a struggling Christian family you can help by starting a fellowship in their home. Or maybe the Lord will use you to heal to a sick person. When someone has been touched by God, they will often bring others along who also need healing.

Once you've gathered a small core of believers for your home fellowship, you can begin to focus more on evangelism. Make sure first however that everyone in your group is on the same page—that they buy into the principles and values you've espoused for your fellowship—before you start trying to undertake any serious ministry in the surrounding community.

Make worship the central focus of your fellowship times. The Vineyard renewal was birthed in worship, and worshipping God has always been our highest priority (John 4:23, Mark 12:28-30). Spend at least 30 minutes at the start of your meeting (after a welcome time of coffee and snacks) by singing simple worship songs together, songs that express our love for Jesus and the Father and that are easy to learn and memorize.

Don't have someone who can play guitar for your fellowship? Buy a cheap one, it's easy to learn simple guitar chords—much easier than learning to play a keyboard. A guitar is also a more intimate instrument than a keyboard, just like a home is more suitable than a chapel for intimate fellowship. As your fellowship grows though you may want more instrumental accompaniment for singing—two guitars or a guitar plus a keyboard can add a lot to a worship time. But be considerate to your neighbors, especially if you're meeting in an apartment.

Make lots of room for the Holy Spirit to move during your meetings. In our fellowships we often ended our worship times with a few minutes of waiting in silence to give people a chance to receive and share gracelets from the Spirit: pictures, revelations, prophetic words, verses from Scripture. Sometimes nothing happens, and we finish our worship time with simple prayers of thanksgiving. Other times a flood pours forth, and our plans for the meeting get tossed out the window as we let the Lord lead instead of trying to direct everything ourselves.

Focus your Bible teaching mostly on practical topics, how God tells us to live and what we should be doing as followers of Christ. Keep your teaching times short and to the point, making faith, hope and love the ultimate goals. Avoid topics that create controversy or generate endless discussion. If you're the leader, I recommend that you read Paul's letters to Timothy and Titus often as they can help keep your approach to teaching on the right track.

Let others in your group have a chance to explore the gifts God may be giving them. Don't try to control everything that happens; let everyone have a chance to play. Whenever you begin to think that you're in charge and everything depends on you, remember these words: "Whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many" (Matthew 20:26-28).

Make time for people to share their personal problems and receive prayer. Sometimes you'll want to have the whole group gather around a person to lay hands on them for healing or encouragement. Other times you'll want to take someone aside to another room and minister to them privately with the help of one or two others.

Always try to end your meetings on time so those who have other things to do can leave without feeling awkward. Feel free to let people hang around after the meeting if you and the hosts aren't too tired—sometimes the best times of prayer ministry happen during the tail end of fellowship. And if ministry to someone does go on too long, you can always arrange an appointment with them for when you can continue ministering to them.

Finally, and most important of all, be someone who seeks God's kingdom. Be a worshipper, a disciple, a servant, a shepherd—a fisher of souls like Jesus. Be filled with the encouragement of the Holy Spirit and overflowing with the love of God.

I encourage you if you're reading this, if this book has birthed in your heart a desire to advance God's kingdom by starting a home fellowship, just go for it. Join the family of 10,000 little lights that Wimber saw in his vision. You won't regret it. God bless!