Tim Challies has occasionally written posts over the years that are titled, “How We Worshiped One Sunday,” followed by “in (name of the month).” I enjoy reading those and appreciate his church’s intentionality and love for the gospel. From what I can tell, it’s a wonderful body of believers. I thought it might be interesting to follow his example and share what happened in my church on a recent Sunday. Why? Though we believe the same gospel as Challies’ church and are even very likeminded theologically, our meeting patterns are noticeably different.
For context, I’m one of the pastors of Christ Fellowship of Kansas City, a church made up of multiple home congregations (all groups gather together every six weeks or so) with an elder in each congregation. As you will see, we not only understand our gatherings as a time of worshipping the Lord, but we have participatory elements with the aim of building one another up. Here’s what happened on a recent Sunday in March:
Arrival
People arrived at the host house starting at 2:30 pm. The official “start” time is 3 pm, but we like to “greet one another with a holy kiss” (we don’t kiss) and enjoy interaction before then. The young man who leads our music (with guitar), Luke, practiced the songs for the evening with his wife (playing viola) and sister-in-law (on the piano) for 20-25 minutes before we started.
Singing
After sharing something briefly with members of the church, the whole group gathered (approximately 30 people, mostly teens up through older adults) and Luke led us in singing three songs. After the first, Luke prayed, thanking God for the gathering and asking the Lord to bless the evening, including the teaching we would hear from a guest speaker. Here are the three songs we sang:
- “Lift High the Name of Jesus”
- “There is a Higher Throne”
- “O the Love of My Redeemer”
Open Sharing
Once we finished singing, we moved to a time of interaction and prayer. We don’t set up the seating in rows like a church building, but aim for something circular and try to have no more than two layers, though due to size we usually have to have a third layer. In this specific house (my home congregation has three other houses to use), it has more of a rectangular feel due to the dimensions of the living and dining room. The goal is to more freely be able to look at one another, not just toward the front where the leader is.
As we began our time of interaction, Luke read a little more than half of 1 Samuel 17. Various men have been given the responsibility of reading a portion of 1 Samuel every week. Sometimes a brief comment is made about the text. Luke only said something like, “I’ll be stopping at a point that is a real cliffhanger! Be listening for that.” This is the David and Goliath chapter, so his comment was somewhat amusing to the seasoned believers in the meeting.
We were privileged to have a friend of mine, a pastor named Jeff, and his wife with us. Along with local church responsibilities, Jeff is heavily involved in evangelistic ministry and church planting and strengthening in the mountains of Oaxaca, Mexico. I asked Jeff multiple questions, first about his family, then about his local church, but then mostly about his ministry in Mexico. We also heard about his ministry locally and how Spanish speakers in our Kansas City metro area are being trained to strengthen existing churches in our city, and there might even be some Spanish-speaking church plants in the future. At this point, three of four people prayed for some of what Jeff shared.
I then encouraged all to share as they were led. Here’s a summary of what was said. (One item was too personal and private to include on this public platform.):
- A lady shared about her friend whom we have prayed often about in the past. This friend has been fighting cancer, and she was just in a car wreck and now is dealing with broken bones. We were reminded of her husband’s and children’s names.
- A man shared that the young adults will be starting their every other Tuesday gatherings this upcoming week, and he will be leading them through a study of Matthew.
- [private matter]
- A lady gave an update about her ministry as the director at a Christian performing arts academy and asked for prayer for an upcoming show that includes the gospel. She then opened up and asked us to pray about her physical struggles (vertigo, etc.) that have at times been debilitating.
- A man read a psalm (memory fails me which one), taught briefly from it, and then shared about his friend whom is an elder in a church that is going through great difficulty. He said this elder and his wife are caring for people wonderfully.
- A lady shared a testimony of how encouraged she was from the women’s fellowship the previous day, and how she was especially encouraged by one lady’s comments from First Peter.
- A man shared a story about an encounter with a professing believer at his gym. The gentleman in our church had given him a verse on a card about church attendance because the man doesn’t have a church. That week at the gym, the man who had received the card approached our church member and wanted to talk more about it.
- I taught from Colossians for about 5 minutes, giving a very brief overview, highlighting some of the false teaching that was being addressed, but then pointing to the glorious passages about the entirely sufficient and glorious Christ. I recommended a slow, meditative reading of this book of the Bible.
For some of these things that were shared, people asked further questions or made additional comments.
Prayer
People prayed about everything that was mentioned in the open sharing time. This is a time when any believer in the gathering is free to pray, typically one item per person praying. This time of prayer included praises and thanksgivings and acknowledgement that we come to the Father in the name of Jesus. I concluded this time of prayer.
Break
It had been 80 minutes since we sang the first song, so we took about a 10 minute break.
Announcements
After the break, I reminded people of our upcoming Easter meeting, that our home congregation is in charge of setting up and tearing down, and that we should be praying for that time together. I also reminded the men where our final Wednesday men’s meeting would be, and I seem to remember reminding the ladies of their upcoming Wednesday night meetings.
Teaching
Our guest speaker, Jeff, taught us for about 40 minutes. His passage was Romans 12:1-2. The majority of it was monologue, but there were a couple of times when he took questions, and two or three other times when he taught with some dialogue. It was a challenging, motivating message that looked back briefly to the mercies of God in Christ (as conveyed in Romans 1-11), but then emphasized our lives now as living sacrifices for Jesus.
Lord’s Supper Teaching
Every week, we eat the Lord’s Supper (a meal with the elements that represent the body and blood of Jesus highlighted — see The Lord’s Supper is a Meal by Jim Elliff). Before we eat, one of the men (normally not the pastor) teaches something briefly (4-5 minutes) from the Bible that ultimately points to the cross and prepares us for the Lord’s Supper. On this Sunday, a young man, Isaac, asked the question, “Why did Jesus have to become a man to save us?” and gave three excellent answers from Hebrews. He then prayed in light of the teaching and with the Lord’s Supper in view.
Lord’s Supper
Each family unit contributes something to the meal, so before the Lord’s Supper teaching, the food was set out and made ready for the feast, including the elements. Our group is too large to all sit together, so the women stayed inside and ate together, and the men sat at tables outside. Some of the teens and children also ate outside. Usually the night’s teaching, or something shared in the open time, is part of the discussion during the meal. For the men, we were able to hear more about Jeff’s ministry in Mexico, including some fascinating and encouraging stories of God’s providence and faithfulness. We did not pause and all partake of the elements at the same time (we do occasionally), but each believer ate the bread and drank the juice at some point during the meal.
Eventually, various individuals were up moving around, enjoying relaxed fellowship, and sometimes discussing serious matters.
Departure
Almost everyone started to leave after 7 pm (though one person left earlier with an apparent fever, and another had to leave because of a vertigo attack!). There were lots of warm goodbyes expressed (again, no kisses, but a few hugs!).