Maplewood Cottage Home-Lessons

• Oct. 22, 2007 - Home Churching

I don't remember if I posted this here or not I know I posted it at my other blog because I just re-read it there ;^)

Maybe I felt it was too controversial to post here at the time I posted it??? I have tried to post my strongest doctrinal beliefs on the other blog because I want to respect that HSblogger as well as my personal friends that read here are diverse in doctrinal beliefs. I don't feel I should be a personal Holy Spirit to everyone. I enjoy expressing myself about doctrine or spiritual studies that I am doing and it has been a huge blessing to post my thoughts like a journal over at the e blogger.

This issue of worshiping at home came up again this weekend because we were so set on going to church this sunday and it just didn't happen!! I think I had less frustration over it than I might have in the past because I don't feel that missing church attendance means we are skipping spiritual time. We still had a lovely lesson with the kids! And my husband and I talked about some spiritual matters.

It's funny too because I have had some unsure moments about our family doing well in the church over the holidays because we don't celebrate Christmas or Easter. Or any type of Halloween celebration.
I don't even want to deal with being invited to this that or the other. Maybe I am just lazy about being creative in the way I respond to well meaning people.
Still a lot of pieces to the puzzle to fit together for us...

Hope you all had a spiritually blessed Sunday.

Home Churching

In our Christian experience we have been greatly blessed by the organized church as well as our personal devotions with the Lord.

Circumstantially we have found in the last several years that we can not always be a part of a local church.

We have had to find creative ways to still be fed and grow. And to train our children.

I use to teach a lot of Sunday School in the church so that has carried over to my interactions with my own children and Mike has always loved to pray with and read to his family. So we spend a fair amount of time as a family around the things of God.

We are learning as a couple to minister together to our family and community.

I learnt the hard way to be more submissive and it has meant a world of change in our daily lives. We are still on the road to recovery from me stepping into the lead position for the better part of our early marriage.

Mostly, we keep learning and growing through talking and speaking about the things of the Lord as we walk in the way. A very relaxed process...

We listen to all the FEA sermons that come our way.

I enjoy keeping in contact with sisters in the Lord via email that have enriched my life beyond what I could have hoped for.

We have ventured out to seek fellowship in our current area once again.

We visited several times a little country Baptist church north of us in MI and had much discussion with the pastor there.

We just started attending an Independent Fundamental Baptist Church just south of us that seems to be the direction the Lord is taking us for any local fellowship.

Mike is more open to moving beyond the hurt from all the church confusion!

He is excited about the positive possibilities once again.

I know I have worked through most of my hurts over the last year.

Mostly we think the time we have spent out of the local church has been a good thing.

How can this be?

Well, we have taken a lot more time to think about what we believe and why as well as how are we personally going to live this out?

Rather than being moved by others we feel we have been moved more by our personal relationships with the Lord and the Holy Spirit.

This has been huge for my husband who was under a lot of stress for years feeling a failure because of myself and other well meaning Christians who had the mentality that Church attendance should be of highest priority!

We needed this time to reflect and be more grounded in our walk.

I especially had to realize that leading our own family was priority over church attendance.

Prioritizing a bit different than others might.

We had to say to ourselves"Who is gonna feed us when we are 'unable?' " Unable to make it all happen out of exhaustion, lack of finances, housing problems, illness, discipline problems with our children, marital problems etc...

We are well aware that one need not be perfect in the church the point is; that how can we focus on the specific areas that WE need to, to keep our family together if we are running around trying to be involved in the activities of the church? Some are strong enough Christians to say no to a myriad of 'good activities' without feeling false guilt but we were not such ones. This caused a lot of frustration and stunted our growth.
I especially wanted to give back EVERYTHING because I was so thankful to the Lord for saving me out of the pit. I often put my desire for serving others before my own husband and this was not helping our marriage to solidify. My attitude was not always 'godly' when I was faced with confusion in prioritizing my new life as a married woman.

If from the pulpit we are constantly being told to focus on others/ and the church program because this is the unselfish way to live... Then what happens when we need to come home to our specific dynamics and work through to growth and stability?

How does the man learn to lead his own family first as the example in the Bible shows us is priority over serving the church... if he is committing his precious spare time left after he fulfills his obligation to work to support his family?
And then often faced with the pure disappointment of being confronted with less than fundamental ideas. How exhausting it is to be putting forth all the effort needed to make it to a bible study and then be confronted with Promise Keepers and it's mentality rather than focus on the Word!

Is over looking the mandate for men to lead there own family first one of the leading causes for moral failure or divorce in the church? We think so.

We have so much more to learn and put into place in our lives.

Through it all we have learned to Trust Him more than we did before.

We also have come to understand the unsaved more than before.

I think in some ways our personal ministry is more effective because others can see we don't expect them to just go to church!

A matter of fact they seem to recognize more that being godly is not directly related to church going.

They seem to see us more as real people that struggle along at times and yet don't settle for just being comfortable in a community that we would be more accepted in.

Carving out time for more formal spiritual devotions isn't always easy but we are getting more regular.

The children and I read a lot.

And Luke has requested that Mike and I sing for them together regularly

;^0)

Both boys have a clear understanding of salvation and have made professions of faith.

Because of Mike's work schedule sometimes our best efforts to get ready for the local church on Sunday do not get us there. So it is so nice that we usually have a family devotion in place that we can continue through in the place of attending the local church fellowship.

We are learning to feed ourselves!

I don't know what tomorrow brings but, I do know who brings tomorrow!

Let Jesus be our priority in life!

Let's not put the FAMILY above the Lord but let's do allow the Lord be the Lord of our family.

• Oct. 23, 2007 - Untitled Comment

Posted by stillearning

I agree that we need to have a strong family and focus on our families needs. Where church fits in for us is in spiritual development in the word and in prayer and the verse do not forsake the assembly. It isn't that attendance is the priority but that we can be spiritually fed by the word that is spoken we are thankful to have a wonderful solid church where the word is richly spoken and not watered down! I have not seen that much in the churches I have visited in the past. Much of what I have seen was for "entertainment" and a little exhortation. I feel that needs reversed!

They also really encourage leadership in the home and at church. It sounds like the churches you have gone to in the past have asked a lot from you though? I know in our little fellowship we don't do things like Promise Keepers and no one would be expected to come to a party (we have a fall party). We do have prayer meetings though and everyone is welcome.

I am glad that things are going well for you and your family and that you are both able to grow. Praise the Lord for his goodness and mercy!

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• Oct. 23, 2007 - Pam

Posted by 5lilpeppers

It is like this. The doctrine is great... the main church I grew in had some of the best preachers and missionaries as pastors and visiting speakers.
But in this present day practice is confused.
For instance even when I attended and became a member of a smaller church of the same likeness the main thing that we were asked was what we were able to do for the church. At the time we had two small boys no friends or family in the area, no money, an old car on its last leg and were sttruggling to get settled in. you know one box unpacked and many to go with the constant interruptions that toddlers give.
When we answered about how much we loved to give and what we use to do but that we were limited in our ability at the time. The deacons grunted and let us be members on our christian testimony but we were never invited to dinner, visited in our home or anything.

In most churches unless you are in the ministries you don't even make much of an aquaintence with anyone. No one has time to do little hospitable things because all their time is put into the programs of the church.

I remember the ladies asking me about my situation as I was in the nursery one day and they said how they were glad they never had to go through such a move etc... but they never made an effort to help me in any way!

A few cards at christmas were nice but it really didn't mean anything in the end because we were struggling and had no meaningful encouragement to carry us through.

The people that have been the most generous to us have been old people that don't have as much going on in their lives and people that are down and outers that we befriended gave a lot of time to and then the Lord used them to help us sometimes when we needed.

I still need to be careful and say that there have been some dear people that have been generous and loved us biblically not just when it was easy but they are truly far and few between!

I have tried to never think that a 'ministry' can do more than an individual heart on fire for and yielded to the Lord Jesus Christ.

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