re/new

Podcasts COMING!

People that I know are calling me crazy...but hey, I am and so what!  I want to start doing some podcasts next month.  So, deal with it!  Seriously, it will be fun!  I have all the tech stuff at my home to do it and I have lots of people in my journey who love to talk about all sorts of stuff.  So beginning in December, the Youth Leadership Institute will begin a podcast produced live from the Dugall home studio in beautiful Eagle, Idaho.  We'll cover topics like the "Missional Order of Revolutionaries", Missional living and ministry, YLI, and other topics of interest.  I'm going to try to get some interviews with some of our YLI speakers from the past...the irresistible Chris Yambar; the one and only Mike DeVries..Nate, the Canadian Metrosexual, Barnes...Ben "I am god" Kroeker...the YLI staff...whoever will talk to me!  We'll let you know where to pick up the cast as soon as the first one is ready!  For questions, email me!  rdugall@apu.edu

One. This Sunday.

America is a land of many races, ethnic groups, and religions. Though we come from different traditions of faith, we can join together, as ONE, in the fight against global AIDS and poverty. For each ONE of us, our faith compels us to do acts of compassion: provide food for the hungry and care for the suffering.

Let us join together with ONE voice and ONE goal: to fight global AIDS and poverty.

PLEASE join the ONE campaign today! Click here.

Greeting Community Members,

This coming Sunday, October 15th, Rembrandts Coffee House and the Landing Community, Center will host a ONE Campaign "Stand Up Against Poverty" event on October 15, 2006, from 2:00-6:00 p.m. Across the country, Americans will stand up in their churches, on their campuses,
and in their communities to ask our leaders to make poverty history. STAND UP is an exciting challenge to set an official Guinness World Record for the greatest number of people ever to STAND UP against poverty and in support of ONE's Millennium Development Goals, dedicated to ending global poverty by 2015.

As many of you know, The Landing Community Center and Rembrandts Coffee House have organized the Idaho Chapter of the ONE Campaign - To Make Poverty History. The chapter is working in partnership with local organizations, businesses, and government agencies to raise awareness for global AIDS and extreme poverty. Rembrandts will provide free drip coffee and snacks to participants in this historic event.

So, now on to what is going to happen at the event. Sunday afternoon from 2:00pm to 6:00pm, Rembrandts Coffee House will host an open house. There will be free drip coffee provided (barista closed) and snacks provided by Rembrandts. From about 3:00 to 5:00, we will show the documentary "Invisible Children" in the main room of the restaurant. Afterwards, there will be an optional discussion time and more socialization time. Here is a small press release on the film.

"Can a story change the world? In the spring of 2003, three young Americans traveled to Africa in search of such a story. What started out as a filmmaking adventure in Africa transformed into much more, when these three boys from Southern California found themselves stranded in Northern Uganda. What they found was a tragedy that disgusted and inspired them - a story where children are the weapons and the victims. They discovered children being abducted from their homes and forced to fight as child soldiers. The "Invisible Children: Rough Cut" film exposes the effects of a 20-year-long war on the children of Northern Uganda. They originally screened the film in June 2004 for friends and family and soon expanded to high schools, colleges and religious institutions. From suburban living rooms to Capitol Hill, with coverage on Oprah, CNN, the National Geographic Channel, and more, this film has taken on a life of its own. This wonderfully reckless documentary is fast-paced, with an MTV beat, and is truly unique. To see Africa through young eyes is humorous and heartbreaking, quick and informative - all in the same breath."

What are we asking?

1. First off, come to the event! Come hang out, have some fun, enjoy each other's company, and support The One Campaign.

2. Second, sign up that you will attend the event. Visit http://action.one.org/dia/organizations/one/event/distributedEventSearch and input your information that you will be attending the event. A bunch of us have signed up already, so please add your name to the list.

3. Finally, tell people about what is going on and invite others. We are hoping to get quite the crowd and create a well-known event. The more the merrier!

We hope that everyone can make it and sorry about the short notice, but ONE barely got the information out and we had to do things hasty. If you have any questions, feel free to email or call. Hope to see you there and God Bless!

Grace and Peace,
Mark and Rickard and Robin

luke study

Hi Community – here is your weekly meanderings through the process of living life as ambassadors of the Kingdom of God. Just some reminders of upcoming events and thoughts:

1 – We had a great gathering last night – spent some time praying and sharing and then “plowed” into what will dominate our study time for a number of months – the Gospel of Luke. I have attached a general ‘overview’ of some of the issues in the background of this gospel. Please download the sheet and take a peak at it.

2 – This is what we are going to do at upcoming community gatherings (from a “study” perspective):

I am going to select a text from Luke for the upcoming gathering
I am going to challenge you to read it, study it and meditate upon it for a week prior to the gathering
I am going to guide you through some steps which will help you “think through” the text prior to the gathering (see below)
When we gather, I will have the text printed out on a sheet of paper with the “parallel” texts from Matthew and Mark for us to see how Luke uses the life and story of Jesus in his own “unique” manner
THEN – we will all do the teaching together. I have a desire to not necessarily be the “lead” on the teaching every time we gather. In fact, one of our values in community is to encourage the giftedness and insights of every member of our community. Hey, God can speak in and to and through anybody (ask Balaam). So, more to come...
Six Steps in preparation for the gathering:
Textual Study

1. What do you see?
2. What do you THINK about what you see?
3. What do you think the people at Jesus’ time were thinking about when they were participating in this event?
4. What do you think the original audience of this text was thinking when they read it?
5. What do you think is the meaning of the text?
6. What do you think is one way to apply the text’s meaning to our lives?

3 – Brennan Manning is THIS week – our community will be spending the weekend together at the Brennan Manning event in Nampa. Below is the schedule:

“Healing our Image of God and Ourselves” – this event should be powerful. Brennan has written some powerful books including Ragamuffin Gospel and Abba’s Child.

Friday Night:

6:30pm Worship Time
7:00pm Brennan Manning

Saturday:

9:00am Worship Time
9:30am Brennan Manning
Lunch with our Community – we will choose together
2:00pm Worship Time
2:30pm Brennan Manning
3:30pm Finished

YLI will be having a booth at the event...I Vicky and I will be getting there a bit early. If you want to come with us, cool! If not, meet us there. I have all the tickets. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE let me know asap if you are going and when you are going. Okie Dokie??

Directions to College Church of the Nazarene (Nampa) – I84 to exit 35. Turn Right on Nampa Blvd. Stay on this road (it will become Yale St. and then 7th Street). Come to 16th Ave. Take a Right on 16th Ave. When the road begins to curve left, turn into the NNU campus and take an immediate left. At the stop sign, take a Right on Dewey. College Church is on the right.

4 – Chaya came up with some good ideas on the “name” of our nameless community. She was working with the idea of Mosaic (although there is another big church by that name in SoCal)...one synonym for mosaic is “montage”...another is “medley”...that’s kinda cool. She was working with the concept of pieces together, making a bigger picture of something beautiful...I don’t know. Ask her...she’s the artist. Anyway, ideas are still welcome.

That’s all for now!
Love to each of you in Jesus,

Robin

General Overview of Luke

The people who wrote what we now call the four gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) had to make decisions like this - they all believed that Jesus was the Messiah promised in the Old Testament, the One who was to come to usher in the kingdom of God. But they could not possibly include every detail about everything Jesus did and said. They had to be selective in what they related to their audience. So how did they go about writing the story about Jesus?

All four writers had their own unique perspective. Imagine you and several friends out for a casual dinner one night...imagine that you witness a car accident. The police arrive and take a statement of how you each witnessed the accident. Do you know why they would do that? Because each of you would see the accident from a unique vantage point. That are so many things occuring in the life of Jesus. John wrote in John 21 that the words and works of Jesus could fill countless books. So, how did they do it? Truthfully, they wrote from their own unique perspective and with a passion to communicate the "story" of Jesus from that vantage point.

• Matthew seems more Jewish in his presentation, so his main targeted audience was the Jews.
• Mark's gospel is thought to be the memoirs of Simon Peter and aimed at the Romans.
• Luke's story was apparently aimed at the Greeks.

These three gospels essentially tell the same story and are known as the synoptic gospels (syn = "together"; optic = "to see"--hence, "to see together"), since they are so similar. The gospel of John is about 92% unique. Only about 8% of John can be found in Matthew, Mark or Luke. John's goal was to convince all readers of Jesus' divinity and seems to focus on the last week of Jesus' life. John's gospel is deeper relationally giving the reader a feel for the intimacy with Jesus that revolutionized people's lives.
Unfortunately, we don't have Luke around to ask him about his works - so we are now left with having to see what scholars have to say about Luke.

The following discussion is to provide you with the current scholarly views of Luke's gospel. It is by no means exhaustive, and functions mainly to give you an introduction to the issues in the study of this gospel.

What Are Scholars Saying About the Gospel of Luke?
a. The first thing “they” (scholars and interpreters) are saying about Luke is that Luke is an important book to read, however, there is disagreement over whether Luke should be read as scripture or as literature.

b. A second thing that they are saying about the Gospel of Luke is that there is a relationship of some type between the gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts.

c. A third thing they are saying is that there is a literary relationship of some type between the gospel of Luke and the gospels of Matthew and Mark.
We know that there is some kind of relationship between the first three gospels. This is why they are called the synoptic gospels (“synoptic” means “seeing together” a word first used by J.J. Griesbach in 1776). The question is "what is this relationship?"
Let us review two explanations:

1. One theory is that Mark was the first gospel and that Matthew and Luke knew and copied Mark. To explain material common to Matthew and Luke but not in Mark, scholars postulate the existence of Q (short for Quelle a German word meaning “source”). This is called the 2-source hypothesis. Many scholars also postulate an L source for material peculiar to Luke and an M source for material peculiar to Matthew thus turning the 2-source hypothesis into a 4-source hypothesis. However, for the purposes of this class we will refer only to the 2-source version of this hypothesis.

2. There is a competing theory. According to this other theory, Matthew was the first gospel. Luke knew and copied Matthew. And Mark knew and used both Matthew and Luke to create an abbreviated version of the gospel. This is known as the 2-gospel hypothesis.

Most scholars today base their work on the two-source (Markan priority) hypothesis. There are others who ascribe to the Two-gospel hypothesis (Matthean priority).

d. A fourth thing that they are saying is that while many are agreed that someone called Luke wrote Luke and Acts, there are those who doubt that he was the same Luke spoken of in church tradition as the companion of Paul the Apostle.

It was the early church fathers Irenaeus (130-200 AD) Bishop of Lyons, France and Tertullian (160-225 AD) of Carthage who tell us that the author of Luke and Acts was the same Luke who was a companion of Paul. We also have this testimony in the Muratorian Canon (170 AD) and the Anti-Marcionite Prologue to the Gospel of Luke (170 AD).

The testimony of the early church fathers is partially confirmed by:

1. The opening verses of the gospel of Luke (1:1-4) and the book of Acts (1:1-2) which at least shows that the two documents were addressed to the same person by the same author,

2. The “we” passages of Acts (“we crossed over to Macedonia” “we set sail to Troas” “we came to Rome”-Acts 16:10-17; 20:5-15; 21:1-18; 27:1-28), which show that the author of Luke-Acts was indeed a companion of Paul the Apostle,

3. The statements of Paul the Apostle in Colossians 4:14 and 2 Timothy 4:11 and Philemon 24 which show that a man named Luke was indeed a companion of Paul the Apostle, and

4. The absence of any other reason to ascribe Luke-Acts to someone as relatively insignificant as Luke if it was not the truth.

e. A fifth thing that they are saying is that Luke is more of a historian than we have previously recognized.

f. A sixth thing that they are saying is that he is more of a theologian than we have previously recognized

g. A seventh thing they are saying is that Luke is more of a literary artist than we have previously recognized

h. An eighth thing that they are saying about the gospel of Luke is that Luke recognizes the role and significance of women in the ministry of Jesus and the history of the early church.

i. A ninth thing they are saying about the gospel of Luke is that Luke had a special concern for the poor and their place in society.

j. A tenth and final thing they are saying about the gospel of Luke is that Luke has his own case to make about Jesus.

Authorship
The central question we are dealing with here is this: does the Gospel of Luke put us in touch with the eyewitness period of gospel tradition? Is the author of the gospel of Luke someone who was himself connected to actual eyewitnesses of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection? Is the author of the gospel of Luke (and the book of Acts) really the same Luke who was the companion of Paul the Apostle?
A point needs to be made here. What makes the gospels authoritative for us is that they are eyewitness accounts of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. By eyewitness accounts, we mean that they actually came from the pen of those who walked and talked with Jesus of Nazareth or they came from the pen of someone who knew those who walked and talked with Jesus of Nazareth. Those who actually walked and talked with Jesus may be called primary witnesses. Those who walked and talked with those who walked and talked with Jesus may be called secondary witnesses. The writings of secondary witnesses are still considered authoritative, first because of their close contact and fellowship with primary witnesses and because they produced their writings while the primary witnesses were still alive. This means that it is not likely that anyone would write something that was untrue while the primary witnesses were still around to check and evaluate it.

In our New Testament canon, early church tradition has identified the authors of two of our gospels as primary witnesses and two as secondary witnesses. The two primary witnesses, of course, are Matthew and John. The two secondary witnesses are Mark, who was a companion of Paul and Peter, and Luke, who was a companion of Paul.

The question is, is early church tradition correct in all four cases? We will have to leave this question in regard to Matthew, Mark, and John for a class in Matthew, Mark, and John. We will raise this question in regard to Luke.

We have already considered the evidence for the authorship of Luke-Acts by the same Luke who was the companion of Paul the Apostle:

1. The testimony of the early church fathers (Irenaeus, Tertullian, Muratorian Canon, the Anti-Marcionite Prologue to the Gospel of Luke), that Luke, the companion of Paul, was the author of both Luke and Acts.

2. The opening verses of Luke (1:1-4) and Acts (1:1-2) which partially confirms the testimony of the church fathers by showing that Luke and Acts were sent to the same person by the same author,

3. The four “we” passages of Acts (16:10-17; 20:5-15; 21:1-18; 27:1-28:16), which partially confirm the testimony of the church fathers by showing that the author of Luke-Acts was a companion of Paul,

4. The statements of Paul the Apostle himself (in Colossians 4:14; 2 Timothy 4:11; Philemon 23-24) which partially confirm the testimony of the church fathers by showing that a man named Luke was indeed the companion of Paul the Apostle,

5. The absence of any other reason for ascribing Luke-Acts to someone as relatively insignificant as Luke if it was not the truth.

the church, by Heidi West

how pure and deep the heart of an artist.
thank you again, Heidi. You are a treasure to our lives.

Amos 4:13
"He who forms the mountains,
creates the wind,
and reveals his thoughts to man,
he who turns dawn to darkness,
and treads the high places of the earth—
the LORD God Almighty is his name.

ok, so here is one little drawing that I did back in the fall about church. originally, it was about how i saw myself as just sort of being in this little, limiting place. Like God was still there, but not in the big way that I wanted to see him, not in the big way that my passionate heart needed to worship him. And it is about me longing for something bigger, something more beautiful, some place where I would feel right. It was sort of about wanting to feel free from the Rock where I felt like I had to be, but I felt small there and about wanting to feel the freedom to really pursue the sort of community I wanted to be a part of. But i think this drawing was also about osmething bigger, about longings in general, just the way that we need to hold on to our longings and allow ourselves to desire things bigger than where we are--not in selfish ways, but in just pure ways. So there it is. enjoy! Heidi West

see more of Heidi at: www.deeperheidi.blogspot.com

art worship, by Heidi West

Some of you know Heidi West. She is one of our alumni/staff from the TEAM Conference and a dear friend of ours. Heidi lives in Fort Collins, Colorado, and came to know us at TEAM through Mark Schreiber who was one of her high school teachers. Well, since she came to TEAM 3 years ago, we have gotten to know Heidi fairly well and grown to love her very deeply. She has a heart of an artist and seeks to understand and experience God in ways only some of us can fathom. Heidi has a true gifting and calling to express her worship in the form of painting and drawing. When I asked her to share some of her work with me last night, I was BLOWN away and I wanted to share it with the community. Not only are her paintings beautiful, but I also LOVE the way she explains them, why she painted what she did and what it meant to her. I thank God daily for Heidi and for artists like her that can really show us a facet of Abba that can not be explained through words.

What a creative and majestic God we have!!!
Thanks, Heidi, for sharing your heart and what Christ is doing in you.

So these four paintings are my favorite paintings in the whole world. They are just on foamcore, but they are my favorite peices of worship and are worth tons to me. These four paintings started out as just being something to fill this huge ugly buliten board in my dorm room. I did these when I was going to that church I was telling you about, Timbeline Oldtown, that has art galleries in the place we worship, and I just remember going home and feeling so free and beautiful and these painting just sort of came out of the way I really see the spirit of God manifested in his creation. I love love love creation and how is just shows God's beauty so much and just the way he allows us to connect with him in such a physical way. So I came home from church and just started to do these and they came out like the most wonderful worship I have ever had, right there in the one tiny squre of floor space in our dorm. I still have a little bit of paint on my duvet becuase I had to paint so close to my bed. And I feel like there is so much I could say about these, but i'm not sure how to put it to words.

The red one was my first idea and I was thinking about what I had learned about the sun in my astronomy class in high school and how intense and yet how ordered and complex it is and just how I think passion looks a lot like that whether it be the love that God is, or
the depth of his heart.

The second was the yellow, which I really see as more of the spirit of God or the air we breathe and how free and peaceful that it.

and the green--I love plants and the way God uses plants to talk about life and refreshment and newness. And the blue is sort of mountains, but I didn't want it to be too blatant becuase there is so much more. But I just love being here so close to the mountains and how big they are and how much majesty they show.

And the blue one just reminds me of this cool breeze.

Interpret them the rest of the way how you like. I didn't really want to nail them down as something specific becuase they really are meant to represent just the spirit of things, the essence of creation and so on. These are all turned on their side and are attached in the order they line up as a series.

Anyway, I hope you can love them as much as I do. They are even more beautiful in person, I promise.

Heidi

no, put THIS in your pipe and smoke it...

ah the power of being the blog queen...
anyone feel like worshipping now? :) have a great day!

Megan's response to Rob's email on children in worship

I really LOVE what this says! I have long believed
that worship needs to be experienced as a family.
It's the way I grew up and never really understood
when I started attending a church that actually
discouraged kids in the worship service. There are
great lessons to be learned by both kids and adults as
they worship together. What better way for a parent
to actually see and be involved in the development of
their kids spiritual life and see their spiritual
gifts unfold. What better way for a child to
experience the love & joy of God than to see their
parents praise Him, and pray together, and take
communion together. It's exciting. I DO believe that
it there is a way to integrate kids into worship.
What does it look like? I'm not completely sure yet.
Certain things do have to be taken into account like
little one's attention spans etc. I'm not sure it's
realistic to ask a 1 or 2 year old to sit quietly
through a 45 minute teaching session. I do think that
"sunday school" type activities are also important for
kids too, providing them a place to meet with God's
word on their level, to fellowship with other kids
their age and to do creative and fun projects that are
both developmental and memorable. Some of my greatest
memories growing up are of both my time spent in
corporate worship with my family and at Sunday
school/VBS. It's exciting stuff to think about.
Can't wait to dive in!

Megan

world on fire

After talking last week about the “trap” of materialism, here’s the Sarah McLaughlin Video link I promised you...it is worth watching!

http://www.worldonfire.ca/

Loves,
Rob

i want to be...

OK – so you are not through with me yet!

Here’s some more stuff to put in your pipe and smoke:

“I want to grow and move...

FROM CONSUMER/SPECTATOR TO PLAYER/PARTICIPANT
FROM INVOLVEMENT IN WEEKLY OR BI-WEEKLY SACRED EVENTS TO LIVING A SACRED LIFESTYLE (HIS PRESENCE EVERYWHERE I GO)
FROM DRINKING MILK PREPARED BY OTHERS TO LEARNING TO FEED FROM HIS WORD FOR OUR SELF
FROM RELIGIOUS ROUTINES TO SPIRITUAL ADVENTURE
FROM RELIANCE ON EXTERNAL PROGRAMS FOR OUR SPIRITUAL GROWTH TO DEVELOPING AN INNER DISCIPLINE
FROM CONFORMITY TO OTHERS TO DISCOVERING A NEW CREATIVITY BASED ON OUR OWN UNIQUE CALLING, PASSION, AND GIFTS
FROM “MY CHURCH” TO “WE THE CHURCH”
FROM HANGING OUT IN THE CHRISTIAN GHETTO TO SHARING HIS LIFE OUT IN THE WORLD
FROM MISSIONAL PROJECTS TO MISSIONAL LIVING
FROM PROJECT PLANNING TO PRAYER MOVEMENTS
FROM FINDING MY IDENTITY IN "MY" CHURCH, "MY" MINISTRY, OR "MY" MOVEMENT TO FINDING MY FULL IDENTITY IN SIMPLY BEING HIS--HIS CHILD--HIS BELOVED—HIS KINGDOM”

some thoughts....

I’ve been reading tons on “spiritual community”...or, in other words, how to “DO” missional living in the context of community. One of the big issues is ‘what do we do with our kids?’. Here are some thoughts I ran across on one of the blogs that I read from people who are “doing” it in the house church movement. Think about it and let’s keep the conversation going!

Rob

House Church Basics Pt. 7: What About Children?

This is usually the first question asked when it comes to house churches: “What about children?

The implication, of course, is that children are going to lose out if there is not an array of formal children’s programs to teach and take care of the children.

The assumption is that the “Sunday School” program provided by traditional churches is the best way to raise up spiritual kids. The fact is, the majority of children raised in these programs exit youth group after high school (if they have lasted that long) and do not become regular church-goers. This is not to say that something of value didn’t take place, but it does point out that we are not getting the “results” that we hoped for.

I believe there is potential in the House Church for far better results.

Why?

First of all, children will spend more time with their families in worship and seeing their family members involved in spiritual activities.

Dan Trotter writes:

“Jesus never, ever said: "Suffer the little children to be packed away in the nursery." Can you imagine the children being led to Children's Church during the Sermon on the Mount? The churches were in the home, families lived in homes, children lived in families, and therefore, children met with the church in the home. And despite the Scriptural silence on kids and church, I can guarantee one thing: there weren't any Sunday Schools and Children's Churches.”

Children need to be in families who are modeling their own spiritual life. This is more important than 1,000 teaching sessions on faith in Christ.

A Third Day article says:

If they [children] see parents with faith, they have faith. If they see parents with adoration of all God has created, they get adoration of God’s creation. If they see parents who truly believe God will provide what they need, they believe God provides.

House church provides far more opportunity for this to happen as children are integrated into the life of “real” church. They will see their parents actively participating in worship, fellowship, communion, and the word—not as spectators but as participants.

Secondly, in house church, children will experience what it means to be brought up within the context of a family. The importance of this cannot be overstressed. Faith is caught through quality relationships not quality programs! This is essential to grasp!

Wayne Jacobsen says it very well:

“But don't our children need church activities? I'd suggest that what they need most is to be integrated into God's life through relational fellowship with other believers. 92% of children who grow up in Sunday schools with all the puppets and high-powered entertainment, leave 'church' when they leave their parents' home. Instead of filling our children with ethics and rules we need to demonstrate how to live in God's life together. Even sociologists tell us that the #1 factor in determining whether a child will thrive in society is if they have deep, personal friendships with non-relative adults. No Sunday school can fill that role. I know of one community in Australia who after 20 years of sharing God's life together as families could say that they had not lost one child to the faith as they grew into adulthood. I know I cut across the grain here, but it is far more important that our children experience real fellowship among believers rather than the bells and whistles of a slick children's program.”

You will never survive in house church with children unless you really grasp and believe what Wayne wrote: “It is far more important that our children experience real fellowship among believers rather than the bells and whistles of a slick children's program.”

To this, I add the point already made: “It is far more important that children are around their parents actively engaged in spiritual activities than being shuffled off to “children’s” programs.

Now, if these points are grasped, it becomes much easier and less frightening to begin to talk about the practical issues of doing house church with children.

No, it’s not simple, and yes, it’s sometimes messy. From our own experiences, it requires ongoing discussion within the church… and this is good. Working with our children in our own homes requires an ongoing discussion between the parents. The same is true at church. If we are going to provide for their spiritual needs while also balancing the needs of adults, it requires ongoing, frequent discussion.

We are discovering that there are as many different ways of working with children as there are house churches. For those that want a little guidance, I first refer you back to Dan Trotter’s article where he provides seven practical suggestions for working with children.

At home-church.org there is a slew of responses from house churches who were asked to share their experiences with children. If you want to really “get into” the practical side of this, be sure to read the responses.

Above all, don’t underestimate our children. They are part of the church; they are filled with the same Spirit as the adults. They are able to adapt and they are able to participate as members of the Body of Christ.

As a Third Day article says:

“When children are viewed as part of the group, part of the family, they will make the necessary adjustments to be a part. Children will adapt. The adults are the one’s who need to check their view on including children in their church life. Parents should be helping their children make the adjustments but the whole group participates in their attitude toward children. Be prepared to see and hear some wonderful things from the kids.”

The final chapter on working with children has not been written. This is an area for prayer, creativity, experimentation, and risk-taking. But let’s not be afraid to do all of this. House churches, just be their nature, have more to offer children than, perhaps, any other setting.

What’s your ideas on this?