House Church

Earlier this year our friend Freitas wasn't able to come to house church any more because he decided it was best for his family and his business if he opened on Sundays to try to generate more customers at their hardware store. 

Benay and I grew up in church environments that said, "Well it's a shame that he has to work on Sundays now and can't come to church. Maybe he can come back to church soon."

Which meant maybe one day he can come back to "the hour" at "the building" on Sunday. 

Unfortunately we lived like that for many years.

Thankfully, God isn't done with us and He continues to open our eyes to so many things. He continues to show us that His people are His church and where they get together is where His church will take place. 

When Freitas said he wouldn't be able to be a part of house church anymore we had two options. 

1) Talk about how sad it is that he couldn't be a part of "church" anymore and continue doing what we do or 2) take the church family to Freitas. 

Over the years, we've talked about how much we like house church because it's mobile. It can go with the flow. 

So the men in our house church chose option two and we started meeting every Sunday morning at the hardware store while the women and kids continued meeting in our house. 

It was, as it is in our house, very informal.  But very good. 

As we studied, each man would read certain scriptures from a certain chapter and then we discussed any questions we had about those verses. That just naturally brought up lots of good questions. 

As we studied, customers would come in. We would stop, Freitas would help them and then we would continue. 

There is a bakery next door to the hardware store and the owner, Silvio, comes in to the hardware store all the time. He and his family are good friend with Freitas and his family. Anyway, there were a couple of times he would come in and listen to our study and then go back to his bakery. Very cool. 

I mentioned earlier about the type of churches Benay and I were raised in. It was normal in those days to see church as a specific building, time, etc. It was kind of the general mindset at that time. 

One thing that I can't be around are people who have all the answers in their Christian walk and have no room to continue to grow. However that looks. I've been around older and younger people who felt like they "knew" all they needed to know about the Bible and just stopped growing.  Content in their faith and where they are spiritually and not feeling a need to continue to study, grow and, if needed, change. I don't do well around those people. 

Thankfully God has blessed us with parents who haven't stopped growing. My dad, when they were here, went with us to the hardware store and just fit right in. 

He made comments and felt at home in the hardware store. I'm thankful for a father who knows that people are more important than tradition. That a hardware store is the church when God's people are there. 

Meeting at the hardware store went on for a few weeks and then Freitas one day told me he was going to close his store on Sundays so that he could be back with the entire family. 

So we are all back together and growing, and it's great. But we are ready to be mobile again when God asks us to do it.

We feel really blessed to be a part of what God is doing here. 

Our family is learning a lot. God has really changed us, in many different areas, since we moved to Brasil. We continue to study, and grow and change. It hasn't always been fun or easy but God continues to grow our faith.

God has also blessed us with a church family that grows more in Spirit each day. We are blessed.