A Sublime Celebration

The tones of a skillfully played piano began to swell as the singing voices blended and filled the room with the sound of a familiar carol.  Hardwood floors bounced the waves of sound up the tall walls which sent them unhindered to the second story ceiling.  This sonic phenomenon made it seem as if there were more voices in the room than there actually were.  It also hid any flaws in our singing so that we sounded much better than normal as when one sings in the shower.

The beautifully lit Christmas tree was just a few feet from where I sat.  I glanced at it, and then scanned the room as I listened to the voices and added my own.  Suddenly, I felt as if I had been transported far away from the Orange County suburbs to an intimate country chapel in the woods.  The sheer warmth and simplicity of the moment filled me full.  I realized there was no cathedral in which I would rather be and no trained choral group I would rather hear.  It was a perfect Christmas moment - simple, beautiful, human and divine all at once.

The elements of communion were produced and I gave a talk about the Exodus.  God's deliverance of the Jewish people from Egypt is the defining story of their history and the root of their identity.  I put us in remembrance of the fact that first "Lord's Supper" was the Passover meal which Jesus shared with his disciples on the night before He was betrayed by one of them.  As He took the traditional bread and cup of the Passover, He redefined their meanings within Himself.  He is the new Lamb.  He is the New Exodus.  He is the New Defining Story of the people of God - the One who saves us from bondage and frees us to belong to God - and all because of the First Christmas that brought Him to us as Emmanuel, "God with us".

As we partook of the elements, the piano softly played a carol - yes, a carol and not a typical hymn.  We finished the communion singing along with it and then moved into two contemporary worship songs including one that features the words: "This is the air I breathe - Your holy presence, living in me".  How beautifully this fit the Christmas Eve theme: Christ conceived within the virgin.  Christ born in to the world.  Christ now in us "the hope of glory" (as the Scriptures proclaim).

I then shared a meditation on the life of God - eternal life - and how it intersects our natural lives in Christ.  How the First Christmas was the gateway through which God's own kind of life became available to us through Jesus.  It was an invitation.  It was a celebration.  It was a meditation that drew our hearts back to the Manger and then forward into eternity.

Finally, little Stephanie walked around the room with a basket of candles until everyone had one to hold.  Lights were dimmed.  Now, only the pinpoint lights of the Christmas tree illuminated the room as the pianist led us into "Silent Night".   The candles were lit one by one as the flame was shared person-to-person.  It was Christmas.  It was Holy.  It was stripped down to its sweet and simple core.  "God with us" -- such a sublime celebration.  This was my house church Christmas.

- Bill Faris

Live! It's the Grinch (With a Twist!)

This year at the Foothill Ranch House Church, the ante was upped for our annual "garage production".  Previous years were fairly simple affairs featuring a nativity and some dance.  This year, however, our live performance featured a homegrown "Grinch" play, written with a Gospel twist, and presented by our children and teens (including neighborhood volunteers and other "friends of the family").  As the "curtain" (garage door) was raised, an enthusiastic audience stood on the driveway under EZups to shelter them from the light rain that had been soaking Southern California for days.  Less than 15 minutes later, the cast took their bows and everyone retreated to celebrate the successful, delightful and meaningful production with a few cookies, some hot cider and some hot chocolate, too.

We're proud of our young people, Eric (their adult leader), our host family and all who made this year's "Grinch" a hit.  Next year, who knows: camels and flying angels?

See us at www.vineyardathome.com

How Do We Know When It's Church?

One of the paradigm shifts that goes with "going organic" in church life after a lifetime of participation and leadership in more traditional church structures is what happens "at church".  In more traditional modalities, "church" begins at a particular point after worshipers arrive at the church campus (how often have I heard - and said - things like "church starts at 9:00"?).  Then, in effect, church "ends" sometime after the formal worship service is dismissed.

Not so with house church.  It is more like a family gathering.  And since this family is the family of God, "church" begins not just theoretically, but actually, as soon as two or more come together in His Name.  For us, "church" begins with a potluck breakfast meal around 9:00 a.m.  It is fair to say that church begins with the making of the first latte', the distribution of the first donut or bowl of oatmeal, and the passing of the first sausage -- and I'm not just saying that.  It is a fact.  What could be more "church" than God's people bringing things to someone's home and feeding one another - taking care of one another - thinking about what people would enjoy, what we could add to the whole.  A prayer of thanksgiving and blessing is prayed and then we get on with interacting, serving, cleaning up after and enjoying one another.  If that ain't "church", what is?

See, at the house church, we don't "put on a service" per se.  We meet, yes.  We worship, certainly.  We get into God's Word together, absolutely.  We minister to one another, regularly.  But we don't really "go to church" in the way we used to.  We meet as church to be the church.  So, on many days a church meeting includes the experience of us plowing through I Samuel a couple of chapters per week, as we have been doing over the past several months.  But today "church" (after b'fast, worship, sharing, etc) took a much different turn as we divided into three groups and went out door-to-door through the neighborhood.  Our mission was to pass out invitations to our three upcoming home grown Christmas activities planned for December.

Before we left on our neighborhood trek, we read a passage from Luke 14 where Jesus tells us to freely invite people to a banquet without concern as to whether or not we would get payback for doing so.  Then we went out and DID IT.  Along the way we talked with each other, spoke with a few neighbors and generally enjoyed a stroll in the brisk but sunny Southern California air.

After finishing our neighborhood tour, one of our new house church friends sat down at the piano and began playing "Silent Night" while I joined in strumming on the 12-String guitar.  A few voices picked up the refrain and, for a moment or two, the room spontaneously filled with beautiful song.  That's right - we were still being the church.  And, without a doubt, "church" was still going on.

If you are coming from a place where you know it's "church" because a worship service has been formally begun, bulletins have been passed out, sermons have been preached, collections have been taken, and other hallmarks of a traditional worship service have come to pass, you might find some of what we do during "church" to be a little befuddling.  But when I revisit the biblical definition of the church, I have reason to believe that God is right in the midst of our life together - interacting with us, using us and (dare I say it?) enjoying His time with us as His called out community while we are engaging in fellowship, worship, and action in His name.    

Maybe that's one reason why I look forward to coming every week - well, that and the fact that it is the best breakfast I will eat that week for sure!

See us at www.vineyardathome.com

Get Your Free CD Yet?

You are invited to request a copy of a free CD courtesy of Vineyard at Home.  The CD contains a recording of the workshop led by Bill Faris at last summer's Regional Conference of the Vineyard in Anaheim, California on the topic of "Ministry in Everyday Places".

This is not a "lecture", but a very good recording of a lively discussion Bill led with participants that included a teacher, a Christian motorcycle club member, traditional church pastors, house church people, children's ministry people and others.  Really cool!

To get your copy in the mail, simply write us at: mail@vcmn.org.   Naturally, you will need to pleasse include your mailing address.  Enjoy!

See us at www.vineyardathome.com

We'll Be Home For Christmas

(photos from past Foothill Ranch House Church Christmas celebrations)

Halloween is behind us now and the winter holidays approach.  Even though "The Glory of Christmas" will not be presented this year at the Crystal Cathedral, there will no doubt be many other Christmas-themed productions and presentations designed to draw people to the churches in our area.  That's great.   However, those of us from Vineyard at Home have our own ideas about taking the Christmas message and the Christmas spirit to the neighborhood and creating connection, community and worship "home style".

For example, Eric Brown and the teenagers have been working on our homegrown original production of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" -- with a gospel twist!  For weeks now, they have been constructing and painting set pieces, practicing lines and preparing details for our third annual live Christmas production staged entirely in the Benson's garage extravaganza.  Okay, extravaganza may be too strong of a word, but this year's "Grinch" presentation is the young people's most ambitious project yet.

Of course, all this begins with a neighborhood prayer walk and invitation distribution time that we'll take on an upcoming Sunday morning to canvass the neighborhood in Foothill Ranch.  That's when we'll be inviting people to the play as well as to a neighborhood hayride we have planned for early December.  Finally, we will be hosting our regular in-house Christmas Eve candlelight and worship presentation at our host home in Foothill as well.  So it will be a 1-2-3 punch of Christmas outreach, fun, creativity and worship.  Not bad for our small band of Vineyard at Home members.

Our Friday night group (we meet in San Juan Capistrano at the Price home) is also planning a special holiday in-home invitational worship, candlelight communion and Christmas-themed celebration.  This will open the door to more connections to the weekly Bible Study we have been holding there.

So, as the year moves towards its final act, we'll be sharing Jesus in our own wonderfully simple ways.  At VatH, we'll be home for Christmas!  

See us at www.vineyardathome.com

Our Youngest Member's Driveway Invitation

Stephanie Benson, age seven, finds space on the family driveway 

to invite everyone in their neighborhood to house church.  One picture says it all!

See us at www.vineyardathome.com

We "Go to Church". At Walmart.

To paraphrase a famous movie quote: "being a house church means never having to say you're sorry" as in: "we're sorry to inform you that the church has left the premises and relocated to Walmart".  Yet, that is just what we did a couple weeks ago.  Specifically, we spent the normal Sunday morning American "worship hour" combing the aisles of Walmart in search of merchandise.  

Arms of Love Home received our 2009 Christmas gifts in February of 2010!

To be sure, we had breakfast first (as always!).  We also gathered for a time of singing and praise as is our usual fashion.  Afterwards, we piled into several vehicles and pointed them towards the nearest shopping center.  We were on a mission from God to buy gifts for the entire population of the Arms of Love children's home in Bohol, Philippines.  That's over 60 kids if you include staff kids (we did).  

In the checkout line...

Last year, we were not aware that it would take over two months for the boxes of Christmas gifts we sent to reach their destination.  After all; we're new at this stuff.  But we had photos of each young person and some ideas about what they would enjoy getting for Christmas.  We thought we were doing well to get stuff packed and to the shipper in early December but it didn't arrive until February.  This year, we were determined to get the proper head start.

Now, the thing about a house church - one of the things I love most - is that we do ministry together.  All kinds of ministry.  We lay hands upon one another and pray, from the youngest kids right on up to our most, um, mature adults.  We eat together.  Worship together in song.  Make decisions about spending, hold neighborhood festivals, swim, prayer walk the neighborhood -- everything!  To be sure, there are special breakout times for the teens and children, too but a lot of what we do we do as a family.  And so it was that, a couple weeks ago, we broke up into groups of kids and adults and began to clean out the Walmart.

Of course it takes a lot more than a group our size to "clean out" a Walmart, but we certainly gave the checker a run for his (our) money.  The result was that we got the lion's share of the shopping done on that Sunday morning and prepped, wrapped and boxed the next Sunday morning.  

Our church teaches men to shop.  Scary...

I love this about our house church.  We are the church at the house.  The church at the Walmart.  The church wherever we roll.  We read the Word, study it, discuss it, apply it and DO IT and that is really satisfying.  I love that our children and teens are being discipled in this kind of church milieu.  They are learning important lessons about The Faith in all of these various hands on, high-participatory experiences.  Waaaaay cool.  

Our host mom made these observations:

"I loved watching the teenage girls shopping.  Picking up each item and deciding on style, color, etc.  The boys cracked me up!  By “boys” I’m referring to a few teen boys and 2 grown men.  They were just throwing stuff in the cart and crossing the items off their list.  Not any different from how men shop for themselves.  Another group looked completely lost (2 men, of course) and whined to me “We don’t know how to do this.”  

"I loved hearing the report from my younger daughters (ages 11 and 7) who were on the team shopping for the younger girls how they picked out sweet baby dolls for the super young girls and my daughter, Danielle, excitedly showed me a cute Groovy Girl type doll for an older doll that we had found out had never received a doll before.  She picked out a darker skinned one with black hair.  She thought the girl would appreciate a doll who looked Filipino.  I’m sure she will!"

Shopping experts dish out good advice to novices....

So, next September, if you see a lot of noisy, crazy people running amok at your local Superstore, don't panic.  It just might be the members of Vineyard at Home prepping the next shipment to an Arms of Love children's home.  But let me give you one small piece of advice: don't get behind us in the checkout line.  We'll be awhile....

All done for this year.  Bye, bye!

See us at www.vineyardathome.com

Hosting House Church

These days we are NEVER late for church.  Of course, there are those times that I barely get out of my pajamas before the doorbell rings and my church family enters into my home bringing with them various breakfast foods as we prepare to “break bread” together over the next hour before we move into worship and Bible study.  How different church is from what it was a few years ago.

Sunday mornings used to be stressful in our home as our family of six rushed around to eat breakfast, get dressed and out the door to be at church at the 10 am start time.  It was a very rare occasion when we were actually on time.  Worship always seemed a bit on the short side but that was simply because we had arrived at church 10 to 20 minutes late.  Next week, we would promise ourselves, we will be on time.  Rarely happened.

Our house church is not big by any stretch of the imagination, but we have something I find better than big numbers.  We are family.  I love that.  A lot.  Many times after breakfast, as worship is starting in the living room, I am still in the kitchen washing a few dishes and putting away some of the food that didn’t get eaten (usually not much of that with a houseful of hungry teenagers!), yet I still feel included in the worship.  So much like a typical weekend family night...kids are watching a movie and mom is still putting away a few dishes before joining them.

On a recent Sunday a few people were gathering in the living room to pray for a person, some of the kids and teens were in the backyard playing ping pong, and I was being prayed for (while washing more dishes...haha...see? it is JUST LIKE family) by a dear friend.

This past week I had the privilege of praying for and encouraging another homeschool mom.  She was struggling with some issues I had struggled with a few years ago.  What a joy to be able to share and encourage her.  Where did this “church” take place?  In a driveway of a mutual friend in Huntington Beach.  We prayed, cried, looked at scripture and shared life for 45 minutes.

Church is scheduled and loose at the same time.  Stuff happens in the backyard, living room, family room, and kitchen.  God, from the beginning, has never  confined himself to a building.  He walked with Adam in the garden.  He wants to walk and move today in everyday places.  We need to be open to that.  House church is the perfect vehicle.

See us at www.vineyardathome.com

Five Hours of House Church? Why Not?!

At some point today, when I realized nearly four hours had gone by since first arriving at house church, I turned to someone nearby and said: "I remember when I tried to get in and out of church as quickly as possible".  Someone else quipped: "I remember when I used to be late to church all the time".  Our host chimed in: "I remember when I used to have to leave my house to go to church!"

Ahhhh - how things have changed.

If five hours seems like a lot of time to "go to church", you have to remember that "church" begins with an hour or so of potluck breakfast.  Today's spread included: quiche, oatmeal with raisins, bananas, strawberries and milk, a potato cheese hot breakfast hot dish, sausages, breakfast burritos, warm coffee cake, fresh fruit assortment and (if you want one) a hand-made latte' courtesy of our hostess.  

After such a feast - complete with noisy kids and adults, stories and updates from our crazy lives, and other this and that, we retreat to the living room for worship.  Adults circle up on the main floor area.  Teens and pre-teens sit on the stairs and on the landing above, looking down.  Smaller children spread out a few quiet toys and puzzles near their adult parent while the baby got pretty much passed around (he seemed to like it, too!)

Now it's worship time!  Beautiful and sweet (worship leader disclaimer: "the kids want some faster songs this time").  Next it's sharing.  First order of importance: the 11-year old who (while jumping up and down on the stairs) proclaims: "I accepted God and Jesus this week" while at a VBS event.  Applause!

Others share.  Encouraging words.  Interesting experiences.  Now the youth are leaving for their own time outside while the adults pull out electronic and paper Bibles for our first dip into I Samuel (chapters 1 through 3 if you must know).  There is observations, group readings and discussion - wonderful insight, wonderful application!  Now we circle to pray for two folks who could use some personal ministry.  

Outside, the sound of ping-pong and kids splashing in the pool increases.  Soon adults are wandering out and joining in.  SPLASH!!!  That's the sound of the 17-year old doing a canonball.  SSSSPPPPLLLLAAAAASSSSHHH!  

That's the sound of the, um, more mature aged youth leader doing his "preacher" canonball.  Is there any water left in the pool.  Fortunately, there is. 

We take a group photo.  We eat popcorn.  We challenge each other to ping pong and talk some smack.  All the while, kids are swimming and, by 2 p.m., the hostess throws on some pasta and hooks up some tacos to serve for lunch.  Time for us to leave, but others stay on.  Who knows how long "church" will last?

Driving home I reflect upon the fact that I like this house church thing.  It's family!

See us at www.vineyardathome.com

Welcome to Vineyard at Home

Vineyard at Home is a new blog about our house church experiences, philosophy of ministry, quirks, adventures and points of view. In it, I will be sharing not only my own insights and experiences, but also those of others who are meeting in simple church / organic church / house church modalities. Should be pretty interesting - and fun!

Vineyard at Home is the name of our house church "network" in Orange County, California. We are affiliated with the Vineyard USA which is the community of Vineyard Churches in America. However, as a house church, we are definitely breaking new ground for our movement and for ourselves. We don't mind (too much) that people don't always get why we would move away from more traditional/conventional church life to house church. Indeed, there are things we sometimes miss about the "old days" when we were a small church in Southern California meeting in a rented building and reaching out as churches in our neck of the woods do. But, after two years in house church mode, we're pretty hooked on the chance to "empower everyday people to bring the ministry of Jesus to everyday places". Oh, and you'll notice that - while we take God very seriously - we don't take ourselves too seriously at all!

We welcome comments, questions and the experiences of others who, like us, are launching out into the sometimes lonely paths of alternative church modalities. Please don't hesitate to weigh in!

So, welcome!

Bill Faris, Director and Blogger

Vineyard at Home