What is a Church?

As we move along on our home church journey we often look at what we’re doing, and look at the megachurches, and look at the community churches and look at everything else that other people are doing, and we wonder if what we’re doing is real.

“Is this really church? Are we just playing pretend?” The doubts can be persistent, no matter how confident we are in our call to do this, no matter how confident we are that the manner in which we “do church” is scripturally supportable. Being different than most is often accompanied by doubt. All you large family folks, and homeschoolers and counter-cultural Christians can attest to that.

John MacArthur has an interesting article on 5 truths that are evident in all authentic churches. Reading through it makes me feel better, and I know it will help me battle those doubts if they surface again.

1. A High View of God - “It is essential that a church perceive itself as a body of believers designed for the glory of God.” Well, if we were out for the glory of men, we sure wouldn’t be churching in a living room with me playing guitar for the music, and 3 year-old LittlestPage taking her turn in the rotation “reading” scripture… (cutest thing ever, btw, but not real “churchy”).

2. The Absolute Authority of Scripture - “[T]he rule by which every other opinion is evaluated.” Home churching has caused (forced?) me to get farther into the Word than I ever have before. Decisions are made based on our common understanding of the Word. We now have to make sure that every single decision is based on solid scripture, because we don’t have tradition to fall on. Every single thing we do is new and needs to be evaluated. It’s fascinating.

3. Sound Doctrine - “You need to be able to read a biblical text, discover what it says, and draw out divine principles.” …which describes our worship time exactly. We read the text and discover it, rather than having it done for us, but I’m sure it still counts. :)

4. Personal Holiness - “We must draw lines when it comes to personal holiness and be careful what we expose ourselves and our children to. We dare not lower our standards to those of the world. Christians are called to live a pure life, and we can’t compromise that.” This is one of the reasons for most of our life decisions, from schooling to church to our parenting style to our chosen friends.

5. Spiritual Authority - “[T]he church must be committed to training and obeying godly leaders.” Many have problems with home church in this point, but I think it’s a non-issue. MrMike and I struggle to make ourselves ready to lead the discussion. We struggle to make ourselves examples and leaders as parents, husbands and church leaders. We lift each other up and we help each other. We’re both growing at incredible rates. Our children are seeing this, and part of our growth is training them. All of the LittlePages are showing more growth spiritually in the last six months than they have in a long time. Our young men are starting to step forward and show that they are seeing and recognizing what a godly man is supposed to be and are trying to reach that goal. It’s quite inspiring.

Wow!

Lookit us!

We’re a church!

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I’ll bet you didn’t even know we were gone!

MrsPage’s great aunt has a cottage about an hour north of here. It was offered to us for this summer, and we took the offer with gusto!

MrsPages and all the LittlePages have spent three weeks out there so far, and are planning another two. I have spent a week out there, plus weekends. I’m coming back into the city Monday mornings and going back out Friday evenings. It’s been fun.

Pictures, stories and more to come, I just thought I’d say “Hi!”.

P.S. - the image here is from an earlier trip to the same place. It’s been a crummy summer weather-wise, but not spring-jacket-bad…