When COVID-19 struck the United States, it brought social gatherings to a halt all over the country. It taught us how much we really need human connections and the fellowship of others. For many people, it also reaffirmed how important their faith is to them.
One of the ironic things about the pandemic is that it shut down churches all over the country during a time when people of faith needed Sunday worship more than ever. To stay connected to their faith and their congregations, many people started holding church services in their homes. Continue reading to learn what you should do before you start your own house church.
Make sure your home is ready for church services.
It’s very noble of you to want to open your home up to your congregation for Sunday services, but will they still be grateful to you after they’ve been in your house for half an hour? The last thing you want is for your members to have to question whether they’re experiencing an air conditioner breakdown or spiritual elation.
The more people you have in your home, the more body heat they will generate, and the more important it will be for you to have proper airflow in your home. Before you begin inviting people to your home church, you need to make sure your HVAC system runs up to par. It would be wise to have an HVAC technician inspect your air conditioner and provide maintenance service before you begin holding home church services.
If you’re not a pastor, you should become one first.
You’d be surprised how easy it is to start your own church, especially when you skip the step of finding and purchasing a building in which to hold services. However, one of the biggest problems with the house church is that anyone can start their own church.
When people attend church services, they expect they usually expect the services to be led by an educated and trained pastor. Many pastors study business and psychology because they know they will have to manage money and provide sound counsel to people in need of solutions to life’s problems.
If you’re not an ordained minister, you should consider enrolling in a certification program or ministry school before you start a church from home. Even though you’ll be holding services in your house church and not an actual church building, you should still take the task of being a pastor seriously.
Starting your own house church shouldn’t merely be about you getting your opportunity to deliver a heart-wrenching sermon. Congregations look to pastors for advice and emotional support. Even if you’re merely running a simple church in your living room, you want to be able to help the members of your congregation as much as possible.
Make sure you can have a house church in your neighborhood.
One thing about church services is that they can get loud. Once the music starts and people get caught up in the moment, the good times tend to roll. However, you don’t want your house church to become known as the local church that wakes all the neighbors early on Sunday mornings.
Before you invite the congregation to your home for Sundays, you should make sure that you won’t need a special zoning permit to hold services in your neighborhood. It would be best if you also did what you can to make sure that you can provide parking for your congregation so they won’t take up all the parking spaces on your street.
Starting your own house church may be easy, but it’s something you should take seriously. In the earliest days of Christianity, the house church was a refuge during the persecution of Christians, and your house church could become a refuge during these uncertain times we all face.
