Years of sitting in traditional church has not prepared us to do church in the manner described in the New Testament. We have been taught to come. To sit. To watch and listen to what others have prepared. Someone described it as “sit, soak and sour.”

How do you know if you’ve been to church? Is it when you go to a meeting in a building with a pointy top? When a preacher gives a sermon? When there is a choir/worship team that sings? When you get dressed up in your Sunday clothes? When there is a bulletin and an order of service?

The New Testament ‘church’ was a worshipping household like that of Cornelius, Lydia, or Crispus, and was called an ekklesia, a word that does not mean what we understand ‘church’ to mean.

I want to share with you the picture of a house church in Portland, Oregon led by Rich and Kimberly Hagler (See below). Here are some of the important values that I see portrayed in what they call “the Isaiah 61 House Church”

Are our standards so low that we can find contentment without the presence of Jesus? We can gather together, sing a few songs, and listen to a lengthy sermon – all without encountering the Person of Jesus Christ. What does that say about our form of Christianity?