What do we call this thing anyway?

This is the question posed by a friend last Sunday when we met for our first time of worship together. He was of course meaning our "church service". Friends from all parts of our lives have asked us what we are doing about church. We call it "home church" because it has a familiar enough ring to it to make people feel comfortable that we have not abandoned our faith.

There is actually a large and growing home church movement in our country. Just google "home church" or "house church" and see how many hits you get. Many folks are looking to what is happening in Asia, South America, and parts of Africa as models for how to do it here. Books and articles are written, seminars delivered, workshops conducted, all on the premise that the "house church" model more closely resembles the early church (first and second centuries).

All this may be true, but that's not what we are doing it the way we are doing it. And that's not what I would call it. If pressed for a name, I would probably give something ordinary like "worship" or "real life faith" or perhaps some retro 70's Jesus freak hippy sounding utopian name. For our family, it's a quest to fulfill Romans 12:1-2. Another translation calls it our "spiritual act of worship." It's an attempt to actually make worship part of our daily lives, not something we only do on a particular day at a particular hour once a week. We see our current circumstances as an opportunity to practice what we've been preaching for so many years.

Tomorrow, just like last Sunday, we'll gather with our friends again to worship together. Even though we may be doing it on our own throughout the week, we enjoy the chance to do it with others too, whatever it's called. What I'd like to call it is just "life", plain and simple. Our prayer as we do this year (and many more to follow I hope) of living faithfully is that people will actually see our lives as living sacrifices in everything we do.