258 | What's Brewing | House Church

Project Zion has discussed House Churches with ministers who lead them, but today we're hearing from participants who have found a home in Community of Christ because of them. From both Utah and Idaho, this panel shares their experience with unconventional church. Host: Karin Peter Guests: Diana Wake, Kimberly Petersen, Jason Eyre, Brian Whitney Click here to listen to our last other House Church A note to our listeners: This episode was recorded prior to our current state of global...

Show Notes
Transcript

Project Zion has discussed House Churches with ministers who lead them, but today we're hearing from participants who have found a home in Community of Christ because of them. From both Utah and Idaho, this panel shares their experience with unconventional church.

Host: Karin Peter
Guests: Diana Wake, Kimberly Petersen, Jason Eyre, Brian Whitney

Click here to listen to our last other House Church

A note to our listeners: This episode was recorded prior to our current state of global pandemic and thus does not reflect that awareness in the conversation.

Thanks for listening to Project Zion Podcast!
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Intro and Outro music used with permission:

“For Everyone Born,” Community of Christ Sings #285. Music © 2006 Brian Mann, admin. General Board of Global Ministries t/a GBGMusik, 458 Ponce de Leon Avenue, Atlanta, GA 30308. copyright@umcmission.org

All music for this episode was performed by Dr. Jan Kraybill, and produced by Chad Godfrey.

NOTE: The series that make up the Project Zion Podcast explore the unique spiritual and theological gifts Community of Christ offers for today's world. Although Project Zion Podcast is a Ministry of Community of Christ. The views and opinions expressed in this episode are those speaking and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Community of Christ.

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Welcome to the Project Zion Podcast.

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This podcast explores the unique spiritual and theological gifts community of Christ offers for today's world.

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Welcome to Project Zion Podcast.

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I'm your host, Karin Peter.

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And today we've assembled a panel of folks who all come from a LDS background and are at varying points in their spiritual journeys.

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And our topic today for our conversation is the house church or small group experience.

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The house churches we're talking about today are groups that come together to share in a Community of Christ experience of worship, discussion and fellowship.

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And often I should add food.

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And they're all in the Utah and Southeast Idaho area where we have three house churches that meet on a regular schedule.

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And we are delighted to have folks from each of these groups with us today.

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So Diana Wake is with us and she's a BYU grad who has taught special ed and she has two young boys and she attends house church in Idaho Falls.

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Hi Diana.

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Hi Karen.

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Kimberly Petersen is also part of the Idaho Falls, a house church.

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She's an artist and a mom and right now is in her car.

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Waiting for her kids to finish haircuts, I believe so.

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Hi Kimberly.

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Hey! Thanks for having me.

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Good to have you here.

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Jason Eyre is a technology coordinator in Murray, Utah who I saw on Facebook, just won award and Jason facilitates the Utah County House Church and in an effort to provide transparency and full disclosure, he's also an editor and part of the Project Zion podcast family, so hi Jason.

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Hey Karn, it's great to be here tonight.

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Good to have you.

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Brian Whitney is a native of the great state of Washington.

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He now lives in Brigham City, Utah with his wife and family.

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Brian's an historian.

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He works at Greg Kofford books and also substitute teaches while he pursues a graduate degree in publishing.

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Hi Brian.

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Hello.

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Good to see everybody.

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It's nice to have our panel together o n this evening, so we're going to structure our conversation in this way.

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I'm going to ask each of you to share a little bit about your journey in relationship to a specific topic, and after you've shared w e'll ask anyone else who wants to respond to that particular question or topic t o share as well and compare or reflect on your own experience or your own understanding and how it has been similar or maybe on a divergent path.

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So we're going to go ahead and begin.

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Jason, we'll start with you.

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Can you describe for us kind of the house church experience?

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House Church isn't always in a house, is it?

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Nope.

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In our case it's actually in a house of worship.

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We use St Mary's Episcopal church in Provo, Utah and our House Church is very interesting.

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We usually have about eight to 10 people generally come.

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We meet on the second and fourth Sundays of each month in the evening, early evening I should say.

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And our topics are very interesting.

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We usually try to follow the lectionary and also we're covering the Enduring Principles this year.

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But it seems as each new person comes and brings their story and, and wants to come and just be with us, oftentimes it's just as powerful to hear their story and to focus and answer questions and be present.

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So House Church is definitely a lot more casual than a regular service and it's a lot more intimate being in that small setting together.

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And sounds like it's more focused on relationship building, but your, any others want to share, is your house church experience the same or is it different?

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So ours is very similar to Jason's in Logan, Utah.

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We also meet at a church.

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We meet at an Episcopalian church as well.

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St John's Episcopalian church.

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We meet on the first and third Sundays also in the early evening at about 4:30 PM.

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And we also follow the lectionary.

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We haven't gone, begun looking at the principles yet, but um, in like what Jason was saying, it, it's a nice small intimate group setting that sometimes just turns into a much needed support chat.

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Typically we do try to have some sort of a message and on the first Sundays we also have communion provided as well.

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Okay.

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Diana.

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Kimberly, is yours the same or different?

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Ours is different up in Idaho falls.

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We do meet in a house, we meet in someone's living room and ours is held on a Thursday.

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Um, so we have house church Thursday evening, but we also in the morning have coffee and get together.

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So sometimes not everyone can make it in the evening or not everyone can make it in coffee, but hopefully everyone can make it to one or the other.

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So you have a two part house church in Idaho falls.

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We do.

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Kimberly, anything to add to that?

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It's kind of nice to have it on a Thursday.

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It sort of gives you a chance to, I don't know, just something a little different I guess.

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For your evening, for your Thursday you mean?

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Yeah.

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So House Church, everybody kind of described it as a small, more intimate group of people and that's a wonderful kind of informal experience to get together.

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But I'm wondering, Diana, how did you hear about House Church?

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How did you know that people were meeting in Idaho falls?

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So I was interested in looking into other churches and I took my family to our nearest Community of Christ congregation one Sunday, which is down in Pocatello.

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And one of the members there told me there was a group that meets in her home in Idaho Falls and invited me to attend and I went and it's been great.

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So when she first told you about it and said, house church meets in your home?

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What did you think?

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I was surprised.

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I'd never heard of House Church before and I didn't know what to expect, but I ended up being really glad that there was a group that was closer to where I live, and I felt fortunate that a lot of the people there were also somewhere in the process of transitioning away from the LDS church.

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So it was a good fit for me.

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There was a lot we have in common.

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So anybody else want to share how you heard about the house church near you?

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My story is probably a little unique.

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I was living in rural Southern Utah and was living and went down to St.

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George to see the emerging secret congregation there and met Carla Long who's a pastor she was passing through and she told me that she was going to be in charge of House Church in Provo.

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I was halfway between the two at the time and decided to go to Provo because we met earlier and it was just a little bit easier to drive home early in the evening.

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And I also liked telling it every other week instead of every week.

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And then work brought me up to live in the Northern part of the Utah now.

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And it's been wonderful.

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I've, I've stuck to it.

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Jason, how far did you drive from where you live to go up to house church in Provo before you moved?

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So, so I was driving from Panguitch up to Provo and to be honest on Sunday, the roads weren't too bad on the back roads and the journey was pleasant, but it was about a three hour drive, two and a half to three hours.

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So that's a little bit different.

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You did what?

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I usually went to Costco.

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So then my wife wasn't so bugged by it.

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You combined house church with going to Costco.

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Perfect.

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So that's three hour drive is real different than five or 10 minutes to your local ward.

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And that takes a different kind of commitment to do that.

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What made you want to make that drive?

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So when I first started investigating Community of Christ and looking into it, I should say seeking is probably the better word.

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But I'd listened to Project Zion Podcast for many months and, with the help of the Infants on Thrones had done a pretty healthy deconstruction of my beliefs.

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And I just found myself trying to figure out, I knew that I wanted something more.

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I wanted to rebuild my spirituality.

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And uh, some of the work that John Hammer and others did in the podcast world really connected with me.

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And so that's what led me to look into Community of Christ.

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And that's what led me to go to Provo.

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I found that it really recharged my batteries well and it gave me a nice time to reflect and to journey as well.

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Thank you.

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Jason.

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Kimberly, how'd you hear about house church?

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So I was living in a really rural part of Idaho and had been in conversations with someone who had—another seeker—who had attended Community of Christ pretty frequently.

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And he and I had had some conversations about how he felt that the Community of Christ kind of held on to so much of what we loved about the Mormon church, but also got rid of a lot of things that we didn't love so much.

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And so I was interested in learning more about it when I lived then, lived there.

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And anyway, I eventually got added to a, you know, on the Facebook group and kind of lurked there for awhile, but never ever made it over to attend church in Pocatello, which was the nearest one to where I lived.

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But it wasn't long after I moved here, we moved to the Idaho Falls area and you know, just kinda had a hard time.

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You know, I've lost all my friends.

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I was starting over in a new town.

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I didn't have a community.

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And at that point somebody sent me a message saying,"Hey, you know that we have a house church that needs up there once a week or once a month.

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Right?" And I was like, no, I did not know that.

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I didn't, I'd never heard of house church.

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And so it took me a couple of months before I braved going, I'm super introverted.

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And so it's more about just, I don't like to leave my house then any other reason.

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But I finally attended and the, the first time I came, I was, I was very moved.

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It was a small group, but I enjoy the atmosphere.

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I enjoyed how intimate it was.

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U m, seeing women p ass communion was really an important moment for me.

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I knew that this happened in other churches.

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I knew that there were women who held the priesthood, but I had never actually seen it happen.

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And so that was kind of an important moment in my spiritual development.

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So that's kind of how I landed here.

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Okay.

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Now, Brian, your journey was a little bit different.

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Your kind of companionship walk with Community of Christ was a long time and when you joined Community of Christ, you already had the intent to attend house church.

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Is that pretty accurate.

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Yeah, so my relationship with Community of Christ began back in 2014 so about five years ago, six years ago now.

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Uh, when I started as a research fellow in Nauvoo and worked along with Lachlan Mackay and Christin and others out there on the historic site for the Joseph Smith Historic Sites.

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And I had been familiar with Community of Christ somewhat at that point.

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But this was my first real close experience.

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Following that I maintained a relationship with those that I spent time with out there, and I became an active participant of the John Whitmer Historical Association, which is sort of a historical association.

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It's independently connected with Community of Christ.

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As time went by, I just became increasingly dissatisfied with where I was in my own personal religious journey and relationship with the LDS church.

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And I had heard of the concept of how church before I many years ago, over a decade ago an evangelical friend was telling me that he was doing house church with his family.

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And you know, at the time I sort of pass it off as well then, you know, obviously you're not very satisfied with the church that you were either attending or any local churches.

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So, you know, I didn't realize that this was a movement.

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That the house church movement is intentional.

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It's not a byproduct of all of dissatisfaction.

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Um, always it's for many is a very intentional thing to do to create that kind of experience.

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Like we keep using the word intimate experience.

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So I had learned through the Latter-day Seekers, I want to say it was, and I'm actually looking at it right now.

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I want to say it was the website or it might've just been the Seekers group.

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I had learned that there was a house church that met in Logan.

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Um, at the time that I was confirmed as a member of Community of Christ.

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It was not meeting, uh, it was going to pick back up in the fall, which was about a month after my confirmation.

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So I reached out, at the time Blair White was the pastor who was overseeing both.

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He informed me that he was moving back to independence and that Carla Long would be overseeing the Logan House church.

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So I reached out to her and said, I just wanted to, you know, become an active participant of it and and support it as much as I could.

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And you have, so thank you with that.

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Although you did, before we started confess that you did not have house church in Logan on Sunday.

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That is correct.

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Uh, we decided to observe the high Holy day of Superbowl.

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So we canceled the, we canceled church house and I think it's, you know, in part because the Kansas City Chiefs were in the S uperbowl and u h, both Carla and Joelle Wight who is also part of the house church, that's their h ometown.

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So understandably, this was a pretty big weekend for them and me as well.

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I was, I was happy to spend some time watching Kansas City.

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Yes.

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And most of the church at headquarters in independence, Missouri, were pretty excited about the Kansas City Chiefs.

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That is indeed the case.

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So before you actually went, what were your expectations, Brian?

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What did you think this Logan House church was gonna be when it met for the first time that fall?

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You know I was— I really wasn't sure.

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I, I knew that it was g oing t o be mostly either former Latter-day Saints or, u m, current Latter-day Saints that are sort of stretching out for something in addition maybe to supplement their church experience.

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And I wasn't wrong about that.

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That is the case.

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The majority of those who are not in the pastorate, who are attending, are not members of Community of Christ officially.

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Most of them are still Latter-day Saints to some extent or another, whether they are continuing to attend or not.

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And you know, and that has mostly to do with the demographics of where we're at.

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I mean this is Logan, Utah.

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I t's what you would expect.

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It might not be the same thing if we were in New Hampshire.

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So it's, you know, it's very Latter-day Saint heavy and focused.

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The conversations that we have tend to drift towards sort of more of a support group for former Mormons.

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And I kind of expected that going in.

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I think I had expected a little more regular attendance than, u h, than what we get.

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It tends to be up and down—vacillates between as low as four people and as many as 12 on any given weekend depending on, you know, what team h as been in the playoffs, you know.

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But that's something that I've had to sort of adjust to because, you know, you go for a few weeks and there's a few people who show up and you wonder, is this, is this worthwhile to continue?

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You know, and I drive about a half hour there, but Carla and Joelle, they're driving over an hour to get there.

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And, so I always feel for them if the attendance isn't very well, u h, you know, i t isn't very high.

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I a lways feel like, man, they took a long trip up here for this, but they always seem to be very pleased to do it.

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So yeah, expectations, I think I expected, a gain, a little bit more regularity, but I'm hopeful that that will become an eventuality.

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So Kimberly, I want to jump back to you for a minute.

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You said earlier that being an introvert, it took you a while to decide to go.

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So what I want to know is, the house church you attend meets in someone's living room?

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How hard was it for you to make the decision to go and knock on someone's door where you'd never been before and you had no idea who was behind the door?

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It was a little hard, I'll be honest.

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And I really went with, with no expectations and I got there, I think, I can't remember.

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It seems like I was a minute late, so I didn't know if there'd be three people there, 10 people there or 50 people there.

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I really had no idea what to expect.

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And so I think the scariest thing for me was walking up and not knowing for sure if I was even at the right place.

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So yeah, it was a little intimidating to walk in there the first time.

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But I've never felt anything other than very welcome in Mary's house.

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She's, she's just the best.

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She's a really sweet lady and goes out of her way to make us all feel very at home in her, in her living room.

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And we'll give a big shout out to Mary.

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So when she listens to this podcast.

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She does a lot of work.

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She does, she does.

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Diana, you attend the same house church.

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In fact, you're one of our probably longest term members of that house church experience in Idaho falls.

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And so you spent a long time coming every month when it meets, when it might just be two or three people.

00:18:19.589 --> 00:18:20.519
What was that like?

00:18:20.549 --> 00:18:23.910
It surprised me at first I didn't know what to expect either.

00:18:23.911 --> 00:18:30.509
And I think the first time I went I just assumed that it was a group that had existed for a long time.

00:18:30.510 --> 00:18:36.150
And you know, there was a set group of people and it was pretty early on.

00:18:36.151 --> 00:18:40.319
I found out it had, you know, maybe been going for a few months.

00:18:40.410 --> 00:18:45.420
So I think at first I kind of expected that I could sit back and just watch.

00:18:45.421 --> 00:18:54.839
That had a lot of the time been my experience with church, especially as an adult, was kind of just kinda sit back, watch and listen to what other people are saying.

00:18:55.440 --> 00:18:58.170
Just isn't the case when you're in a small group.

00:18:58.230 --> 00:19:11.670
And so we all got to know each other pretty well pretty quickly and learned a lot about each other and each other's stories and found a lot of commonalities and things that we were going through or have been through.

00:19:11.789 --> 00:19:15.690
So there was like a very close connection.

00:19:15.691 --> 00:19:18.690
I feel like that develops a lot more quickly.

00:19:19.440 --> 00:19:35.549
Like Kimberly, I had been looking particularly for a community, I wasn't really sure what role I wanted religion to play, but I was feeling kind of spiritually homeless and felt like I needed people to be around.

00:19:35.550 --> 00:19:46.109
And so being in an environment where I could make friends and do some deconstruction and learn about other people's beliefs was really helpful.

00:19:48.180 --> 00:19:51.150
So you had mentioned that it Idaho Falls is a two parter.

00:19:51.269 --> 00:19:52.650
You have coffee before.

00:19:52.651 --> 00:20:01.799
So, Kimberly or Diana, what's the importance of that coffee time that you have in the morning, your two part house church?

00:20:04.049 --> 00:20:09.690
I think we just, we've gotten so close that we have so much to talk about that it just takes all day.

00:20:10.680 --> 00:20:14.069
Because it's not two or three people anymore.

00:20:14.549 --> 00:20:14.910
Yeah.

00:20:15.089 --> 00:20:35.039
I mean when we started in the evening, we start at seven and often we'll go till 10 o'clock just chatting and so at least getting, you know, a couple hours of that out of the way in the morning we can catch up and talk and hear what everybody's doing and what's going on and and have a really informal conversation.

00:20:35.040 --> 00:20:45.750
And then in the evening there's, there's space for a little more formal gathering but it still ends up being mostly conversation and connection with each other.

00:20:46.710 --> 00:20:47.220
Kimberly.

00:20:46.710 --> 00:21:10.569
I think the things too on having just that informal moment in the morning before we meet for a more formal house church is it kind of creates a nice transition point for people who maybe want to come and meet the group, find out a little bit about what they're about without feeling like they're going to be, I don't know, bombarded by religion or whatever and not that the Community of Christ—I don't feel like anyone has ever done that.

00:21:10.570 --> 00:21:14.799
But when you've never attended a church before, you don't know much about them.

00:21:14.800 --> 00:21:18.130
You don't really know what you're jumping into.

00:21:18.131 --> 00:21:42.910
And I feel like, especially in this area, there's a lot of people who are interested but they're pretty gun shy about, you know, what their involvement in a new group is going to be and so it kind of creates this nice middle place where you can go, you can meet the people, you can get to know them on almost more of a friend level before deciding to attend, you know, a more formal church in the evening.

00:21:42.940 --> 00:21:48.609
What I found though is almost everybody who has ever come for coffee has shown up for house church in the evening.

00:21:48.940 --> 00:22:04.210
Maybe not the same week, maybe not the same month, but eventually it seems like they all kind of make their way there so that that house church in the evening for the more formal church gathering where we have more of a chance to talk about more spiritual topics than you would in a Starbucks or a coffee shop.

00:22:04.809 --> 00:22:05.380
Okay.

00:22:06.279 --> 00:22:08.859
That's helpful to understand that a little bit more.

00:22:10.190 --> 00:22:21.220
I want to kind of shift a little bit in our conversation and you've all kind of mentioned your spiritual journey that you were at different places in your spiritual journey.

00:22:21.221 --> 00:22:23.589
So I think we'll just go around if that's okay.

00:22:23.590 --> 00:22:37.869
And I'm going to ask each of you, if you would just share how has attending house church impacted that spiritual journey and what's been most meaningful about it or anything else you'd like to share in that chain?

00:22:37.871 --> 00:22:39.970
So Jason, if it's okay, we'll start with you.

00:22:40.180 --> 00:22:43.150
I am now a member of community of Christ.

00:22:43.151 --> 00:22:47.950
I was confirmed into the house church i n P rovo.

00:22:47.960 --> 00:22:58.029
I'm the only real member w ho's been confirmed there, but I've found that the a ttending house c hurch f or me—I also attend a more formal congregation in Salt Lake.

00:22:58.509 --> 00:23:07.000
But I found that attending the house church in Provo has been a chance to just unwind and to reflect.

00:23:07.180 --> 00:23:16.750
And it's really...I've enjoyed seeing other people who may have been struggling where I was before or, or maybe coming through it and kind of going through that with them.

00:23:17.299 --> 00:23:25.029
I also enjoy seeing how some people respond to singing some of the Community of Christ hymns and other things for the first time.

00:23:25.539 --> 00:23:27.160
And house church has been a w ay to do that.

00:23:28.220 --> 00:23:33.109
The hymnal does have quite an effect on people, whether it's in house church or in a congregation.

00:23:34.039 --> 00:23:34.670
It does.

00:23:34.671 --> 00:23:41.599
And we try to use the hymnal and sing at least one song and we t ry to keep them simple and not get too carried away.

00:23:41.601 --> 00:23:50.210
But, b ut the music is more upbeat i n community of Christ, the h ymns are more modern and not, u h, not so slow.

00:23:50.211 --> 00:24:00.680
We u se the prerecorded h ymns, which are played extremely fast and, and I, and I do have to confess, some days it's been hard to read the words as fast as the song's moving along.

00:24:01.099 --> 00:24:03.619
But I've really enjoyed the beauty and the spirit of the music.

00:24:04.710 --> 00:24:06.299
Some of those are at a pretty good clip.

00:24:06.300 --> 00:24:07.980
I can, I can relate to that.

00:24:09.660 --> 00:24:11.609
So Kimberly, how about you?

00:24:11.611 --> 00:24:14.099
How has this impacted your spiritual journey?

00:24:16.259 --> 00:24:21.029
I think for me, I'm, I really relate to what Diana said about feeling a little bit homeless.

00:24:21.089 --> 00:24:24.990
My family is still very much connected to the LDS faith.

00:24:24.990 --> 00:24:26.400
I am, I am less so.

00:24:26.849 --> 00:24:29.640
But my family is; they are all members.

00:24:29.641 --> 00:24:50.039
They also, they also attend and I've kind of found that I have had a hard time finding that middle ground between people who are super, super connected and attending weekly and the people who have left and are just angry and all they want to do on either side is just talk about the Mormon faith.

00:24:50.460 --> 00:25:14.009
The thing that I feel house church really brings me is a space where I feel like there's so much focus on just the pure message of Christ at house church and it's been really fantastic to have a space that is so focused on that message that's so focused on the pure part of the gospel but makes space for lots of different types of people.

00:25:15.150 --> 00:25:25.710
it's been really important for me to have a space that's inclusive of LGBTQ people, people of other cultures, feminists, women who want a little bit more.

00:25:26.099 --> 00:25:30.960
Those are all things that were really lacking in the faith tradition I have come from.

00:25:31.410 --> 00:25:43.049
And that has felt like an empty place for me for a really long time to not have that, that inclusiveness, that, that safe space, but especially that focus on Christ while including all of those things.

00:25:43.440 --> 00:25:53.099
And at the same time, I've not felt comfortable, you know, in some of the other support groups that exist out there because that message of Christ—that focused on spirituality—just, it's missing.

00:25:53.101 --> 00:25:53.819
It's not there.

00:25:54.390 --> 00:26:04.500
And so house church really provides that space where that's what the focus should be is on, you know, how we do become closer to Christ, how we do become more like him.

00:26:04.500 --> 00:26:08.400
I really appreciated some of the things President Veazey said about.

00:26:08.401 --> 00:26:18.539
He talked in a podcast about being a prophetic people and all of the people in the Community of Christ that I've met so far have just embodied that in such a pure but humble way.

00:26:18.690 --> 00:26:22.079
And so it's been really, really great to have some connection to that.

00:26:24.170 --> 00:26:30.920
So, Brian, I saw you nodding as Kimberly was sharing, or there some points of connection in her story with your story.

00:26:32.599 --> 00:26:33.410
Well, sure.

00:26:33.440 --> 00:26:33.799
Yeah.

00:26:33.859 --> 00:26:38.480
And I'm expecting to, uh, to, to be asked about it.

00:26:38.480 --> 00:26:53.700
So I didn't really put my thoughts together on it, but I mean, a lot of agreement, um, particularly you see a lot of people when they do leave a tradition like the Latter-day Saint church, which, you know, it's a kind of church that permeates your life in many areas.

00:26:54.029 --> 00:27:10.920
And it's almost like being a Jew in a sense that you have this sort of cultural identity that goes along with it and family that, you know, can be impacted by your decision to distance yourself from the church.

00:27:10.921 --> 00:27:22.559
It's not like it's, it's not like growing up in the Presbyterian church and deciding that you want to go to the Lutheran church down the street instead, you know, where there's oftentimes a little bit more acceptance.

00:27:23.819 --> 00:27:29.940
At least there's this, um, there may maybe an eyebrow raise, but there's this, well they essentially believe the same things that we believe.

00:27:29.941 --> 00:27:31.230
So that's, you know, that's fine.

00:27:31.859 --> 00:27:34.920
Whereas for Latter-day Saints, that's not the case.

00:27:34.921 --> 00:27:41.430
It's"this is it." And, when you leave"this," then you're really choosing to leave Christ's church.

00:27:41.431 --> 00:27:44.339
That can become a real strain.

00:27:44.579 --> 00:27:54.990
And, because of the very high density of Latter-day Saints here in the Utah, Idaho area.

00:27:55.680 --> 00:27:59.279
And it's such a culturally dominating force out here.

00:27:59.849 --> 00:28:06.599
U m, you can feel a bit like a lost wandering sheep without a community.

00:28:06.869 --> 00:28:19.319
When y ou h ave decided that you, for whatever reason, for a personal, ethical, moral, theological, historical reasons decide that you can't continue participating with the Latter-day Saint church.

00:28:19.320 --> 00:28:43.710
And, you know, to find that sense of community with other people can be difficult, particularly when they are so angry and y ou've, you know, we see these groups on Facebook, we see different podcasts or whatever that you know, that they can tend to fuel the anger and people lose connection with spirituality.

00:28:43.950 --> 00:28:50.130
I see a lot of people that ended up just becoming, you know, I, I'm not g oing t o say atheist.

00:28:50.279 --> 00:28:59.880
I mean you do see that too, but you see a lot of people who just say, religion just doesn't work for me anymore and I'm not going to participate, in any religion.

00:29:00.750 --> 00:29:06.720
And, a lot of people I would say would still consider themselves spiritual, but they're just not interested in religion.

00:29:07.380 --> 00:29:16.079
For me, I've, I enjoy religious community and, part of it is just I'm a religious nerd.

00:29:16.230 --> 00:29:19.710
I enjoy the religious experience.

00:29:19.711 --> 00:29:23.670
I enjoy the liturgy of religion.

00:29:23.700 --> 00:29:25.980
I'm kind of a high church geek.

00:29:26.009 --> 00:29:34.500
I like things like, you know, having, the smells a nd the b ells and the, a nd the call and response and those types of things.

00:29:34.769 --> 00:29:37.890
But at the same time, it's also easy too.

00:29:39.181 --> 00:29:45.490
And I do enjoy attending those types of things, f rom time to time, particularly around the holidays or around different festivals.

00:29:45.970 --> 00:29:59.650
But it's also easy to just become a l ost participant in those t oo, where you're just sort of sitting in the back enjoying the experience almost as if you're going to a theater or you know, a performance and then leaving.

00:29:59.740 --> 00:30:02.859
And that's, you don't have a connection with anybody there.

00:30:03.160 --> 00:30:06.430
You don't have a sense of community with anybody built there.

00:30:06.700 --> 00:30:14.349
You're just at that point just really enjoying the presentation of t he religious experience, which is fine.

00:30:14.680 --> 00:30:15.400
I enjoy that.

00:30:16.000 --> 00:30:33.309
But I crave community and I think one thing I like about house church, particularly the way that we have it set up right now with where we are, you know, meeting in the Episcopalian church, t hat you do have that feeling of walking into a church building, which has its ups and downs.

00:30:33.579 --> 00:30:36.430
I think that the intimacy of t he living room is also very beneficial.

00:30:37.059 --> 00:30:43.839
But there is a liturgical structure to what we do house church.

00:30:44.140 --> 00:30:46.420
We do follow the common lectionary.

00:30:46.720 --> 00:30:53.650
We do have sort of a laid out plan of how the worship service is g oing t o go.

00:30:53.890 --> 00:30:56.200
And it follows a pretty common liturgy structure.

00:30:56.950 --> 00:31:07.480
At the same time, we're a very small group where Diana was mentioning that, you know, when you're in that environment, you have to participate.

00:31:07.509 --> 00:31:16.660
It's not really, you k ind o f feel, you're g onna feel pretty awkward if you're sitting there a nd saying nothing when there's only four of you to answer the questions that are being put out.

00:31:16.990 --> 00:31:32.259
So it can be a little discomforting for some people to know that they're gonna—they're going to be asking questions about their spirituality, about their joys, about their trials, about their concerns, about their God moments in life.

00:31:32.289 --> 00:31:36.490
And you know, you're probably gonna w ant t o say something about that.

00:31:36.490 --> 00:31:38.559
And for some people that's not very comforting.

00:31:38.799 --> 00:31:43.690
Of course, they'll never force you to, if you do decide to pass, e verybody i s going to be super gentle.

00:31:44.589 --> 00:31:55.029
But at the same time I think, you know, you'll end up probably wanting to say something and that can be really, that can really be healing once you start opening up on those things.

00:31:55.900 --> 00:31:58.869
I'm not the kind of person who likes really cheesy spiritual practices.

00:31:59.710 --> 00:32:03.880
You know, II don't like things for me.

00:32:03.910 --> 00:32:11.109
I call them cheesy and that might offend some people, but I'm not a big fan of like deep thought meditation type practices.

00:32:11.529 --> 00:32:15.460
But sometimes we do those and I'm not going to reject it.

00:32:15.461 --> 00:32:25.299
I'm going to just accept it and do it and then I find a benefit in it that I probably wouldn't have considered if I was in a larger group where I c ould h ave opted out more easily.

00:32:25.990 --> 00:32:28.630
So it forces me to stretch a little bit, which is good.

00:32:30.369 --> 00:32:31.180
It is good.

00:32:31.269 --> 00:32:38.230
I'm with you on the spiritual practices, Brian, but I find benefit in them as well when I force myself to participate.

00:32:38.529 --> 00:32:40.549
So you're not alone in that.

00:32:41.000 --> 00:32:43.460
So all our listeners now know our little secret.

00:32:44.509 --> 00:32:53.059
So Diane, I want to go back and Brian mentioned that you had said in a bigger church you can sit in the back and not have to participate.

00:32:53.089 --> 00:32:57.349
Obviously that has not been your experience and coming to house church.

00:32:58.160 --> 00:33:00.680
So how has it impacted you?

00:33:00.809 --> 00:33:09.210
So I've been going for about a year and a half and in that time a lot has changed for me personally and religiously.

00:33:09.211 --> 00:33:20.579
And so initially it was a place where I could deconstruct my beliefs and look at that and kind of tear things apart a little bit and try and figure out what it is.

00:33:20.640 --> 00:33:24.630
And now I feel like it's a place where I'm reconstructing beliefs.

00:33:25.109 --> 00:33:33.329
I have a new place where I can look at things that were so different to me in the LDS church.

00:33:33.750 --> 00:33:46.529
Whether it's scriptures or hymns or communion, all of these things that I experienced in the LDS church, but being able to look at them in a new light and hear what they mean to someone else and to someone else's religion.

00:33:47.309 --> 00:34:17.730
And part of what I love is that everyone I've met in Community of Christ basically tells me,"Well, yeah, this is what we believe, but I believe this a little differently and I believe you know this and you can believe whatever you want." And so I feel like I can listen to everyone else's experiences and their thoughts and I can come to my own conclusions about how I feel right now and know that that's going to change and evolve and that that's totally okay.

00:34:18.239 --> 00:34:29.219
So I feel, um, I feel like there's this authenticity that has been part of it, finding spiritual authenticity and growth in a really personal way.

00:34:29.639 --> 00:34:51.750
And I think a lot of the time our discussions become really, really practical and applicable instead of just looking at something, looking at scriptures just in the scriptural context, whether we're talking about politics or social justice or the environment.

00:34:51.751 --> 00:35:01.289
There's so many things that I couldn't necessarily relate to religion and spirituality before in the LDS church.

00:35:01.769 --> 00:35:08.579
And now I have space to figure out how all of that fits in, with my spiritual beliefs.

00:35:10.690 --> 00:35:25.480
So you called yourself a spiritually homeless when you first decided to go to Pocatello and then that led to the house church experience, how would you, would you, name where you are now?

00:35:25.630 --> 00:35:28.000
You've gone from spiritual wholeness to what?

00:35:29.869 --> 00:35:34.519
I do consider house church is a spiritual home.

00:35:34.521 --> 00:35:37.099
I feel like it's a safe place.

00:35:37.260 --> 00:35:44.400
It's a, it's an open place, but it's also a place where I can grow and change.

00:35:44.400 --> 00:35:47.789
And it doesn't have to be stagnant or stay the same either.

00:35:50.320 --> 00:36:15.980
I want to ask one more kind of question and open it up to everyone and just ask you, what would you say to someone who is listening to this and had been thinking about attending house church near them and then certainly they can find themselves in your stories.

00:36:15.170 --> 00:36:19.039
What would you say to them out of your own experience?

00:36:19.389 --> 00:36:20.469
I'll jump in on this.

00:36:21.010 --> 00:36:29.050
I would, I would say the main thing that people should know is that it's super, super low pressure.

00:36:29.800 --> 00:36:43.239
That's been one of the things that I've kind of appreciated the most is there's just such this feeling of whatever you are, wherever you're at, you're at whatever you need, we're here for you in whatever capacity you need us to be.

00:36:43.240 --> 00:36:52.210
In fact, that was something that one of the leaders of our church specifically said is if you need to be here for community, please come find community.

00:36:52.210 --> 00:36:57.070
If you need to be here to come closer to Christ, you can do that here.

00:36:57.699 --> 00:37:13.239
Um, and so it's pretty, that's one thing I kind of appreciate about the house church experience is it provides community and yet leaves space for spiritual sovereignty because we're all going to be on different places on our spiritual journeys, whatever that means.

00:37:13.240 --> 00:37:16.750
Whether we're seekers, whether we're confirmed, whatever it is.

00:37:16.809 --> 00:37:30.309
I mean I think there's people who have been in the church before, you know, decades, generations since they were born and they're on different places then people who were also in the church for decades, for generations since they were born in.

00:37:30.311 --> 00:37:32.590
That's just kind of how, how it is.

00:37:32.590 --> 00:37:52.389
But that openness to be wherever you're at and for it to be whatever you need it to be is something that I think should make it inviting to anybody that it's, it's very low pressure and it is going to, it's going to have what you bring to it, but it's also going to be what you need it to be.

00:37:54.750 --> 00:37:55.590
Thanks Kimberly.

00:37:55.679 --> 00:37:57.300
Anybody else want to jump in on that?

00:37:58.780 --> 00:38:01.570
I htink it's important for people to know that house church is there for them.

00:38:02.590 --> 00:38:16.900
And I'm kinda like Kimberly said or may have been Diana, but it is a little bit hard to go the first time you had it goes against what you've thought and what you've learned as far as not going to other churches and only true church and those kinds of things.

00:38:17.590 --> 00:38:23.199
But once you get there, you'll find that the people, many of us have been there, we get it.

00:38:23.769 --> 00:38:32.800
And we still continue to have house churches to continue to worship together and the community in an effort to help people get through these types of challenges.

00:38:33.369 --> 00:38:50.050
And the, the other thing that's important and, and it's hard when you've come from a church that focuses its mission solely on proselytizing and, and grow and those types of things, that mission in Community of Christ looks very different.

00:38:50.260 --> 00:38:58.900
It did, it looks more community focused, but it also looks more like, um, I'm trying to think of the word.

00:38:59.349 --> 00:39:05.800
It looks more like your, your individual service and your individual experience and journey with God.

00:39:05.800 --> 00:39:08.079
And that isn't just all about the big end.

00:39:08.559 --> 00:39:12.730
It's about living the life we're in now and getting the most out of that.

00:39:14.539 --> 00:39:15.650
In Community of Christ.

00:39:15.710 --> 00:39:18.619
That's kind of our understanding of what Zion is right?

00:39:19.150 --> 00:39:23.000
Living the reign of Christ, living the kingdom of God on earth now.

00:39:24.349 --> 00:39:25.130
Thanks Jason.

00:39:25.219 --> 00:39:25.760
Anybody else?

00:39:27.210 --> 00:39:28.949
Sure, I'll take a whack at it.

00:39:31.139 --> 00:39:34.260
I can promise you that if you come to house church, you're going to make a friend.

00:39:35.369 --> 00:39:38.099
Everybody is very welcoming.

00:39:38.489 --> 00:39:43.380
When you're in a small group like this, it can be a little less overwhelming, a little less threatening.

00:39:43.710 --> 00:39:45.929
You have more time to be open with each other.

00:39:46.650 --> 00:40:01.380
I think that you have an opportunity to be more authentic with each other than you do when you are sometimes attending a traditional Sunday service at a larger church where you may not speak to anybody.

00:40:01.380 --> 00:40:05.760
You may get a few glad handshakes and thanks for coming and are you visiting this weekend?

00:40:06.630 --> 00:40:07.380
And that's about it.

00:40:07.380 --> 00:40:10.500
Then you wander away and say, well, it was a nice experience.

00:40:10.559 --> 00:40:19.110
But when you come to house church, you're going to get into conversations with people about your personal life, about your background, about the things that matter to you.

00:40:18.780 --> 00:40:30.059
And you'll find a lot of commonality because most of us are coming at it from the same perspective of people who were not being spiritually fed.

00:40:30.179 --> 00:40:45.269
And so we came together to try to find, again that sort of sense of community to rebuild our faith, to rebuild our relationship with church, with the savior, with each other, and in a safe place that we can trust each other.

00:40:46.170 --> 00:40:59.460
There's vulnerability, um, that is possible I think in these settings that is sometimes very difficult, if not impossible to find in a larger group setting in a traditional church setting.

00:40:59.460 --> 00:41:05.670
So be willing to be authentic, be willing to be vulnerable.

00:41:05.699 --> 00:41:14.070
And I think that you'll find that, that you'll be treated very caringly and lovingly and it's a really good place to land.

00:41:14.340 --> 00:41:32.730
So I'm just wondering, I meet a lot of people who come from an LDS background and usually by the time our conversation ends they have told me something about Community of Christ or about meeting a Community of Christ person that has surprised them.

00:41:34.099 --> 00:41:40.760
So I'm going to ask you, what surprised you about coming to a Community of Christ House church?

00:41:42.739 --> 00:41:44.059
Is that for me or is that open?

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Anybody.

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