I think corporate worship is important. At least to me, it gives new people a chance to see what the entire church is about, and there are benefits to having a permanent facility to do it in. You can have meetings of different groups at different times and everybody knows where it is. You can make your church available to the community for non-church functions, such as boy scout or girl scout troops meeting there. IMO a church should be part of the community and benefit the community.
I also like small groups that meet in the homes, maybe just three or four families.
If you want to use an OT example, Moses at his father-in-law's wise advice, broke Israel into groups, then smaller groups from those groups, etc.
It's not just about outreach, it's about individual growth, which can often happen best in a small group where people can also be encouraged, study together, pray together, laugh together and grow together. Then come to corporate worship and see the bigger picture.
Here's a web page that does some of the legwork for you in catergorizing and listing pertinent versers regarding the first century church and where they met.
I went to a church last week, I hadn't attended a church service in 30 yrs. This church has gathering's on Sundays and home fellowship's. Thier home fellowships are listed on thier website and it gives a brief description for each; singles, over 50,what topic they are studying. The service Sunday was a continued look at thier theme teaching," Overcomming Hangup's". I thought it was pretty cool because there was no real doctrine taught. They had live music and some sharing's, very little scripture and a huge screen that displayed verses. They use THursday nights for deeper discussions and more doctrinal teaching...they also have online classes to order. Mainly Sunday's is for just hanging out and meeting new people. THey have a huge coffee and juice bar and it is set up like a lounge. To bad they teach the Trinity.
I have an acquaintance whose parents are Baptist missionaries in Brazil. They've been there for more than 20 years; he was raised there. He said their church saw steady growth and split twice while he was there, but there was a small group in the same community (didn't name them) who met in their home, spoke in tongues, and howled a lot. Every time he saw people go to the home it was the same people year after year, maybe 10 or so.
What I'm getting at is, there's nothing wrong with Baptists and there's nothing wrong with home fellowships, but you're never "set for life". If you go to a big church, you tend to lose your individuality; if you go to a home fellowship, you tend to get narrow minded. Either way, you have to make adjustments from time to time.
I went to a Baptist church in MI once where they moaned and grunted as part of the "worship". It was damn weird; kinda creeped me out. The same people who moaned and made noises were all smiles after the service and "Oh, bless yewww". Weird, I tell you. But I've been to home fellowships where they SIT and nobody howled. Like VP said, a church is comprised of people, not a building.
I think one naive mistake a lot of us made was to think we were "set for life" in TWI. That VP wouldn't die, there would be no schism among us, that 'Jesus utopia way style' would just go on forever.
I have an acquaintance whose parents are Baptist missionaries in Brazil. They've been there for more than 20 years; he was raised there. He said their church saw steady growth and split twice while he was there, but there was a small group in the same community (didn't name them) who met in their home, spoke in tongues, and howled a lot.
There's a congregation of Charismatic Christian werewolves in Brazil???
I think one naive mistake a lot of us made was to think we were "set for life" in TWI. That VP wouldn't die, there would be no schism among us, that 'Jesus utopia way style' would just go on forever.
Not sure about *naive*.............BUT, there sure was alot of corps coordinators pushing wierwille/mog worship as a staple to the corps indoctrination.
And, thus.......as corps went forth, we spewed forth THAT WHICH WE HAD SEEN AND HEARD.
The TWI model wasn't in and of itself bad or unbiblical IMHO, and wasn't really all that different from a big church that had home fellowships or home bible studies as part of its setup. In the areas where TWI saw large growth you had your twig that met in the home several times a week, then you had your branch meetings that met once a week or once a month, Area/Territory meetings a few times a year and your annual limb meetings and the ROA; you weren't cut off from the larger body of your denomination.
Of course as TWI started to shrink numerically a whole state could meet in one living room.
The regular home fellowship combined with periodic meetings with a larger group sems to me to be a biblical model, how it was administered in TWI (especially in the 90's and later) is another story.
In Cleveland, in the early 1970s, we had both. (twigs and large meetings.)
Twigs were often impromptu but had regularly scheduled times through the week.
Branch meetings were held every Sunday night.
We rented out a large meeting room.
Actually, the branch meetings encompassed two branches, Cleveland and Lorain.
Simple geography was the primary reason there were two branches instead of one.
Cleveland was at the center and Lorain was maybe 20 or 30 miles west.
There was also a third area that was about 20 miles east but it never really grew beyond a couple twigs.
HQ was always on us to try to get people to let us use facilities for free for classes and branch meetings.
Usage payments came from New Knoxville.
At that point in time, TWI did not own property other than New Knockwurst.
When "newbies" inquired why we did not have permanent facilities, we were instructed to tell them it was because it enabled us to be "dynamic" and go were God instructed us to go. <_<
HQ was always on us to try to get people to let us use facilities for free for classes and branch meetings.
Usage payments came from New Knoxville.
At that point in time, TWI did not own property other than New Knockwurst.
When "newbies" inquired why we did not have permanent facilities, we were instructed to tell them it was because it enabled us to be "dynamic" and go were God instructed us to go. <_<
I got frustrated, not so much with not having a building, but with every friggin' meeting having to be at some place FREE. We met at some raunchy places because TWI wouldn't pay for us to meet someplace decent. Being in Florida, we met outside at local parks a bunch. Usually it was TOO HOT outside and extremely uncomfortable, but there was also the possibility that we'd get rained out.
I did get sun poisoning at one meeting and told my ex that I refuse to go to any more outdoor meetings.
We had found a couple of libraries that rented out meeting space for free - a couple of churches, too, but TWI leaders refused to meet in a church and, for some reason, didn't use the library that much. When my ex and I complained about all the wasted time looking for new, free places to meet (yes, we were tasked with that chore) we were told that people got "too complacent" meeting at the same place all the time.
I told my ex I'd rather be going to a church where I don't have to spend three weeks looking for, then three hours cleaning before every meeting. That didn't go over very well.....
There's MUCH benefit to having a brick & mortar church building. Meeting in the homes is fine, but people need a "church home" if they are going to be having meetings all the time for various group sizes.
I met a guy in a park he invited me to a party, i said ok the next night i got dressed up and went to one of the most expensive motels in this city for a "coffee house". no way no way was it "free" , or in the least inexpensive it was beautiful, and this was just a coffee house where folks sang and did skits. no teaching.
of course the green card was on every table and plenty of class endorsement and i did take the pfal class after that a few weeks later after going to twig for a month or so.
things must have changed in New york we had large meetings very large with thousands of folks, many getting rooms in the hotel where the branch was being held. beautiful facilities.
the renewed mind class was held in another beautiful hotel with great meals being served no buffet style nope this was a sit down dinner with choices had to be a few hundred people there.
always a beautiful place.
in the 90's we had a branch meeting and it was quite a distance away not to far and in a smaller room and cheaper hotel but still very nice, no food. in the 80's oh yes we lived grand for the classes. now here many of the believers had grand homes and owned business that allowed them to entertain for the class in style. always nice food and great homes very large .
i never found twi to be "cheap", im sorry about all that boarding room story man that is bad.. never happened here tho.
i imagine as the number of people declined the facilities declined because of lack of money.
but in the early 80's man it was always high time and no spence spared, like i said tho we had alot of wealthy folks in this area and they may have picked up the tab.
We had some pretty lavish parties from time to time, also.
They were always funded by private benefactors that were recruited by the believers.
So you see, it still didn't cost TWI anything if one of these events took place.
It was my experience that people who provided funds for such things were often people who had positions of responsibility, such as doctors and bank presidents and that sort of thing.
They were usually(at least in the instances I observed) people who knew they could not just up and "go WOW".
I think this may have been a way of giving to a cause they believed in because they knew they were tied to their responsibilities.
Coffee houses had a very definate purpose behind them.
They were designed to bring new people into a non threatening environment.
(Like the spider and the fly)
There is no question that a great time was had by many attendees.
But, if you were involved at a level that went beyond the casual twig attendee(Involved in the actual running of it or performing at it) you were well aware that it was not supposed to be a time for you to let your hair down and just have fun. Its purpose was clearly to bring "newbies" into the fold through the process of assimilation.
I don't know when home bible studies started at TWI.
Starting in the 80's it was becoming more and more popular with established church's(...ie Southern Baptist) in the 80's.
I have been part of two different churches that tried it and helped one missionary in Mexico who has been using it to great success.
My church now has a Sunday morning service and Sunday evening cell groups. It builds and strengthens more than church. It does because it forces us to actually live what we say at home. It also is a lot less intimidating to get someone to your house than a church.
My personal thoughts are that old VP may have been ahead of the curve.
Doesn't mater to me because you'll never catch me at TWI again.
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WordWolf
Seems to me that home churches are the obvious approach for vpw to use.
He never believed in spending a single penny on people that couldn't be done without.
If they met in living rooms, the group didn't have to pay for facilities.
Mind you, setting up permanent church facilities in areas would have benefitted the Christians locally,
and could have increased outreach, and served the community.
However, that wasn't a good tradeoff for not getting money in his hands, as vpw saw it.
Although he WAS fine with buying houses in areas, which generated income (rent) besides
serving as pseudo church facilities.
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Watered Garden
I think corporate worship is important. At least to me, it gives new people a chance to see what the entire church is about, and there are benefits to having a permanent facility to do it in. You can have meetings of different groups at different times and everybody knows where it is. You can make your church available to the community for non-church functions, such as boy scout or girl scout troops meeting there. IMO a church should be part of the community and benefit the community.
I also like small groups that meet in the homes, maybe just three or four families.
If you want to use an OT example, Moses at his father-in-law's wise advice, broke Israel into groups, then smaller groups from those groups, etc.
It's not just about outreach, it's about individual growth, which can often happen best in a small group where people can also be encouraged, study together, pray together, laugh together and grow together. Then come to corporate worship and see the bigger picture.
Just my experience and observation.
WG
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now I see
Here's a web page that does some of the legwork for you in catergorizing and listing pertinent versers regarding the first century church and where they met.
click here
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likeaneagle
I went to a church last week, I hadn't attended a church service in 30 yrs. This church has gathering's on Sundays and home fellowship's. Thier home fellowships are listed on thier website and it gives a brief description for each; singles, over 50,what topic they are studying. The service Sunday was a continued look at thier theme teaching," Overcomming Hangup's". I thought it was pretty cool because there was no real doctrine taught. They had live music and some sharing's, very little scripture and a huge screen that displayed verses. They use THursday nights for deeper discussions and more doctrinal teaching...they also have online classes to order. Mainly Sunday's is for just hanging out and meeting new people. THey have a huge coffee and juice bar and it is set up like a lounge. To bad they teach the Trinity.
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johniam
I have an acquaintance whose parents are Baptist missionaries in Brazil. They've been there for more than 20 years; he was raised there. He said their church saw steady growth and split twice while he was there, but there was a small group in the same community (didn't name them) who met in their home, spoke in tongues, and howled a lot. Every time he saw people go to the home it was the same people year after year, maybe 10 or so.
What I'm getting at is, there's nothing wrong with Baptists and there's nothing wrong with home fellowships, but you're never "set for life". If you go to a big church, you tend to lose your individuality; if you go to a home fellowship, you tend to get narrow minded. Either way, you have to make adjustments from time to time.
I went to a Baptist church in MI once where they moaned and grunted as part of the "worship". It was damn weird; kinda creeped me out. The same people who moaned and made noises were all smiles after the service and "Oh, bless yewww". Weird, I tell you. But I've been to home fellowships where they SIT and nobody howled. Like VP said, a church is comprised of people, not a building.
I think one naive mistake a lot of us made was to think we were "set for life" in TWI. That VP wouldn't die, there would be no schism among us, that 'Jesus utopia way style' would just go on forever.
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WordWolf
There's a congregation of Charismatic Christian werewolves in Brazil???
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skyrider
Not sure about *naive*.............BUT, there sure was alot of corps coordinators pushing wierwille/mog worship as a staple to the corps indoctrination.
And, thus.......as corps went forth, we spewed forth THAT WHICH WE HAD SEEN AND HEARD.
Yeeeuuuuuuukkkk.
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Oakspear
The TWI model wasn't in and of itself bad or unbiblical IMHO, and wasn't really all that different from a big church that had home fellowships or home bible studies as part of its setup. In the areas where TWI saw large growth you had your twig that met in the home several times a week, then you had your branch meetings that met once a week or once a month, Area/Territory meetings a few times a year and your annual limb meetings and the ROA; you weren't cut off from the larger body of your denomination.
Of course as TWI started to shrink numerically a whole state could meet in one living room.
The regular home fellowship combined with periodic meetings with a larger group sems to me to be a biblical model, how it was administered in TWI (especially in the 90's and later) is another story.
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excathedra
i don't know but get rid of the new knoxville outfit
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waysider
In Cleveland, in the early 1970s, we had both. (twigs and large meetings.)
Twigs were often impromptu but had regularly scheduled times through the week.
Branch meetings were held every Sunday night.
We rented out a large meeting room.
Actually, the branch meetings encompassed two branches, Cleveland and Lorain.
Simple geography was the primary reason there were two branches instead of one.
Cleveland was at the center and Lorain was maybe 20 or 30 miles west.
There was also a third area that was about 20 miles east but it never really grew beyond a couple twigs.
HQ was always on us to try to get people to let us use facilities for free for classes and branch meetings.
Usage payments came from New Knoxville.
At that point in time, TWI did not own property other than New Knockwurst.
When "newbies" inquired why we did not have permanent facilities, we were instructed to tell them it was because it enabled us to be "dynamic" and go were God instructed us to go. <_<
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Belle
I got frustrated, not so much with not having a building, but with every friggin' meeting having to be at some place FREE. We met at some raunchy places because TWI wouldn't pay for us to meet someplace decent. Being in Florida, we met outside at local parks a bunch. Usually it was TOO HOT outside and extremely uncomfortable, but there was also the possibility that we'd get rained out.
I did get sun poisoning at one meeting and told my ex that I refuse to go to any more outdoor meetings.
We had found a couple of libraries that rented out meeting space for free - a couple of churches, too, but TWI leaders refused to meet in a church and, for some reason, didn't use the library that much. When my ex and I complained about all the wasted time looking for new, free places to meet (yes, we were tasked with that chore) we were told that people got "too complacent" meeting at the same place all the time.
I told my ex I'd rather be going to a church where I don't have to spend three weeks looking for, then three hours cleaning before every meeting. That didn't go over very well.....
There's MUCH benefit to having a brick & mortar church building. Meeting in the homes is fine, but people need a "church home" if they are going to be having meetings all the time for various group sizes.
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waysider
I got assigned to go live, not commute, in an area that was 50-60 miles from home.
(By myself, not as a WOW.)
I was supposed to run classes and coordinate a couple twigs that already existed.
I quit my job and rolled into a very small town with nothing more than my car and a suitcase.
Not only were jobs very scarce, but I had to take one that fit the "ministry" hours.
The job I found was minimum wage.
Money was pretty tight so I took a room in a boarding house.
There was one phone in the house and it was not really for the boarders use.
Almost any call outside of town was long distance.
One day, somebody at HQ called that phone and left a message for me to call HQ, ASAP.
I went to the pay phone on the corner and started loading in my coins.
I don't remember who I talked to but they told me that Dr. W. and some other VIPs were coming into town in a week.
They said I needed to find a meeting place and rooms for, I think, 5 or 6 people to stay overnight.
-----ALL FREE!-----
Plus, I had to try to promote it on a local level by maybe getting some posters up(That part never happened.)
I made arrangements with the lady who owned the house to allow me to use her phone to make calls.
The agreement was that I would pay for all of them when the bill came.
After countless hours of calling here and there, I finally had what they had requested.
The day before it was all scheduled to take place, I got another call informing me it was called off.
It cost me almost a whole weeks pay to cover that phone bill.
Do you think I ever saw one thin dime of reimbursement?
Like Exie says--hahahahahahhahahaha!
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pond
this must ave been later than me.
I met a guy in a park he invited me to a party, i said ok the next night i got dressed up and went to one of the most expensive motels in this city for a "coffee house". no way no way was it "free" , or in the least inexpensive it was beautiful, and this was just a coffee house where folks sang and did skits. no teaching.
of course the green card was on every table and plenty of class endorsement and i did take the pfal class after that a few weeks later after going to twig for a month or so.
things must have changed in New york we had large meetings very large with thousands of folks, many getting rooms in the hotel where the branch was being held. beautiful facilities.
the renewed mind class was held in another beautiful hotel with great meals being served no buffet style nope this was a sit down dinner with choices had to be a few hundred people there.
always a beautiful place.
in the 90's we had a branch meeting and it was quite a distance away not to far and in a smaller room and cheaper hotel but still very nice, no food. in the 80's oh yes we lived grand for the classes. now here many of the believers had grand homes and owned business that allowed them to entertain for the class in style. always nice food and great homes very large .
i never found twi to be "cheap", im sorry about all that boarding room story man that is bad.. never happened here tho.
i imagine as the number of people declined the facilities declined because of lack of money.
but in the early 80's man it was always high time and no spence spared, like i said tho we had alot of wealthy folks in this area and they may have picked up the tab.
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waysider
Pond
That incident took place in 1974 or 75.
We had some pretty lavish parties from time to time, also.
They were always funded by private benefactors that were recruited by the believers.
So you see, it still didn't cost TWI anything if one of these events took place.
It was my experience that people who provided funds for such things were often people who had positions of responsibility, such as doctors and bank presidents and that sort of thing.
They were usually(at least in the instances I observed) people who knew they could not just up and "go WOW".
I think this may have been a way of giving to a cause they believed in because they knew they were tied to their responsibilities.
Coffee houses had a very definate purpose behind them.
They were designed to bring new people into a non threatening environment.
(Like the spider and the fly)
There is no question that a great time was had by many attendees.
But, if you were involved at a level that went beyond the casual twig attendee(Involved in the actual running of it or performing at it) you were well aware that it was not supposed to be a time for you to let your hair down and just have fun. Its purpose was clearly to bring "newbies" into the fold through the process of assimilation.
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ex70sHouston
I don't know when home bible studies started at TWI.
Starting in the 80's it was becoming more and more popular with established church's(...ie Southern Baptist) in the 80's.
I have been part of two different churches that tried it and helped one missionary in Mexico who has been using it to great success.
My church now has a Sunday morning service and Sunday evening cell groups. It builds and strengthens more than church. It does because it forces us to actually live what we say at home. It also is a lot less intimidating to get someone to your house than a church.
My personal thoughts are that old VP may have been ahead of the curve.
Doesn't mater to me because you'll never catch me at TWI again.
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