I often feel in the Christian life we tend to think how better things would have been had we done things a bit differently in the past. Yet I believe we deceive ourselves by doing so. We can all trace mistakes stemming from errors in judgement or with decisions made that may have been influenced by pride, greed, arrogance or whatever. But in the providence of God each church has the membership it has in the location it is in facing the problems that it faces with the Lord as the Vinedresser pruning and cutting in order to cultivate the vine and thus produce more fruit.

The church I currently belong to was the daughter church of another Baptist church in the suburbs of Belfast which in turn was a daughter church of one from the centre of Belfast. I would like to think that as we grow, once our numbers reach 120+ (we are currently around 40) or so that we would then plant a daughter church. I would see this starting as a house group in an area before meeting in a public rented location.

The leadership in a situation like this needs to be stable, the mother church needs to be supportive without pulling strings. Almost like a parent teaching a child to ride a bike. You have to let go and hope they don't fall off. The house group need to be established before moving into a public rented building when maturity and numbers make this viable.

I know there have been problems in the past with house groups developing their own agenda or latching onto a one doctrine mindset, but for every one horror story there are ten encouraging, God honouring stories of people converted, churches growing, people being nurtured and discples being made.

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Stuart
Elder, Lambeg Baptist, Northern Ireland, UK

In Him the fulness of the Godhead dwells in bodily form and in Him you are complete (Col 2.9-10)

The sacrifice of a broken heart doth please Him but the sacrifice of a broken Christ alone doth satisfy Him (Richard Steele)