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Need Help Getting Started?
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If you have prayerfully considered the option of Home Church because there is nothing available to you that would allow you to fellowship, study God’s Word & worship Him the way He deserves, let us help you get started.
One of the first obstacles you may encounter is that you feel led of the Lord to begin meeting in a home because of the lack of any church, however, you are without a pastor. This is not a very difficult obstacle to overcome…let me show you why.
First of all, the position of pastor is not a position that is earned but is a specific gift given by God. If a person has the gift of pastor/teacher, those around him know this. Before I confuse you completely, let us look to see what the scripture has to say.
Ephesians 4:11 - “And He gave some, apostles; and some prophets; and some evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers.” First of all, lets look at the individual offices and see what their Biblical descriptions are. That will help to clarify things quite a bit.
A. Apostles
The Term Apostles were appointed by God - 2 Timothy 1:11
An Apostle was someone with first hand knowledge; an eye witness to Christ’s life - Acts 1:26 & 4:33
God gave great power to the Apostles - Acts 4:33
Many signs and wonders were performed by Apostles - Acts 14:3
The Spirit of God worked directly through Apostles - Romans 15:19
The Apostles set up rules to follow for the church - Acts 16:4-5
It is also important to note that the Apostles were the first fruits that Christ brought to Himself as the foundation of the church - Ephesians 2:20
B. Prophets
Prophets would either foretell the future as the Lord gave them for that time and was an office of Israel, or for today, they teach. Phillips daughters were prophetess’s who foretold the future as the Lord gave it to them - Acts 21:9
The gift of prophecy was used UNTIL the Bible was completed. The only prophesy going on today is limited to only what is in scripture. Prophecy to foretell future is no longer a gift - Ephesians 3:3-5
A prophets job is to comfort, edify and provoke people to good works. People who are able to speak words of peace that actually bring comfort to people actually have this gift - 1 Corinthians 13:3,24,31
C. Evangelist
What the Bible calls an Evangelist, we would call a Missionary/Church Planter today - Acts 21:8, 2 Timothy 4:5
Paul is saying that even a pastor must do the work of an Evangelist. And Evangelist did not go for a week or 2 to give the gospel, but say that the work of the Biblical Evangelist took years. An Evangelist may start the church and begin pasturing, but then the Lord would rise up someone with the gift of Pastor and teacher to take over when the Lord moves the Evangelist on - Acts 18:11, Acts 11:26
D. Pastor and Teacher
Although these may look like 2 separate gifts, both must be used together. A teacher who cares about you, the way a Biblical pastor should, would make the best teachers - Ephesians 4:11
Qualifications in Titus and Timothy are for BISHOPS, ELDERS, & DEACONS and the position is EARNED! The scripture is clear that the position of pastor is a gift - Ephesians 2:8&9 (keep such a one with the gift humble)
1. Bishop - Head of a local church or group of churches
2. Deacon - A teacher or servant who meets Biblical qualifications
3. Elder - Seniority & experience give him wisdom to council the
Pastor, to fill in for him & help make decisions and is
always part of a group, not usually singular
A Bishop or Elder - Must meet Biblical qualifications to hold an office
Deacon must meet a list of specific qualifications to hold office
Pastor and Teacher have NO qualifications because it is a gift and not an earned position.
If there is any doubt, try to look at it this way…according to Ephesians 4:11, each gift is listed equally. You do not go away to college to earn the gift of apostles, nor do you for prophets or evangelist…so why would you for one of the gifts, and not the others?
Also, if in you imagination, you can imagine a group of 7 sheep. We will give each sheep a gift:
1. Helps
2. Government
3. Prophecy
4. Mercy
5. Faith
6. Pastor and teacher
7. Giving
Now, all are sheep…one just as important as the other because that is the way the Bible lists them. Not only that, but all these sheep are needed. One of the sheep just happens to have the gift of Pastor and Teacher…but, he is still a sheep! Why do we take the 1 sheep that has the gift of Pastor and Teacher and elevate him way up higher than any of the other sheep? Not only that, but we treat him so much more “reverently” than we do the other sheep…why is that? Didn’t the Lord say that we are not to esteem one higher than another? So, if we are all sheep, and we all have a gift, and we all need to use our gift the Lord gave us in order that the Lord’s church run smoothly, why is it we feel that someone has to go and earn a degree for their gift and not the others? We need to be real careful to discern God’s Word properly and not fall into the trap of man’s legalism!
This being said, we just wanted you to see that if there isn’t one among you who has the true gift of pastor and teacher, its okay. This doesn’t need to stop you from being obedient to the Lord, gathering together for fellowship and worship in a God-ordained manner. As of now, we do not have one among us who has such a gift… yet. If the Lord raises one up, that will be different. However, for the time being, we are using the preaching tapes of Pastor James Knox… a pastor/teacher who rightly divides the Word of God and has the gift of teaching in such a way that you cannot not understand. We have been familiar with Pastor Knox for about 10 years now. He does not preach opinion. He does not preach from any other book than the word of God. He does not avoid topics that are “uncomfortable” but preaches the entire Word of God. We feel fully confident in recommending him, however, we still test the spirit to make sure that he is preaching the true Word of God and have found him faithfully doing so, so far.
Because we don’t want to just leave you hanging out there, we are offering, as brothers and sisters in Christ to help set you up and get you going as a home church. We have a vast supply of preaching tapes on all sorts of topics that we want to make available to you ABSOLUTELY FREE. We are not accepting donation of any type. We simply want to be a blessing and am depending upon the Lord completely. We have obtained permission from Pastor Knox to reproduce these tapes for you.
If you are interested in receiving these free teaching audio cassettes, please see our “Free Teaching Material” web page. We are not high tech, so the tapes may not be of the highest quality, however, are certainly usable to learning and using as preaching material. We not only have these teaching tapes on Sunday morning, and Sunday evening, but we use them Thursday evening during prayer meeting, and have a ladies Bible study on Saturday afternoon with an adult Bible study Saturday evening. The Lord has truly blessed, and we are growing immensely.
We trust the Lord will richly bless you as you start out on this new spiritual adventure. Strap your seat belts on… and expect great things!
In Jesus Name,
Mountain View Bible Fellowship
P.S. If any of this information is unclear to you, or you would like further study on this topic, this study can be found on the "FREE TEACHING MATERIAL" Webpage under the title "Study on the Church". We would be more than happy to send you this study just for the asking.
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More thoughts on this topic.....
The #1 REASON YOU SHOULD NOT MEET IN HOMES...
by Terry Stanley
You should not meet in homes out of a reaction. I would say this is a huge reason, if not the biggest, for the failure of house churches.
Let me put it in very simple terms:
You should never meet in homes because you are upset, hurt, mad at, or disgruntled with the traditional organized church setting. But you should meet in homes because you want more than the traditional church has to offer. You should meet in homes because you have grown in your life with God and now you are ready for true body life.
I believe that if you continue to grow, you will eventually grow out of the traditional setting. You will realize that the Lord intended more and you will want to meet in a way that is conducive to more growth and corporate body life.
As far as the Christians in the traditional church settings, they are precious and loved of God. You are to love them too. If they hurt you, you must forgive. If they burned you, you must let it go. You must be diligent to forgive, truly love from the heart, and embrace.
You are never to have an “elite” attitude toward someone in a traditional meeting. Just because you may see some things they do not, does not mean that you are better than them or more spiritual. God will grant revelation and light as He sees fit. They are the servants of God. They belong to God. He is quite able to make them stand. They are your brother. Accept them.
I even make it my practice to visit traditional meetings in the town I live in. I get to know these folks as best I can and invite them over. I will go with them as far and as deep as they are willing to go in the Lord with me.
I don’t like the traditional meetings though. They are usually very bad. They are full of error and weakness. But you know what? So are many of the house church meetings. There are distractions, error, fleshly agendas, people quenching the Spirit (including myself) anywhere and everywhere you go. We are all incredibly weak, and God puts up with us.
We cannot choke our fellow servant who owes a little money, when we ourselves have been forgiven so much.
Does that mean that we should throw our hands up and give up? No. Does that mean that we should not attempt to walk out what God has shown us as a more Biblical way to meet and live life together? No. We must walk out what God has shown us. We must be diligent to walk in the light that we have. If we mess up along the way, we must correct it.
But the people in traditional meetings are God’s children (as far as we can know in any situation who really is a true child of God)
We must visit with them. Those traditional meetings in your town are meetings of the Church in your city that you belong to. Even though the meetings themselves are very poor, we must continue with one another as best we can.
We must forgive one another, as this is the very heart of Christianity and of the good news. “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”. God is kind to evil and ungrateful men (Romans).
The worst thing you could possibly do is to out of a reaction to traditional church, meet in homes exclusively and have a “better than attitude”. This is horrible. If this is the case with you, please stop reading this and repent now.
After and only after you are very clear and free from traditional church meetings, I recommend that you continue to embrace and forgive your brothers and sisters who do attend those meetings and meet with them on Sunday. But only on occasion, and never as an excuse for not leaving the organization out of fear. You should be able to worship God with them. Invite them over for supper and BBQ’s. ( I understand and you should understand too, that you may need some time away from the religious system to get free and to get your head and heart straight, I understand that it may even take years of being away from all that to really get clear)
But at the same time maintain what you are doing with your core group of meeting in homes with no name or incorporation. This would be you doing your part to be an expression on the earth and in your town of what God intends for His church. But in the same way, you must discern the Body properly and don’t be divisive from you other brothers and sisters in town who name the name of Jesus. You cannot separate and not embrace people just because you disagree with their doctrine or meeting style. That would be more of the same of what the denominations and traditional church promotes.
We are not wanting to form a home church denomination. And we are definitely not wanting a group of rebels who hate traditional church people and sit around and gripe about it. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely hate the traditional church system. It’s offensive and horribly against scripture. But I must love those people in the system, or else I am a hypocrite and helping nobody or nothing.
I have definitely seen a lot of Christians who never really have it in their heart to meet in homes and live true church life, but they meet in homes for many different reasons. Many just get upset at organized traditional church, join with a few other upset people and call it a home church. Really, all they’ve formed is an “anti-traditional church”. This will go nowhere. If the only bond you have with one another is a common enemy, God will not let it go very far. Usually after these types of people devour the traditional church people, then after a while they turn on each other and soon “bite and devour one another”.
Remember, if people ask you why you are meeting in homes, or why did you leave the traditional church, don’t say, “Because we had a problem with a lot of things going on there”. Make sure your heart is right and be able to tell people that you are meeting in homes because first it is Biblical, but also you are meeting in homes because you want more of Jesus in your life.
I hope this brief message will save you some wasted time and heart ache.
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WHAT NOT TO DO...
by Terry Stanley
Plenty of house churches fizzle out. Why? I think primarily because of the information on this page.
We want freedom and liberty in our meeting times, but there are some terrible mistakes we can make when coming together that bring death. We want life among us. We want to bless the Lord and encounter Him.
Here is what NOT to do:
- Don’t debate scripture and theology
I am not saying there is not a time and a place for this. But during the general meeting of the church is not the time. I Cor. 14 never comes close to anything like this, but it seems that so many people love to do it and consider it an essential part of the church meeting. I would say that a large majority of Christians think that this activity is what fellowship is all about. It is as if some aren’t real sure what else to do when they come together. Paul warns us of “having a morbid interest in controversy”. Debate, apologetics, challenging one another and intellectual jousting has no life in it (although it may need to be done for only certain times).
First of all, in my opinion, the ladies and the children should not have to listen to men correcting one another and entering into debate. The women are fragile (or at least they should be) and can easily be shaken or tempted with fear.
If a brother shares a doctrine or teaching and someone disagrees, let that man pull aside the brother with the doctrine that is in question and talk through it. A couple of brothers may even be present, not for confrontation purposes, but for help. It is critical that we do keep short accounts with one another. If there is a difference in doctrine, watch your heart carefully because differences can cause a subtle division in the heart. It needs to be dealt with it there is any feelings of separation.
I think it is great and profitable that if some of the men are taking issue with one another (disagreeing) that they set up a separate time, with just men present, and work it out. The men may have to go at it intensely, and that’s just fine - as long as it’s done in love, with patience, and the brothers are genuinely listening for God and wanting to truly hear and learn from one another. But there should be no mistake made that this activity of working out differences, debating theology or beliefs is sometimes a necessary WORK, but it is not enjoyment, not usually extremely edifying, and not really touching the Lord together. If you enjoy this activity, and think of it as fellowship, then your repentance is due.
The scripture of “as iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another”, has been overused and also wrongly used, sometimes in order to justify men not being worshipful and prayerful as they are around each other. The “iron” in that scripture does not allow us to be rough, hard hearted or challenging (as to a fight).
Although it is excellent to read scripture, teach scripture, share beliefs and convictions, If you are spending the majority of your time in your meetings debating theology or controversial issues, it’s going to get old quick. The number of people attending will drop off, and eventually you will fizzle out. Debate and “intellectual only” conversation is easy to do. It requires no discipline, no heart, no humility, and no selflessness. To encounter the Lord requires much discipline of heart. You can’t just say anything that pops in your head, but you must learn to wait on God. It is only with humility that we can encounter the living God and not offend or quench Him.
- Don’t sit around and just visit.
Visiting and chewing the fat is great to do during a meal time. But when it’s time to sit together and focus on the Lord, then do just that. The church meeting is not to be spent visiting and chatting about the repairs you made on your car or the latest sale at the shopping mall. Do what it takes to change the atmosphere in the room. Don’t wait for someone else to do it. Just say the words, “I have a song I like us to sing”. Then sing it together. Or say, “I have a scripture I’d like to read to us”. Those types of activities will change the focus in the room towards the Lord.
- Don’t expect or just rely on others to bring something.
If you are wanting to participate in home church, you are saying, “I don’t need a priest to go to God for me. I am ready to begin to take more responsibility in my life with God. I don’t want to just soak up and be fed, I want to participate, contribute and give to others what I have to give from my own relationship with God.”
It’s time to stop looking to others to take initiative. Lead out with what you have. YOU DO HAVE SOMETHING. It doesn’t matter where you are spiritually. It may be that all you have on a particular night is a need. So you can always ask for prayer. If you have no need, then you just discovered your first need! In other words, be a participator. Bring what ever you have. You can always read a psalm, share what the Lord has been teaching you, ask for a particular song to be sung. Pray a prayer. Ask for others to pray for you. Bring a teaching. Don’t depend and look to others to bring and carry the meeting. Amen? OK.
- Don’t try to imitate a traditional, Sunday morning, 10:45 a.m. meeting in a home.
Some folks are looking to start or participate in a home church in order to replace their former traditional church setting. To just hold “services” in your home instead of sitting on the pew is really missing the heart of the Lord and the entire purpose of our gathering together. You might as well go to a traditional service where they do a better job holding that kind of meeting than anything you could reproduce in a home. If you haven’t had the revelation of not having to have pews, a pulpit, dress up for meetings, meet at 10:45 a.m., pass a plate to tithe in, etc. then you need to re-read the New Testament – you’ll find none of that in the scripture. You’ll only find it in “the heart” of folks who think all that is holy and officially “God”. A good litmus test is to see if you feel guilty for not meeting on Sunday mornings.
Did you know the word “service” is never used in the New Testament as reference to a meeting of the church? The word is a tradition of men that has a particular religious package associated with it. A “real service”, in most people’s opinion, has a bunch of certain things along with it – none of which are Biblical; and all of which are detrimental to body life. What would happen in the middle of the next church service on Sunday morning during the preacher’s sermon if someone stood up and said, “The anointing has passed to me, I feel I have a prophecy to share, please be seated” (I Cor.). Would the pastor humbly say, “Amen, you go ahead and share brother.” No he wouldn’t because the pastor is the designated teacher on Sunday morning. The Biblical role of a shepherd looks nothing like the modern day pastor.
-Don’t have a bulletin, much of a plan or any certain agenda.
Let the Lord Jesus be the head of the body, not your meeting agenda. The time should flow and be spontaneous. Enjoy the Lord. Don’t try to accomplish certain things on a list. Be very careful of being formal, and be very careful of not being prayerful.
- Don’t be afraid of silence.
It’s a wonderful thing to sit in silence together and pray, listen to God and just be still before Him. It is better to be silent and be “of faith”, than to rattle off a song or a scripture because the silence was awkward to your flesh. Get over it. There may be very long periods of silence in the meeting of the church. That’s a good thing. It’s been frowned upon in the traditional services because of the “show” and “production” mentality. This leads to shallowness. Good long periods of silence can be refreshing and good time of personal and corporate faith and prayer.
- If having a group conversation, don’t just add things to the conversation because you can.
If you all as a group are teaching and encouraging one another, listen for God as to what you should add. Listen and be prayerful as to what and when you should add something. Remember, let all things be done for edification. It is the Spirit that edifies and gives life. JUST BECAUSE YOU HAVE AN INSIGHT DOESN’T MEAN IT’S GOD. Neat little comments you can share or add that seem to “fit right in” with what’s being shared are not necessarily the Lord. DON’T TALK TOO LONG and TAKE OVER THE MEETING! If you have a long teaching that you know ahead of time will be long, call for a separate meeting over at your own house to do a teaching for everyone. The general meeting of the church is - for the church to all participate.
Be careful not to pray too long. The scripture warns us of that. Beware of long stories and comments that are really just edifying yourself. House church can be a platform for people who love to hear themselves talk. These men need to be corrected very gently (the first time) in private. It is sometimes difficult to tell what is not good and edifying and what is good to share. Two Christians can share just as long (time wise) and one is being selfish and the other is truly giving. This really gets into subtle dynamics, and you’ll definitely have to trust the Lord for all this kind of discernment, but generally speaking, you can usually tell if you are being built up and fed by the message or if you’re being “used and held captive” so someone can get to speak.
- Don’t be meeting centered
This is critical, and really a major point. If all you are doing is having meetings, you are really missing it all. Meetings, although very, very important, are a small part of church life – a very small part. Life is to be lived together. You should be getting together with other saints throughout the week. Barbeques, cookouts, trips to the park, work together on each others houses on the weekends. Eat supper together often during the week. Do evangelism together. If all you want is to attend a meeting once a week in a home, you are not living church life at all. The meeting time should be an expression of your week together. Your week together should be an expression of the meeting time as well. The New Testament church met many times a week from house to house, and not because they had to, but because the wanted to. When Christ becomes your whole life and your whole world, instead of part of your life, then you’ll want to have church life 24/7.
- Don’t be “naval gazers”.
As the church, we should be primarily focused outward, not inward. Sure, we MUST keep our home base healthy. We must deal with situations in the group, we must love one another and speak the truth in love to one another. But a sure way to kill a group is to focus only on yourselves.
Evangelistic events, giving in various ways to your neighborhood, reaching out to the lost in some capacity, feeding the poor, visiting nursing homes and orphans, helping the widows – all of these should have a real primary focus. We should not be extremely focused on our group, although there may be seasons of this to get “out of the red ink”. You’ll find that as you get more outward focused, a lot of the inner problems will become lessoned. Sometimes, the best way to find healing for yourself is to go love on somebody else.
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WHAT TO DO...
by Terry Stanley
What are we to do when we come together? This is a big subject, but tremendously simple.
In a way, I hate to give any specifics here, because of what the flesh will tend to do with them. The church is to be organic and spontaneous, not mechanical. Not methodical. Methodology and law quench the Spirit among us. Everything we do should be from the heart and from conviction, not habit and not from an instruction manual. However, I will provide some, hopefully general, guidelines that we do see in scripture.
We must first understand the point of coming together, then it will be easy to understand why and what we are to do. Paul tells us in I Corinthians to “let all things be done for edification.” When we come together it is to love God, to worship Him and to allow the Holy Spirit through the body, to edify the body. Paul also tells us in I Cor. 14 “what is the outcome when you come together, each one has a psalm, a hymn, a teaching…” This passage will be foundational for the Christian meeting, or “when we all gather together”.
Another very important foundation. If you look at the New Testament, prayer was a real big deal. The early Christians prayed together, a lot. Paul tells us that we are to be devoted to prayer. The early Christians were all praying together when the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost. In Acts we read that the disciples were meeting house to house many times a week, breaking bread together and devoting themselves to prayer and to the apostles’ teaching.
Prayer is a staple for the church meeting, When we gather together, we are to pray together. In fact, the attitude and posture of prayer is to permeate the entire time. Remember, we are coming together to commune with the Lord, to touch the Lord, and to edify one another.
Acts tells us that the first Christians were “taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart”. Breaking bread together means eating together. But, not just any old eating. The Christian fellowship meal is to be a time of joy, talking, and eating with thankfulness. You should not come to the fellowship meal extremely hungry. Eating and getting full is not really the point. Paul reproved the Corinthians for participating in the fellowship meal in a selfish way.
Also, there is available a cup with wine and a loaf of bread to represent the blood and body of our Lord. At some point during the meal, each believer is to sincerely partake of the cup and eat of the bread to remember what the Lord has done. So, one thing we are to do at the Christian meeting is to eat together and partake of the wine and bread.
So, we can see three things we are to do when we come together.
1. We eat together with the Lord’s table as the center piece.
2. We pray together.
3. We edify one another.
Let’s look at what a typical church meeting might look like.
We’ve eaten our meal and we’ve had an enjoyable time of talking and visiting. We’ve also each sincerely taken the Lord’s supper. Let’s move over to the living room.
Someone may start us off with a song or two as we all begin to focus solely on the Lord. We begin by giving thanks. From our hearts, we genuinely thank Jesus for who He is and what He has done. We spend plenty of time here. No hurry. We could thank and praise Him all night for who He is and what He has done and what He is going to do! This is critical. We must be “caught up” with who Jesus is, less we risk being only earthly during our time. We give thanks for His promises. We give thanks for what He did on the cross. We give thanks for the forgiveness of sins. We give thanks for the everlasting covenant. Soon, the “water will become wine”.
[Let me explain this “water becoming wine” thing. By the way, this whole paragraph you are now reading is a parenthetical statement. There seems to be a “breaking through” that occurs. I don’t quite understand it, but it is not only true for a group meeting, but for our personal lives as well. As individuals, we can pray, talk to the Lord, think about Him, sing, whatever and all of that is fine and great, and it is necessary….but if we stay in that place long enough, if we focus on Jesus long enough, if we finally let go in our hearts to real trust, if we still ourselves in our soul and become completely caught up with Him…something happens. I call it breaking through. I think Biblically it may be called “being filled with the Spirit”. I’m not real sure on the theology of this. But I am sure of the experience - both individually and corporately. It is always wonderful to “break through” corporately as well. When we gather together, it is great to talk, to pray, to share what the Lord has been showing us, these things are necessary…but there comes a point when we corporately break through and the Spirit of the Living God almost physically fills the room (it’s very difficult to describe). And, this experience contradicts my own theology because I know that “where two or more are gathered together, there He is in our midst”. But sometimes, and it usually occurs when there has been much worship and singing and complete focus on the Lord and Him alone, sometimes the Lord is very powerfully manifested among us. It must be noted that our goal is never to be to have an experience. Although “having an experience” is wonderful if that is what happens. Our goal is to love Jesus, to know Him, and to love and edify one another. So we are not to manipulate, try to reproduce anything or create something. But I did want to point all this out. Ok, end of the parentheses and back to what to do during a meeting of the church.]
As we are completely focused on the goodness of God, and in love with Jesus, someone may lead out in another song. We may sing five or six songs in a row. More prayers of praise, more songs. As the Lord leads and as the Spirit inspires, we may pray for different needs. The Holy Spirit may put an encouraging word on someone’s heart. A prophecy may come forth (prophecies may not look like a typical charismatic prophecy, they may be delivered conversationally), a scripture may be read, a teaching may be given. But all of these activities are done prayerfully, in other words, if a teaching is given, we respond with prayer. Perhaps a prayer of repentance, or a prayer of thankfulness for what the Lord just reminded us of. Perhaps a good long time of silence to allow the Holy Spirit time to deal with us on an individual basis.
Let all things be done for edification. Come with your heart prepared. Come ready to participate. In order to participate, you don’t necessarily have to be vocal. As long as you are “of faith”, you can participate. In other words, participate by “amening” and agreeing with what others say. If you are quietly praying, do so with all your heart. Really be listening for what the Lord might be wanting to show you. Really be listening to what the Lord might be wanting to speak through you to the others. Really desire to prophecy. Strongly love those whom you are with in the room with you.
When we come together outside of the traditional church, we are saying that we are taking the responsibility to be a functioning and active member. As opposed to being checked out and letting a staff member be active in heart or in demonstration.
I hope this all helps. It’s easier to learn by doing than to read about it. Whatever you do, don’t plan too much or have an agenda. God is in you. Trust Him. Let God be in charge of the meeting and trust Him to lead it. He is an orchestra conductor. He may point to the trumpets or point to the clarinet section or any member of the church to speak, to lead out, to sing, to prophecy, to encourage, to pray for someone, to ask a question to the group for all to answer, to publicly read scripture. Come to the meeting time filled with the Lord or come asking for help and prayer, but always come participating and always come expecting God to do great things in your midst.