Chapter 5

Problems and challenges

 When I think back on the different home fellowships we've started over the years and the people who came and problems that arose, I ask myself: Why would anyone ever want to do something like this? Here I am dealing with all this stuff that people have—and I'm not even getting paid for doing it! How smart is that?

And yet…

Leading a home fellowship does have its upside when you see people grow and get healed and learn to love one another. But it's also an undertaking fraught with numerous difficulties. It's a job that requires commitment on your part, and commitment always comes with a cost (Luke 14:28). As the title of this book suggests, my goal is not only to encourage and guide you on how to start a home fellowship but also to prepare you for some of the challenges you may face and equip you to handle various kinds of problems that arise.

And there are many of them—many, many challenges and problems. For two main reasons: first, you're dealing with people; and second, you're a human being yourself and have your own stuff to deal with. So while this chapter cannot be an exhaustive guide to surviving home fellowship ministry, it should cover enough ground to help you navigate the minefield without getting blown up—or at least without getting too badly maimed and shell-shocked.

To keep things simple we'll group together problems with home fellowships into three categories: personal problems, relational issues, and leadership challenges. And to keep this chapter from being too depressing we'll sprinkle in a little humor here and there.

Personal problems

Many of the people who come to your home fellowship will bring along personal problems they need help with. These might include problems with addiction, struggles with depression and anxiety, legal and financial problems, marital discord, mental instability, and so on. You'll probably feel overwhelmed at times as you try to help these individuals in your home fellowship. Ingrid shares an example with the following story:

We first met this couple at a celebration service where several Charismatic churches in the city came together. They were a young couple who loved the Lord; the husband was a mechanic. As we talked with them we learned they were looking for more fellowship, so we invited them to our home fellowship which met during the week and had people from several different churches coming plus a few who didn't attend a regular church. The couple came and joined us, and as we got to know them we soon learned they were facing bankruptcy. I felt overwhelmed, I had no idea how to help them since we were struggling with debts ourselves. Then I got the idea to ask whether they knew anyone who could counsel them concerning their financial situation. They said there was an accountant in their church that someone had suggested they talk to but they hadn't yet, so we encouraged them to see him. They did, and over time they slowly worked through their problems. During this period Mitch and I often visited their home and had fun playing games with them as we talked about God and life and stuff. Eventually they got over the worst of their situation, and we blessed them when they found a homegroup they could join in their church.

Ingrid's story highlights two important things about dealing with people who have serious problems with their lives. First, if you don't know how to help someone, try to find someone who can. For example, one time when we were leading a homegroup that was part of a growing Vineyard church, a woman showed up at our group and started causing problems. We tried to talk with her about her behavior but got nowhere, so we went to one of the pastors of our church and explained the situation and she replied, "Oh yes we know about her, she's tried to cause problems at some other homegroups. I'll deal with it." The pastor then met with the woman and told her she needed to get professional counseling before she would be allowed to join a homegroup. The woman refused and soon took her problems to another church.

The second important point to learn from Ingrid's story is that you can often help people work through their problems simply by walking with them in love. We couldn't help this couple financially, but we did give them some of our time. By sharing your life with those going through deep dark valleys, you can often keep them from falling by the wayside or giving up entirely.

Don't underestimate also the healing and nurturing power of love in a fellowship group. Just because you're the leader doesn't mean you have to carry the whole burden of caring for your people. Remember those diagrams in Chapter 1 about the church being a pyramid/hierarchy vs. being a body? If church is understood like this:

then this is what it must often feel like as the pastor or leader of your church or fellowship:



I don't know about you, but that's definitely not a place where I would want to be!

Marital difficulties like the one Ingrid described above are common in home fellowships simply because they're common in society generally. Money or sex are usually at the root of most problems in life, whether we're individuals or couples. One time we were leading a homegroup at the home of another couple we had befriended from the church we were attending. We enjoyed them as a couple and had been getting along quite well. Then one day we found out that the woman was handling all money-related matters while her husband, who seemed less mature to us, felt happy with this arrangement. Ingrid and I thought this wasn't very healthy (we manage our own finances together) so we arranged to meet with them privately and urged the husband to get involved in helping manage the family finances. This brought a chill on our relationship with them, which surprised us. But we kept doing homegroup with them. A few months later the woman shared privately with us that she felt some anxiety over her husband looking at pornography at night on the Internet. I decided to talk with him about this and share some of my own struggles in this area. But this just caused him to withdraw further and our relationship with the couple soon came to an end when summer arrived and the homegroups were shut down.

There are some lessons to be learned from our experience but also some questions to think about. Did we push too hard about how they should be handling their finances? Had we established enough trust with them before raising what some may consider a private matter? Should you only offer people advice if they ask for it? We talked about these things afterwards with one of the pastoral couples at our church and they confirmed that it's better to address things you see than to ignore them. But perhaps we could have soft-sold the couple on the idea instead of telling them this is what you need to do. Looking back, we probably should have met with the couple again and said "Look, we love you guys a lot and are sorry if we offended you or trespassed into areas of your lives we shouldn't have. Can we please talk about it and try to make it right?" or something similar. But unfortunately we didn't, and it's always easy to look back afterwards and realize what you should have done. Why didn't we do it? Perhaps because Ingrid and I weren't always on the same page ourselves as a leadership couple during that period. I generally lacked assertiveness and tended towards passivity because of my sheltered upbringing. Ingrid on the other hand had faced many difficult challenges in her early years which had forced her to become more direct in dealing with people and situations. I've since grown to become dominant and assertive, and Ingrid has to whip me at Rummy from time to time to help me remember my place in our marriage. ("You may be the head, but it's the neck that turns the head.")

Some sex-related matters in home fellowships can be more serious. In one of our earliest attempts at doing house church, Ingrid and I were faced with the problem of a young couple who were Christians and were living together but weren't married. This was open knowledge in the group and we realized as leaders that we needed to do something about it. So I met with the man for coffee and explained from Scripture that what they were doing wasn't right. He replied that he strongly disagreed and was determined to continue living this way, and the more I tried to convince him it was wrong the harder he pushed back. I finally realized I had no other recourse but to let him follow the path he had chosen, so following Paul's example in 1 Timothy 1:20, I informed him that I was handing him over to Satan so he could learn his lesson. He angrily stormed out of the coffee shop and the couple stopped coming to our fellowship.

Now perhaps the way I handled this situation may seem rather over the top. But the postscript to the story is that some years afterwards I happened to meet someone who knew the man I had tried to discipline. I asked if he knew what had become of the man and he replied "Oh he had to be delivered of some demons". I reacted with the thought: "Holy cow, it worked!"

The reality is that when we're dealing with issues of sin in the church we not only have authority to bind and loose (Matthew 18:18) but also the responsibility as leaders to use such authority. Certainly the goal of such discipline should be to restore the sinner to right relationship with God and with the church. And certainly our primary focus should be on dealing with our own sins and not the sins of others (Matthew 5:29-30). But those who refuse correction must be disciplined so others aren't led astray (Hebrews 12:15-17).

This matter of confronting others about their sin is difficult for most of us. "Live and let live" is deeply ingrained in our Western societies, perhaps because our high standard of living allows us to value our privacy and live mostly independently from one another. We also have a tendency to view sin and righteousness as various shades of grey instead of as black and white. But Scripture makes a number of things plainly clear concerning sin. It also says a lot about forgiveness and mercy and love and grace. Which is more important? The answer is that it's all important. You learn to deal with people's sins in home fellowship the same way you learn to heal their sicknesses: by trial and error. You learn on the job just like any other aspect of becoming a leader. You will make many mistakes (James 3:2) but that's just part of learning. And it's no excuse for not confronting sinful behaviors you see in others walking along the Way with you. Just look for example at how James addresses matters like self-righteousness, favouritism, jealousy, ambition and other sins in his letter—he doesn't pull any punches! And neither should we, especially those of us who are leaders—provided we are harder on ourselves than on others.

Fortunately we have a Helper who can come to our assistance when we are dealing with situations like confronting others with their sin. If we've welcomed the Holy Spirit not just into our fellowship meetings but also into our own hearts, He will help us when we feel inadequate and don't know what to do in a situation. One time for example I met with a couple we were having fellowship with who were experiencing some marital conflict. As I asked questions to probe what was happening, they began accusing one another, bringing up matters that had happened long ago but still triggered pain. I had shared previously with them my Number One Tip for Sustaining a Healthy Marriage (talk it out before going to bed—see Ephesians 4:26) but my advice hadn't seemed to take. As I sat there listening and wondering what to say or do, I suddenly became aware of a Presence standing behind my right shoulder. It was the Holy Spirit, and I understood he wanted me to move aside and let him come and deal with it. So I silently said to him "OK feel free to take control over my mouth" and suddenly—how can I describe it? He "entered" into me and it was now him speaking not me, saying to the couple, "You both know what you need to do, so the Holy Spirit says Will you obey me?" The words struck them like lightning and they became quiet. Their accusations towards one another ceased and the conversation shifted and I soon went home. I'm not sure if anything changed immediately in their marriage, but looking back several years later I could see they now seemed to be working more closely as a couple in advancing God's kingdom.

As an aside, after reflecting on this experience afterwards I concluded, "Aha! So that's what it's like being demonized—except that it sucks!" Now if only I could make this happen more often during ministry sessions—think how simple it would be to help people with their problems!

Relational issues

Relationships between individuals in a church are another area where problems frequently arise and need to be dealt with. If you read the epistles (letters) in the New Testament you discover that many of them are organized into two sections. First the writer glorifies what God has done for us in Jesus and then he tells us how to live—and how not to live—as Christians. Look at the letter to the Ephesians for example. In the first three chapters Paul describes Christ's redemptive work and how the gospel message has transformed the lives of those he's writing to in Ephesus. Now if you read only these three chapters, you could imagine that the Ephesian church had it all together. But then Paul starts chapter 4 by urging the Ephesian believers to live a life worthy of being called followers of Christ. He goes on by telling them to stop lying to each other, to resolve disagreements daily before heading off to bed, to get an honest job instead of trying to con others, to stop putting others down or being sarcastic or ironic or behaving like those who don't know Jesus talk and behave. And so on and so forth. Wow, that church must have been a mess!

Home fellowships are just like that. Not always, and in different degrees during different seasons. But because home fellowships consist of redeemed people, who are "saved but not yet" just as the kingdom of God is "here but not yet", and since sitting on sofas in a living room puts greater focus on relating to others compared with sitting in pews facing forwards listening to a preacher, relational problems tend to arise more often in home fellowships than in traditional churches. Bonnie shares this story about something that happened in one of the home fellowships Ken and she led:

Once it happened that two women in our homegroup had a fight right in the middle of one of our meetings. An outburst suddenly occurred and things escalated quickly and grew heated. It all lasted only a few minutes, and Ken and I weren't sure what had caused it—probably something one of them said to the other. We tried initially to diffuse the situation by moderating it, but then we decided to just let them get it out. Then one of them stormed out and told us she wasn't coming back to our group. Afterwards we met with her and asked what had happened. She explained why she had felt offended, and once we understood her backstory we went back to the other woman and said, "Look, we know you didn't mean to hurt her, but could you go talk to her?" An apology resulted and the woman who had left soon returned.

What was good about this whole thing was that the members of our group felt comfortable enough to share their views with one another. But in this case the views collided. We had become like a real family in our homegroup, and this kind of stuff often happens in families. Another good thing that came out of it is that after this happened, the people in our group were more careful not to offend one another. They kept expressing their opinions but not so boldly—they checked themselves. It was a growing experience for everyone.

I don't need to highlight the obvious lessons to be learned from this story other than to commend Ken and Bonnie for the low-key way they handled the situation. The crux of the matter is that conflicts will arise in home fellowships, but these can be turned into learning experiences for everyone involved if handled properly. Keep in mind too that we're all just disciples, even those of us who are in leadership. And a disciple is simply someone who learns.

Jealousy is another problem that can sometimes arise in connection with home fellowships. Back in Chapter 3 Ken shared a story that I said we would return to later. I'll begin by repeating his story:

The church we attended had lots of needy people, so the leadership decided we should start meeting in homegroups for encouragement. So we started a group in our neighborhood together with another couple. We tried to make our group open and inviting, and one day one of the fellows in the group confessed that he had been molested as a child. We gathered around him and prayed for him and he was soon on the floor weeping. When we finished praying he said that at last he felt clean. His life was healed and soon he was on fire for the Lord. Afterwards he married a great girl and they had kids.

Now what's interesting is what happened after this wonderful healing:

The man's fire soon spread to the others in our homegroup. We couldn't seem to get enough fellowship with each other during our midweek homegroup meetings—we wanted more! So on Sundays after services we talked with one another and encouraged and prayed for each other and went for lunch together. Other groups started noticing what was going on with our group and wondered why we were so on fire for the Lord and close to one another. The leaders of the church also noticed what was happening and became concerned that we were becoming like a church within a church. So they suggested we split our group up and try to help out other groups in the church, but the people in our group didn't want to do this. So then the pastor told the church we were shutting down all homegroups to focus on ministry to those in the surrounding inner city community. This left us feeling discouraged, and some of us soon left the church.

Although there was no explicit expression of jealousy on the part of the church leadership in this story, their actions suggest otherwise. What the leaders should have done in my opinion is blessed what God was doing in the homegroup and considered the possibility that it could become a new church plant.

Envy over another believer's material possessions can also result in conflict within a group. In a traditional church everyone shares ownership of the building and other tangible assets of the church (or perhaps the denomination owns it). Home fellowships are different however because unless you meet in an apartment, the gatherings take place in a home that belongs to someone in the fellowship. And if it's a nice home, some in the group may envy the owners. This happened to Ingrid and me in a home fellowship we started when we were going through a stressful time with our business. We felt we needed support from others, so we asked our friends if they wanted to meet with us regularly for worship and ministry to one another. Soon several others joined and before long we had a home fellowship going even though most of us still attended a larger church on Sundays. One of the couples in our fellowship was a very nice lady and a man who was on disability and couldn't work. Things went along fine for a while, and then one meeting during sharing time the man began grumbling about how we had this big expensive house while he and his wife lived in low-income housing. He went on talking more and more bitterly about how we could afford all these nice things and how he couldn't even afford to buy fish and had to catch them by fishing in our polluted river. As he continued complaining, my temperature began rising. Suddenly I had enough. I rose from the sofa and went down to the basement and filled a large shopping bag with frozen fish from our freezer. Then I came back upstairs into our living room and handed it to him saying, "Here's some fish for you to enjoy." Then I ended the meeting and hurried everyone out the door. After they were gone I closed the door and told Ingrid, "That's it! I'm done with home fellowships. I've had it with people and their problems! I never want to do another home fellowship ever again!!"

See what a great example I am as a leader? "A servant of the Lord must not quarrel but must be kind to everyone, be able to teach, and be patient with difficult people" (2 Timothy 2:24 New Living Translation).

Leadership challenges

Which brings us finally to the matter of leadership challenges. Where we probably erred in the above instance was in starting a new home fellowship mostly for our own benefit. Because of the difficulties we were experiencing with our business, we were looking to receive, not give out to others. And there's nothing wrong with that—we all experience such seasons in our lives. But what we probably should have done on this occasion is joined an existing home fellowship where we could receive encouragement, ministry and support. Or perhaps asked our friends the Lewises to lead the group while we hosted it in our home. The reality is that seasons of major change in our lives, like starting a family or building a business, are usually not the best times to step into the responsibilities of church leadership.

With the world, the flesh and the Devil arrayed against you, it can be challenging to keep a home fellowship on track. Focusing only on the personal problems of those attending can lead to naval-gazing that derails the fellowship from achieving its purpose of advancing God's kingdom. Vanessa shares a story to illustrate:

I was invited to join a homegroup in a Vineyard church I was attending. I couldn't have been more excited, because the homegroups seemed to be so exclusive and closed at our church. The homegroup started off great, we studied some books together including "Life of the Beloved" by Henri Nouwen. We also studied some books of the Bible. Our discussions were great! We learned a lot and felt the Lord drawing us close, and Josiah joined around this time. People also shared their prayer requests and we prayed for one another. But as time went on these times of sharing and discussion grew longer and longer, leaving us little or no time to pray. It felt like people were just wallowing in their problems, not leaving time for us to go to God about it. It became a drag, and the group began to unravel at that point. Josiah and I got frustrated with the shift from doing homegroup to just being a hangout, so we left the group and the church as well. Others in the group got busy and left the group too. So it had a great beginning, but a very sad ending.

Leaders of home fellowships need to be aware of this tendency towards naval-gazing and constantly reaffirm the purpose of the group. To understand how to combat this danger, let's take one more look at our mission statement for doing church:

The mission of the church [i.e. your home fellowship] is to advance the kingdom of God. This is accomplished by making disciples who are obedient to Jesus as King. Discipleship primarily takes place in home fellowships because that's where church really happens. Home fellowships are where people can experience God's kingdom and learn to love one another. They're also where everyone gets to play, which allows them to safely develop ministry and leadership skills without worrying about failure. In short, home fellowships are where people can become more like Jesus by learning to do the stuff he did (and continues to do through us).

The key here is that leaders are also (or should be) disciples. And as we said earlier, a disciple is simply one who learns. Healthy leadership involves constant learning and self-improvement in spiritual disciplines and practices. I'm not saying you need to pray three hours a day or fast twice a week or give 30% of your income away to be a good leader. In my experience however, if you're excited about God and learning how to minister effectively and seeing God do stuff and answer prayers, some in your fellowship will pick up on this and get fired up themselves and pass it on to others. In other words, if you're discipling yourself, it's easy to disciple others—you just be an example and model for them.

Being an example of course means you have to open up your life to those around you. Leaders who are insecure are often afraid to do this as it can lead to loss of control. Ingrid and I once joined a homegroup where the leader was a former pastor. The group had a positive vibe going, and soon others started attending. Then one day the leader said he felt we were becoming too inward-focused as a group. He then announced that we were all going to go out next week and do evangelism together in the inner city. Several in the group immediately pushed back against this and pointed out that we were just beginning to get to know one another and build trust within the group. An argument resulted and some ended up leaving, and the group never did go out and do evangelism.

Pushing people towards ministry is never a good way to disciple them. Leaders should lead the way, not lead from behind. If you want your people to do evangelism, go and do it yourself first. If you lead someone to Christ and bring the person into the group, you'll soon see others in your group trying to do the same, with varying results. Once you see the desire present in them, you can feed this by giving them some practical teaching on how to do personal evangelism.

Performance is another trap that leaders often fall into. I fell into this trap myself while we were church-planting interns at a Vineyard church we were attending. Thinking that I had to prove myself at all costs, I tried everything I could think of to grow our homegroup, but nothing seemed to work. The pastor in charge then told me, "You can't start a church with a group where only two are men and the rest are women." Feeling I had failed at internship, I ended our homegroup when summer arrived. Then when September came around, new couples began contacting us, wanting to join our group. The lesson here is to remember that our job is simply to plant seeds and water—it's God who gives growth (1 Corinthians 3:6). So forget about how well you're performing, just do the task that's required of you. Remember, Jesus is management; we're only labor (Luke 17:10).

Failure is something many leaders end up having to deal with. And it's something that good leaders always experience, often more than once. (I'm not making excuses here for my behavior in the "fish story" I shared earlier in this chapter—I paid for that dearly with repentance afterwards.) Wimber once said he would never trust a leader who didn't have a limp. In other words, a leader who hasn't been broken at some point—even several times—probably isn't mature enough to carry the burden of the church.

All the best leaders I knew or heard about in the early days of the Vineyard were characterized by vulnerability, brokenness and repentance. I see little of this among church leaders today. The bottom line is that the kingdom of God always starts with repentance (Matthew 4:17). And if we want to see God move powerfully again, we need to start by repenting and asking the Lord to forgive us for relying on ourselves instead of him. Repentance is the way into God's kingdom. And as Wimber said, the way in is also the way on. Repentance is also the key to surviving—and thriving—when it comes to leading home fellowships. 

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