Rethinking Home Groups

Words like ‘home group’ can risk carrying the taint of evangelicalism. It conjures up images of people huddled in clusters (men separate from women, obviously) to humourlessly discuss Leviticus and ruminate on how great it is not to have sex before marriage. Trying to wrestle anything back from the Christian fun police can be a challenge. To use a very overused word, the optics are off.

As a result it can be easy to forget that spending time with other Christians is a good, nay vital, thing, even if we’re not judging each other’s porn usage or ‘praying the gay away.’ Supporting each other spiritually can happen just as effectively over a pint as in a church service.

How then, to make a home group a space that’s intimate rather than just civil? How do we reinvent them to suit a more thoughtful, less rule-bound purpose? And how does the more lofty language of a service become relevant to the daily grind and all its challenges?

A friend who recently joined St James’s said to me that as a church, it ‘offered a way to make my faith more part of the day to day – more connected to my life.’ That’s certainly reflected in our discussions over coffee afterwards. When the chance to bring home groups back was raised, it became a pressing issue – how to bring the spirit of those conversations about anger, forgiveness, mortality and redemption into someone’s living room, in a way that encourages the values of St James’s while at the same time not making anyone who doesn’t fit the mould feel left out. It’s important to ensure that the particulars of how we each relate to faith get a fair hearing.

Perhaps the best way to start is with questions. Within Young St James’s, each home group kicks off with a theme – anything from what we think about the word ‘sin’ to how Christians are portrayed on film and TV. Along the way we’ve talked about universal salvation, heaven and hell and the role of the mystics. There’s few hard answers, but plenty of strong opinions and honest doubts. And some decentish food.

And yet, that begs another question: how to stop any home group from just becoming a talking shop? Is it about growing in faith, or creating community, or both? One major answer to that is to look at what is often missing from life in a big city. There’s a lot of talk at the moment of a loneliness epidemic, and that’s something that has to be taken seriously among the young as well as the old. Gathering together on a Sunday is great for affirming the basics, but it can end up meaning little if you’re then going home to a group of people you barely know – still a harsh reality for a lot of young Londoners. A sense of belonging on a Tuesday or Wednesday evening among those with a common world view is one of the great things a faith-based space can provide. There’s no charge and no pre-booking. You just turn up, as you are.

That’s not to deny that a shared set of values can become a trap as well as a source of support. People can always get too comfortable, and complacency is never something the Christian life has ever promised.

To my relief, a moment that surprised us all was when we spent one session discussing prayer. When I asked how people felt about praying out loud with other Christians, almost everyone recoiled in horror. No way. Absolutely not.

This intrinsic part of the Christian experience turned out to be something lots of us felt uncomfortable with. Plenty of people were open about not praying every day, finding any kind of prayer a challenge.

If we’re not careful, the sessions can become an excuse to lay into evangelicals, which while fun and often necessary, can be divisive. The confidence they have with praying together was something a few of us grudgingly admitted was worth learning from.

There was no obvious goal to the session; but when it was suggested that we end each meeting by saying the Lord’s Prayer together, everyone seemed willing to give it a try. In an undefined way, it felt like a breakthrough. We had all been stretched, emotionally and spiritually. Surely, wasn’t that the point?

At the end of the day, it’s all about community. And that’s a place of comfort as well as challenge. I think we’re getting the balance right.