Branches House Church

By Josh Michael

John 15:5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.

Spring is a good time to reflect on branches and vines.  All around us we saw green leaves unfurling and marking those branches as ones through which life flows.  But some branches don’t have new buds or green leaves; in those, something has arisen that interferes with that which brings life.

This year the Branches house church is focusing on 1 Corinthians.  Paul’s letter is written to a group of believers living amid a society that valued materialism, wealth, status, and prestige.  Paul’s solution to the pull these worldly patterns exert is renewed lives founded on Christ and lived out by the Spirit in community.  This is our goal as a house church and was prompted by a study this past winter on the Holy Spirit.

While we focus on 1 Corinthians when we meet every other week as a whole house church, we split into two groups - men and women - on alternate weeks.  For the men, with 10 guys aged 18 or younger, we are looking forward to another summer in which we combine older and younger men discussing scripture and discipleship together.  Usually we follow this up with an activity that involves a sport, food, or an ax, or sometimes all three.  Currently the women are working through 1st Corinthians discussion questions as well, after a spring spent studying spiritual disciplines.