I was a young pastor assigned to two churches in the city of Colorado Springs. Yes, Colorado Springs, the headquarters of Focus on the Family, The International Bible Society, NAV Press, and over 200 other international Christian ministries! The size of these ministries made my head spin with questions of how I could someday have such a large impact. I had a growing desire to hold a public evangelism series in the city and was praying to God to show me a suitable location.

Having few resources, I wrestled for some time with the problem of logistics. Then, while praying one day, I suddenly had a breakthrough. On my knees, it was suddenly as if I heard God say, “You don’t need a large hall. Use the homes of this city. They are Mine for your use.”

Alleluia! God owns the condos on a thousand hills! Joyfully I got up from my knees, stepped outside and began looking around at the houses scattered over the hills. Suddenly a new vision developed in me. With fresh eyes I looked at the city, which had seemed closed and confusing before. Now, with God’s help, the doors seemed wide open and the work doable. The vision God gave me was to make impactful, personalized neighborhood evangelism seminars centered in living rooms.

I began going from home to home and asking people about their spiritual interests. I would say, “So often, people go to church week after week and never hear a subject that is of interest to them. Our Neighborhood Education program is different. It starts with the topics that are of interest to you.” I had them mark their interests on a paper with about 30 options. (A seminar on angels, one on parenting and one on overcoming anger were some of the most popular.) When they finished filling out the form, I asked them to mark a box if they would be willing to hold a neighborhood seminar in their home. I told them that if they were willing to host such a neighborhood meeting for 3 to 10 people, they would be awarded $50, and they could choose the topic for the meeting. It worked, and soon we were holding various meetings and introducing neighbors to neighbors who had spiritual questions, issues and interests.

I learned several things from this experience. First, I learned how God views real estate. I think we sometimes literally “box” Him in. We need to remember He is omnipresent and goes where the people are, so we should, too.

Second, I learned that people have interests we can’t predict. Rather than telling them what they should be interested in, let them tell us.
Third, I learned that home groups have power to knit people together and open up lives.

In the tentmaker training and coaching that I am doing now, the primary goal is to get small home companies going. From the human perspective, a country like Morocco has no churches. But I think that if we were to ask God, He might just say, “Look, there are living rooms everywhere. Each one can be a church. Let’s get started!”

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