Followers of Jesus House Church Chepstow

Who we are

We are a small group of 6 people who meet once a week in one of our homes. We have been brought together as people who are serious about their faith, who have each been damaged by the church in one way or another and who are searching for ways of being church which reflect the teaching of Jesus. We started off simply nearly 4 years ago, much of the time spent gaining the confidence to share with each other our feelings about our experiences. But gradually we were able to trust each other more and more with other stuff and we realised that we needed more from our meetings. We each feel very blessed by what we have both when we meet and between our meetings.

Our meetings

When we meet we do not have a set format. But on each occasion we share with each other our pain and our joy, our problems and the resolution of those problems, our progress on our spiritual journeys and our hopes for the future. We also sing together, pray together, break bread together and learn together.

Our learning

Our learning is very much based on Workshop teaching and whatever we are doing comes directly from it or its sources. 2 of us have done Workshop, but at present for various reasons nobody else is able to do it. The way we proceed is that Nick leads the learning sessions, but the main thing is to encourage questions, sharings and responses from each of us so that we learn together and from each other. We take as long as it takes on each subject; the main objectives being understanding, clarity and truth-seeking.

We did not have a learning programme but selected where we were led. And so we have been through breaking bread, spirituality prayer and meditation, the incarnation, Palestine before Jesus, understanding the Hebrew Scriptures, reading the bible, biblical concept of church, faith and a number of other topics.
We have also been through 3 larger pieces: 'Live it up' by Tom Sine, where we looked at our lifestyles; 'Through peasant eyes' by Kenneth Bailey, where we learnt a huge amount about what Jesus was trying to teach us in his parables by seeing them in the cultural context of first century Palestine; and 'Becoming a peace church' by Alan and Ellie Kreider, through which we learnt together what it really could be like to be church. We have just started following the Workshop teaching programme.

Through all these times together and the learning which we have gone through together, it's fair to say that each of us is changing for the better. Each of us is more at peace inside, calmer and more tolerant of ourselves, each other and people and issues 'outside'. At the same time our desire for justice and freedom for the oppressed grows stronger. We are beginning to look at what we should do together in terms of action .

What 'Peace Church' is for us

Following the example and teaching of Jesus: learning to live in peace with ourselves and each other; learning to live for peace in the church and the world.