JP Vilaire's Page

I am an ordained minister in the Church of the Nazarene and pastored traditional churches for five years from 2002-2007. During the last 2 years of that time God had led my wife and I on a journey exploring new expressions of Christian community such as emerging church, open church, simple church, etc.. We became dissatisfied with what we were seeing in churches where very few really sought out authentic relationships with Christ and authentic/discipling relationships with fellow believers. We felt a growing assurance that house church was what God was calling us into. Finally, about two years ago we resigned our church and moved out here to East Tennessee to see what God had for us.

We rented a single wide trailer in a place called Nebo Mountain that was well known for being sort of a hillbilly slum. Other than the constant ringing of gunfire, it wasn't too bad. I got a job in auto part manufacturing (who knows how long that will last) and we attended a local Nazarene church. It wasn't long before we knew we made a mistake and felt God saying, "if I brought you out here, why aren't you doing what I called you to do?" So we stopped attending the church and started exploring having "services" just with the four of us. We would sometimes have our meal and Bible-study out on the hiking trails of the Smoky Mountains and after the very first time our son, who was five, asked Jesus into his heart. We knew we were on the right track. Soon we moved out here to Friendsville, TN nearer to my job and are still waiting for others to join us. We have become more aquainted with people in the area through a homeschooling organization we participate in. But as of now, it's still just us.

Our weekly practice, besides spontaneous discussions, is to have a time of praise with music on Saturday evening. I play guitar and we have lots of percussion instruments that the kids like to play on. Usually its a joyful noise although sometimes it seems more like just noise:) And then we have dinner together around noon on Sunday followed by readings from scripture. Discussion arises during and after the readings while still around the table. The more we do this the more natural it seems and even at ages 6 and 8, my children participate really well.

I read a number of books on house church and have ordered more. We know very few people out here but it seems that God is simply forming and shaping us before he brings anyone to join our little group. I found that I still struggle with questions of legitimacy when it comes to our house church. I ask, "am I doing enough?", "do we need to have more leadership in our study?", "should I order our church time more?", "should we be more active in 'recruiting others to join us?" But the Lord brings a scripture to mind he gave me in my first year as a Christian, "Wait on the Lord, be of good courage and he will strengthen your heart, wait I say, on the Lord! (Psalm 27:14)"