Two comments: First, whether or not it is popular or unpopular in our modern culture, the Scriptures do indicate that the husband has the lead role in governing the family household (Ephesians 5:22-33) and that the wife will constantly struggle against the husband for control of the family (Genesis 3:16).

Second, it is possible to learn, grow, and mature while remaining a member of a shepherding movement church.  Leaving is not always obligatory for spiritual development.  Nonetheless, the danger of abuse from an overly controlling clergy is an ever present concern.  Recent actions by certain celebrity pastors prove out the degree to which these men will violate church rules, ethics, and common sense in order to stay in power over a church and over denominations.

May the Lord almighty continually bless you!

Good Post, sorry for such a long comment, I just enjoyed your post.

First, I agree with you 100% that this shepherding thing is non-scriptural. I have had similar experiences as you. In one instances the Elder of the church who was also a close friend of mine decided that we needed to have some specific meetings so I would explain to him why My family was deciding to lead their fellowship. Of course he did not like my answer much. I told him how this attending church thing was taking up way too much time and I was concerned that my daughter (5th grade) was not learning the gospel. We had visited many church trying different ones and I was very concerned for my daughter was starting to enter those dangerous teenage years. I felt it was important for her to actually read the bible beginning to end and become intimate with scripture. It seemed every church we attended had all these church functions with real good fellowship even to the point my family was exhausted every Sunday afternoon and we would sleep between church and some evening Sunday church function. To my dismay I decided my daughter was not learning the gospel so I, as the head of the family, the Father and Husband, decided it was best for us to have church at the kitchen table as the Holy Spirit led. I would give out scriptural readings for the week and teach the gospel every Sunday.

When I informed this Elder I was leaving the church to do this he kept quoting all kinds of scripture how I had no right to do this. Well I informed him that scripture teaches where 2 or more are gathered in Christ' name Christ is there in the midst. Boy this elder did not like this. He kept insisting me to give him the reason I was leaving, I didn't want to step on toes but the Elder kept insisting. He was also my close friend. Finally I told him. The Preacher was not preaching the full gospel. He was a good preacher but it was beyond his capability. I Know he loved God and the congregation but somehow he seemed to not cover the whole bible. He didn't seem to have many sermons. This Elder had all the right scriptures, I couldn't forsake assembling. But we were assembling with each other.

Well it is many years later, about 6-7 years. I can honestly say it was the best thing for us. We had to leave church to have church. For the first couple years we would read the bible all day every Sunday. My daughter loves the Lord with all her heart. She is getting ready to attend college and we are going to find a good God fearing church for her to attend and fellowship. When I look back it was the best for us. We have church every Sunday at the kitchen table. I plan to Baptize my daughter this summer in the local lake with a Baptism ceremony. My daughter got thru her teenage years unscathed.

As far as assembling. We assemble every Sunday with millions upon millions watching on TV David Jeremiah, Joseph Prince, Charles Stanley, Joel Osteen, Kirk cameron and his Way of the Master. No Sunday is the same, as Holy Spirit leads. We now have shorter church of around 3 hours. it is a special day for the whole family. We love it and do extra bible study with the sermons preached on TV. Sometimes we sing hymns sometimes we listen to each other sing accopello.

That Elder to this very day, who was a very close family friend, will not talk to me. I guess he feels it is scriptural for him to forsake assembling with me, with us, with our family. My wife and I laugh when we talk of him, like he thinks we were under him spiritually, like he is some dictator or something. We still consider him our friend and brother, but he won't even talk to us. He thinks he is better then us, going to some church building every Sunday yet we are out there in the world spreading the gospel on Xanga and such. He thinks he is doing the gospel by serving his church structure.

Secondly, I can definitely testify that I have struggled to excerpt my headship to my wife in our family and it has wreaked havoc because of her stubbornness and poor decisions. She submits to me spiritually no problem because I attended two different Christian colleges so I am way more educated about theology. But my biggest struggle with her was her poor financial decisions. When we were married she wanted separate checking accounts and without going into the details it was a financial nightmare. It has been a power struggle with this and how to raise our daughter from day one, back and forth. We got through it but we would definitely been more blessed financially and avoided many family pits if she would have submitted more to me. I agree 100% with what you said. The problem is there is so much bad pressure and expectations promoting unscriptural family dynamics it is real hard to counter.

God Bless,

Brother RobertLeeRE

@RobertLeeRE - Greetings Robert.  I am very sorry that you have gone through this without the support that other Christians are supposed to bring to their brothers and sisters in Christ.

@musterion99 - Thanks for the link.  It certainly seems to echo Robert's situation.

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In fact there is much to be said for small home churches.  Beginning such a home church as the inception of a new church plant is something I have begun to give much sober thought.  Though I would not be comfortable meeting only as a single family for any long period of time, I see the wisdom and bibical merit in meeting with just a handful of other families as a local church, eliminating the majority of the formalized administration, red tape, financial intrusions, and conflict that comes with larger numbers. 

@danandbevsfarm - Blessings and Peace of Lord almighty,

When we started having church at the kitchen table, it was not a decision we took lightly. We kept attending many different churches. Each of them would tell us how we needed to stay in their church and how no church was perfect and that it was a sin to church hop which was [not] what we were doing. We were just seeking worthy teaching. I think also my expectations were maybe higher then the average since I had attended two different bible colleges. One might think we were judgmental and picky. We were not!

I still remember elders leading bible study reading a popular Christian author rather than the bible. There was extensive teaching on issues that were non scriptural but traditional. In some churches they wanted to separate us from our daughter as if she were not capable of hearing the adult form of the gospel. Anyway I am not complaining, just putting the information here for anyone else that might find it interesting. We are very happy having church in our home together. I remember most of the churches we attended would never read most of the Pauline Epistles. They would quote verses but if you actually read the entire epistles you would know they were purposely skipping most of the Pauline Epistles. We found this to be true in[every] church we attended. all church dogma comes from the Pauline Epistles and if your church dogma doesn't line up you must tiptoe thru it.

I had been praying for my brother to get saved for many years. He finally decided to visit a church and they decided they wanted to become a member of the church so the church had these membership classes, they both attended them all. In the last class the Pastor told him he and the elders had to see their tax return so they could determine how much they would have to tithe as members of this congregation. My brother was so offended by this nonsense that ever since they have never attended church. His wife is a baby Christian but she quit going because he will not go, ever since that nonsense. I tried to encourage him to visit another to no avail. I tried to encourage him to read his bible (Igave him) to no avail.

God Bless,

Brother RobertLeeRE

Dear Dan and all, for the home preacher or the beginning seminary student I have a recommendation of four "must read" books:

Introduction to Biblical Interpretation by Klein, Blomberg, Hubbard

The Hermeneutical Spiral by Osborne

How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth by Fee and Stuart

How to Read the Bible As Literature by Ryken

And a final two "optional" but outstanding introductions to interpretation:

Hermeneutics by Virkler

New Testament Exegesis by Fee

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Frankly, it scares me to think that there are Christian preachers in the pulpits of established churches who have not read and studied materials such as the above, but still they preach professionally.

@danandbevsfarm - May Jesus always bring joy to your heart,

Yes and I fully agree. No, I never took anything you said as critical. And yes, I agree the path that was right for my family may not be right for others. I understand that fully. I only put the information of my personal experiences out their that others may use the information to possibly some kind of advantage. And yes, i agree there is a time to read theologian commentary of biblical teachings as such. But also there comes a time eventually to decide what scripture says without commentary as led by Holy Spirit. And it was a big struggle to get my daughter reading the bible every day. The funny thing was as my daughter started reading from beginning to end the entire bible, my wife felt she had to keep up with the daughter, and, soon we had our own mini revival within our weekly assembling with God. But yes, I realize this is not for everybody, and for us it wasn't by choice. We just felt that it was necessary for [us] to get close to God. For others it could be disasterous, it pit they fell in.

You know, while there are many people that I would never recommend this to, there are others that might benefit. The main thing is that what ever we do we are following the leading of Holy Spirit, the Good Teacher, sent by God. Anything that separates us from God is not from God. For us during those years it was all the church activities that were separating us from God. But now, 7 years later, after having been filled deeply with the constant studying of scripture, we are missing the church activities and are ready to attend our local church. But even if we didn't we have many Christian friends and get fellowship anyway. But I think now we are again ready to go back in and minister to the baby Christians within the church, and trust me, there are baby Christians within the church.

God Bless,

Brother RobertLeeRE

@craigwbooth - May the Lord's light always shine revealing truth in your life,

Yes, and so true. People need to understand that when they are reading scripture, to properly interpret it they need to read a few paragraphs above and few after. I learned this in some theology courses I took. This is the main thing. Holy Spirit will do the rest (In my opinion). I think the biggest mistake people make is going to the "Greek" or going to the "Hebrew." All the hard work has already been done by theologians before us when they interpreted the bible. In most instances it is unnecessary and this is also true for Preachers. I think the biggest thing is just read the Pauline Epistles whole, like as a letter should be read, in a sitting. This alone will wake up most Christians to how little they literally know about Christian Church dogma as to what truth is and how to evaluate it. After that they can move on to the Apostle John's & Peter's letters, and then James' letter who was the brother of Jesus. You know it in all is only about 30 letters and a person should be able to move through them very quick. After all this move into the Old Testament, studying history and prophecy.

God Bless,

Brother RobertLeeRE