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Part 1: The house church
Maria: What bothers me is the way they talk about us as though we were witches.
Sharlene: Right. Anyone who isn't beautiful and sort of soft, like melting ice cream. Compliant. Probably blond. Soft of voice. Very few of us.
Maria: I feel I can't move when they are around. They're watching, judging, expecting favors, never helping. I don't care for them.
Mary Louise: Of course we have to forgive them. I guess this is forgive and forget.
But just imagine life without them.
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It can be nice to have an aggressive macho gung ho guy around, when you need to be defended.
Yes but who do you need to be defended from? An aggressive macho gung ho guy. An assailant.
If the one wasn't around you wouldn't need the other. What if you didn't have either one?
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The women began imagining a house church. The worship would be pure because those who sully its purity wouldn't be there in the first place.
The door would be locked but on the inside of the lock, one could call on God safely. In peace. In true Christian peace.
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No more sermons that are disguised pleas for money.
Mary Louise: I could regain the peace I seem to have lost.
Elise: Girls, this is a very bad idea.
Picking your community. That's not how it's done. That's like being the kind of missionary Oswald Chambers says not to be. Running out and choosing your field instead of letting the Master "engineer your circumstances".
Yes but we're not missionaries. We're just girls trying to purify our lives a little bit.
Lots of people do house churches all over the country. It's part of, you know, the "emergence". It's connected to tomorrow. I think God wants us to do this.
That's when Elise tried to improvise The Parable of the Bad Christian, in a big hurry, a story that convinced nobody but nevertheless needs to be shared as a portion of Part 2.
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