Maurice's Articles
Maurice Tully 1999 articles:
1. On Meeting at Home
2. Why Y2K?
1. On Meeting at Home
Dear Maurice,
How about some tips or advice on operating a Home Church?
Your brother-in-Christ,
Peter Laughton
NSW
Dear Peter,
I haven't been asked about home church before, and want to make it clear that in doing what we do, we don't intend any disrespect to those who follow a traditional path. We have been meeting at home for around 14 years. (As of 1999.)
Firstly, in setting up a home church, there should be no hierarchical positions of power - to reflect the Bible, we should be a priesthood of believers. The Bible says the church is the people - not a building - so that's what I mean when I use the term church. In our home church we've had to contend with a succession of men who presume our priesthood of believers to be a 'power vacuum' and see us as a recruitment 'opportunity' for their sect or denomination. (It hasn't worked!)
Secondly, each man must be responsible for his own money and his accountability to God for how his uses it - by that I mean no 'church' money - each man should give charity to his choice of causes, as God leads.
If you're blessed to have someone qualified (biblically) as an elder, then that's good, but don't rush to 'appoint' someone - you don't need to do that just for the sake of it. You may not have anyone qualified for a long time, but you're all getting older and wiser every day!
An elder's requirements are set out clearly in the Bible (godly, believing adult children, etc.) but the main requirement, in my opinion, is humility, and the ability to keep quiet and let younger men learn by 'having a go' without feeling like you're judging their 'performance' all the time.
Older men need to see themselves as servants and examples, not in some sort of position of domination. The younger men are also 'prophets, priests and kings' in their own families and need to be treated with respect - they are not just an audience!
I just happen to be the oldest man in our gathering, and because of that, I am asked questions about lots of things, but mainly training children.
We study by reading aloud and discussing the Bible at church, rather than by a 'sermon' or 'teaching'. (And not at a separate Bible study evening - so there is no need to take men away from their homes on another night.)
The men read a chapter or so each of the Bible, and any of them can ask questions or offer an impromptu teaching on what the passage means or what implications it holds, as we go along. The friendly informality means we can get sidetracked easily, but we've found the Lord has many gems along the sidetracks!
A facilitator (not a 'leader') needs to make sure the meeting actually does proceed eventually, but not to an agenda of power or control.
God says: By this you shall know them, that they love one another. So a home church should reflect that as the initial impression visitors get. And I mean that we are to really love one anther, by encouraging each other to live a biblical life, not to pretend to love one another by just being friendly and by being 'mates' in the Aussie sense of the word (which is to nod and smile at everything someone says and never deal with any problems). You only develop godly friendships by being answerable to one another!
You also need to spend 'quantity' time together. An hour or so a week will never develop a real 'brother' relationship. Men need to spend time helping each other fix things, and they can spend time together at whole-of-homechurch outings where the children and the fathers can have a great time playing family-friendly games of cricket, etc., while the mum's and babies can have a relaxing cuppa and chat. These are great friendship and memory building times.
The main problems that come up at home church (almost the only problem!) is the discipline of children. Some men have left us rather than take responsibility for their children. Our home church doesn't expect perfect children - we think it's quite normal for them to be silly and misbehave from time to time - it's part of them nudging the boundaries to see how far they can go.
What we do expect is for the father to take responsibility for the unacceptable behaviour (as it is his problem, not his wife's or child's problem) and we expect him to act to fix it with justice. We want to see the men investigate the incident that involved his child and lovingly administer whatever just solution is required (it could be a warning, a separation or a smack, depending on the situation). Getting past the embarrassment of your children misbehaving is so important - it's normal and it's going to happen all their little lives, until they're old enough to have sufficient self-control to deny themselves in regard to possessions, turns in games, etc. Given that, men need to be held accountable to train them. They won't get to a state of self-control without your input, and so the men must lovingly insist that the other men do their job, or the deprived children concerned will corrupt each and every child in the group. We men don't like to be held to account, no matter how diplomatically it's done, but we need to humble ourselves and take the advice if we are to succeed in our God-given tasks.
A brief outline of what we do follows: we meet at night so we can supervise the children better, as we know they're in the house, and they sleep as it gets later.
· families arrive around 7.30pm bearing supper. The children run around outside while the parents greet each other and have an informal chat.
· we move into the lounge room and sit down for communion and prayer.
· The children come in from play, if they haven't already, for communion, and we sing lots of our favourite choruses. Dave Jones, and my sons Cameron and Jamie play guitar, mandolin (sometimes Cam plays the banjo to liven up a chorus now and again). The children just love this part of church - joining in with actions where appropriate. (Talking of that, I laughed myself silly one night when I realised that the actions they'd made up to Give me Love in my Heart, Keep me Serving was a tennis serve! It reminded me of how children sometimes understand little of what they read or sing.) Shades of Norman Gunston! This part to me is the delight of the night, as I look across all the children and individually look at each ones delighted face - I see not one sour or bad attitude amongst them. I see in them the next generation - the strength that is there, their respect for their parents, and their love of being part of the church
If we do our job right then we will reap a crop that will expand to bless the next generation. And I know that each one of them will be equipped to hand on that love of God and love of His church, and so it will hand on down the generations exponentially, in both numbers and 'salt and light' effect on society.
· Next we study the Bible - the older children stay in while the younger ones practice plays, dancing, etc to 'bless' us with during supper. (Some of the parents consider some of these blessings - particularly plays written by the little ones - close to excruciating at times!) The children are supervised by older children in this time, and all of them, of all ages, are trained to tell the adults of each and every conflict.
· Supper - each of the ladies brings a delicacy of one sort or another. Pavlova, mud cake, trifle, etc. And as each week usually marks a birthday, (as we have an average of six children) we have a brief birthday celebration involving a big bucket of ice cream with the appropriate number of candles alight in it and the obligatory rendition of Happy Birthday, after which around six million dishes or soggy cones end up splattered all over the kitchen and dining room.
A point here - we don't buy birthday presents for each others children (they know we love them!) and we supply the ice-cream if it's our child's birthday. This way they learn to share their day and to look forward to each others special day with delight! This way, no child is ever left out of the 'party'. Following this there is usually a Scottish or Irish dancing display (we insist they're short for survival reasons) or a piano recital by some of the learners, or a bit of both.
The middle-sized children are settled down for sleep, the toddlers and babies start dropping off one by one; a few who are too young to join in read quietly, while the youth join in the next phase with their parents, which is family support and fellowship.
Here we go around the room with each father reporting on the week's activities, dramas, successes and struggles. This part is the indispensable ingredient in establishing true brotherhood. How can we bear each others burdens if we don't know someone well enough to know if they even have them? We listen to each other and offer Biblical insights and solutions where necessary. Mostly we laugh a lot. On occasions we've cried together. Rarely, we've had distressing occasions when sin has been dealt with.
Being a part of the Body of Christ can be painful. But usually we talk about the relentlessness of child training, and we've found that when this is dealt with continually, the problems we have to face are few indeed. As time goes on, we find we achieve a consistency in all the families, which is such a blessing. Because of this united approach, new families, or visitors, no matter how out of control their children, now have minimum effect on ours, because ours are totally unaccustomed to deliberately disobedient behaviour and are shocked by any such goings on. Of course, the adults are told immediately, which disconcerts the new children no end!
We seldom finish before midnight. Sometimes I manage to stay awake that long, but often I'm drifting in and out of sleep in the chair well before then. As my father was before me, I'm a 'chook' not a night owl - Dad used to say about himself, 'Sundown, sit-down, sleep.' The other men know they can wake me if they need me, which is seldom, and know I'll stay awake and take my share, especially on those (thankfully) few occasions that have been unpleasant.
So that's the life of our church in point form - it's about commitment - what we can contribute, not what we can get out of it. It's about our whole life, not a few hours of a weekend. That's why we include tiny piano recitals, etc. church is about committing the whole of our lives to Christ and sharing the whole of our lives in community, not a religious observance at the weekend.
- Maurice Tully
Maurice and Maureen Tully are the parents of six children all of whom have been educated at home.
Permission to reprint this article available from the author.
thetullys@iprimus.com.au
Maurice Tully Writes to the Men
January 1999
Dear Maurice,
Just read WHA at work, it came in today. Had to comment on your article, in particular the letter from Mrs CM in Victoira. I heard of a situation once about two adult children of an alcoholic. One was an alcoholic and the other was a teetotaller. Upon being interviewed the first said, 'My father was an alcoholic, how could I be any different to what I am?". The other, the teetotaller, said, "My father was an alcoholic, how could I be any different to what I am?".
Makes a good point I think. It all comes down to choice. Blessings upon you all.
Qld
Dear Maurice,
I really do appreciate WHA. What do you think about Y2K particuarly as concerns practical, in-home preparation?
NSW
Maureen and I have read and heard a lot about the 'doom' to come. There's also been a lot of media hype on this topic (which can probably only get worse!). I find it all of interest, and I'm going to make some moderate preparations, but I'm not in a panic about it.
Apart from businesses and facilities protecting themselves against the 'bug' - (no doubt at some considerable cost), at this stage I can't see massive amounts of money being made out of it - so it may end up being more of a storm in a teacup than the cataclysm forecast.
However, there are many people in the world who would really like to see a global crash and may, in their own quiet way, assist it if their influence or position allows. There are others speaking very loudly about it and this is what really bothers me: the "speaking it into being" scenario.
I remember a few years ago there was a strike by the drivers who worked for a food transportation business called David's Holdings, in Sydney. (They are the major suppliers for either Woolworths or Coles - I can't remember which it was, or whether it was both) Anyway, within a fortnight the shelves of all of them here in Canberra, including independent suburban shops were practically empty of essentials. (I seem to remember that there was only lots of toothpaste, toilet cleaners, shoe polish, etc left!)
So if there is a glitch to the money supply it is quite likely that supplies could be disrupted, because no business can afford to supply if they know they're unlikely to be paid. However, it's in everybody's interest for this to be of the shortest possible duration, because the supply businesses will only end up collapsing too, if they haven't got supermarket outlets for their products. It's in everyone's interests to find solutions as we all want to survive. In fact we all want to survive and prosper.
Back to the self-fulfilling prophesy bit: several prominent Christian ministries in the US are forecasting worldwide financial and law and order collapse. They are urging people to move to the country and make 'doomsday' preparations. They don't generally seem to be suggesting that this is 'it' (the big 'A') but seem unaware that they could actually ensure that catastrophic disruption will occur as the result of sufficient people panicking.
If enough Americans withdraw their savings from banks and stash cash and gold, then they could cause Savings and Loan institutions in the US to fail, causing a cascade of events. On the other hand, Governments and institutions like the Federal Reserve like coins to be saved in shoe boxes (so that they have no need to pay interest on that currency). So who wins that one in the end?
Practical Preparation
Because I think that disruption could be minimal but may well be prolonged by panic-merchants, I too will have to prepare in ways that shouldn't have been necessary. I intend to store a moderate amount of staples (not huge amounts as pests tend to be attracted to our food and eat it): bakers flour, sugar, beans, etc and things we don't want to do without like Aspro and codeine for Maureen's migraine relief. I've already organised an independent water supply, but need to do one or two things to it to get it completed.
Talking of dried beans, I'm very partial to red kidney beans, but I remember my dad saying that when he, his brothers and sisters used to get scurvy (yes, believe it or not - remember, this was not long after the turn of the last century) his mother used to cook up haricot beans which seemed to help solve the problem. If anyone has any favourite bean recipes or knows something about their relative merits, then write and tell me.
Salt: large supplies needed. It's cheap and would prove to be absolutely essential if the power supply cuts for any length of time and your fridge is useless. (One friend of mine recently bought a $3,000 kero fridge that switches to gas or electricity as required. He's a bit more committed than I am on this!) You can preserve any meat, indeed almost any food with salt and some will keep indefinitely.
Another skill to learn (or at least read up on) is the dehydration of food. The kids and I love to make beef or kangaroo jerky a couple of times a year. Basically it is strips of meat that we salt and spice and dry smoke. Lawson particularly enjoys doing this and even took some up to the Mortensens for Lindy's 18th birthday, having introduced them to this gourmet delight when they were visiting at one stage or another. It was warmly received by the converts I believe!
I remember visiting an uncle's place years ago and seeing a glass jar full of bright green beans on the shelf. They had been cut green and then mixed with a quantity of coarse salt, which preserved them, colour and all. He said they were a bit salty when cooked, but I'm sure they could be rinsed to suit more modern tastes.
Be assured that any food stuff properly preserved with salt will last a long time and will not poison you - botulism can be a problem with non-salt methods of preservation. The body-image push against fat and salt in foods in recent times has resulted in manufacturers tying to use less and less in their products, to the point where there is so little salt used that some products (especially things like salami) have become marginal from a health perspective (not that I worry about that - I enjoy my salami). Maureen has looked at it all very suspiciously though, since the Garibaldi product poisonings and won't touch it. I suspect they failed to use enough salt as well as having slack hygiene practices.
On the World Scene
I don't know anything about international finance - like everyone else I only know what I've read: I've heard that Asia is not ready, that Japan is 'way behind' where it should be in preparation and won't be ready in time, but what all this means to us here in Australia I'm not sure. I've seen my own cattle market collapse after the mad cow disease scare, (interestingly, the Japanese people virtually stopped buying all meat - not just beef - when the scare hit them. Logic was the first casualty.) followed by the Asian crisis (not to mention the drought in the middle), so I know first-hand how we can be individually and directly affected by world events.
However, the world is full of people who want to survive, who want to buy as well as sell, and who have a huge motivation to keep the financial system working in some way. In the end, the economic law of supply and demand will right the situation, even if there is a prolonged depression as a result of the turmoil. Produce will be grown, bartered, bought and sold even in the worst case scenario.
He's in Charge
If I were you, I'd also put by a small quantity of the things you enjoy and would miss if there were shortages in the shops: for us it would be drinking chocolate, chilli powder, tea and coffee. (Maureen said to add Kikkoman soy sauce and Gravox.) Organise a few of the special things that literally 'spice up' our lives and are gifts from a God that not only wants to feed us, but also wants us to delight in His gift of food.
Finally, let's not forget the Heavenly Father who is in charge of all of this, who is not panicking and who won't think us stupid for taking note of and applying the following proverb - even if we've got it completely wrong (which I believe is probably the case).
A wise man sees trouble coming and prepares
