The term “Domestic Church” refers to the family, the smallest body of gathered believers in Christ. Though recovered only recently, the term dates all the way back to the first century AD. The Greek word ecclesiola referred to “little church.” Our Early Church Fathers understood that the home was fertile ground for discipleship, sanctification, and holiness.

Not long ago, three of my children joined the Ballarat Brass Band and were given a trombone, a euphonium and a baritone to learn to play. When they practice, I call it “honking”, because it is not yet what one would call music. But I love it when the three of them practice together and someone hits a bum note, and they fall about laughing.

Up until the Covid-19 crisis sent all families home, ours was an unusual household with kids and living and schooling being done all day everyday together. It is not often that someone is not home.

During our recent era of history, like our actual churches, our domestic churches are largely empty. I frequently walk past amazing homes and nobody is in them; there is no life happening. I always envisage the gorgeous life I could live in that double story home with a dedicated sundeck, jacuzzi and library with view to the ocean or the hills, with sweeping lawns and couches which beg to be snuggled into with a good book!

Worldly “success” has come at the cost of our domestic life; it seems that the more successful one is, the less your family is at home together.

To properly live the domestic church requires a counter cultural decision to rewire our brains from “success” to “faithfulness”. In some ways the modern slow food movement is a reminder to our society that we have been going too fast.

Faithfulness is slow and requires patience, discipline and obedience. It is also organic; therefore, requiring tweaks and adjustments and sometimes needs wholesale replanting!

Living the Domestic Church necessitates and accommodates mess and mistakes, falling down days and days of glorious triumph because there is no washing to be put on, or hung out, or brought in, or folded, nor put away, the children are clean (enough) there is food in the fridge and a meal in the oven and a glass of wine to be shared with the beloved.

The Domestic Church requires people, and the human person is kooky, disobedient, marvellous, delightful, kind and selfish all at once. Just when the sail seems set, the wind can change and bring a new storm to contend with.

As a mother whose home is the workplace, it is a constant humility program. It is not for the faint hearted, for you cannot shut the door on your work; it comes in and wakes you with a fever, calls your name when you just sit down, reminds you every moment of your humanity! I remember with humiliation the first time my two year old used the “f” word in the right context….ooops!

For the Domestic Church to flourish, a decision has to be made by the couple that the stay-at-home parent rejoices in the task at hand. Each day has to be met with joy at living the “hidden life”. There is no one to grade your work, acknowledge your success, pay your wage, send you to conferences or clap you up onto the stage. This decision to
lay down your life – in joy – for the sake of your family has to be made from the core of your being, and it has to continue to be inspected to weed out any resentments, disappointments or laments.

A Domestic Church is fundamentally a place where life is lived. It is a place where stopping what you are doing to give complete attention to your children telling you about their tediously long dream or the miniscule scratch on their knee, or the heavily disguised cry for attention from the withdrawn teenager is good practice for stopping to hear the
voice of the Holy Spirit – it is not easy, but it has been known to save lives.

And I mean that.

Literally.

A mother of many children that I know responded to the prompt to text a, “how are you” to a family friend and that was enough to stop them from taking their life. It makes me realise that the thankless task of stopping what I am doing to listen to a child, grows the ears of my heart to hear the cry for help from those in the wider community that the Lord sends me to love.

For the beauty of the domestic church is that it is not closed in on itself, but has open doors and open hearts to draw others in to share the life giving love of the domestic journey. It is the common experience of visitors to a robust domestic church that there is general rejoicing when they arrive, that the visitor experiences a sense of belonging and of being known and loved.

Some of the signs of a flourishing domestic church are:

• Mess, creativity, books, music and conversation
• Hospitality and welcome along with “stretchy meals” and intergenerational conversations
• Prayer, capacious hearts and laughter
• Kindness, compassion and care that goes beyond the family unit
• A place where the big questions can be asked, chewed over and pondered upon

Another way to look at it is to ask, are there the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit here?

Do the fruits of the Holy Spirit flourish here?

The Domestic Church, like our Mother Church is a place where all manner of humanity can assemble; where all can be called forth; where every “off note on the trombone” is rejoiced at because it means that someone is practicing, and practicing means we are getting better at this!

In this Covid-19 era, it seems the Lord is calling us “home”. May our hearts find restand rejuvenation. May the gentle nature of domestic life restore a flourishing creativity and may our hearts return again to the Father of all life.

~ Sarah McDonald

Sarah is married to James. They are blessed with four children, whom Sarah has homeschooled for the past ten years. Sarah gained a degree in Education, had a cerebral hemorrhage and returned to study Chinese Medicine and shiatsu therapy. By her account, she wasted her 20s gallivanting around the world before experiencing a conversion in Paris at the 1997 World Youth Day.

Sarah worked for a time for the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne in their Vocations office, and met and married James. An unexpected move to Sydney kicked off a career as a homeschooler. Her particular educational interests are proper grammar and the transmission of a lively Catholic faith. She & James have been members of the Emmanuel Community for 20 years

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