Thursday, April 21, 2011

Christians celebrate 'simple' Easter


This weekend, Jeanne O’Hair, her friends and family will raise their voices in Easter hymns “as the spirit leads us,” she says, in her “house church” — O’Hair’s living room in Brea, Calif.

In a metal outbuilding at a shuttered horse track near San Antonio, Jeff Bishop says he will celebrate at his “simple church” under a rough-hewed cedar cross, with “folks who speak ‘cowboy’ like I do.”

In Washington, D.C., at Saturday night Easter Vigil, while “some folks go to services dressed to the nines, we’ll be dressed to the fives: We’ll keep it casual and focused on Christ,” says William D’Antonio, a member of a network of Catholic-style house churches called “Intentional Eucharistic communities.”

No matter what you call them, house churches, or “simple” or “organic” churches, have long thrived in third world countries where clergy and funds for church buildings are scarce. Now, however, they are attracting a small but loyal following across the USA.

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