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Folks who do the "home church' thing probably ought to prepare ahead of time for the crowd ~ and select locations where their neighbors won't be particularly disturbed.

Moving into an existing residentially zoned community and starting up a church ~ that attracts strangers, not all of whom can be assumed to be honest ~ may well create the appearance of endangering the neighbors.

They have a right of self-defense. God gave it to them.

So if they bring in bad people who victimize the neighbors with crime, the second amendment provides a remedy to that while at the same time protecting the first amendment rights of property owners to conduct Bible studies in their homes. Feeling endangered by Christians is a tad odd, by the way.

It’s one thing to hold small private weekly Bible studies in one’s home for members of one’s church, to hold political meetings with like minded people, hold private AA meetings at one’s home, host the occasional Tupperware or Pampered Chef parties, host private birthday parties or BBQ’s for family and friends on one’s private property. It is IMO, a completely matter to turn your private property in a zoned residential neighborhood into a regularly used commercial or not for profit full time enterprise; a public catering facility or nightclub, a commercial or NFP halfway house for recovering addicts and alcoholics, a commercial store or build a “church” or “mega church” in one’s back yard complete with athletic facilities and a for profit or a not for profit day care center without any regard to permits and existing zoning restrictions.

I’m all for personal and religious freedom and the reasonable freedom to use one’s private property as one wants to use it for their own private use, but then I’m also not against reasonable zoning laws. Without such restrictions, hearings and zoning applications, what would stop my next door neighbor from opening up a publically accessible nightclub, an “adult” book store or a for or not for profit swimming club or amusement park or pig farm in their back yard?

True story: back in the late ’70’s, my brother bought a very nice house on a seemly quiet street in Severna Park MD. His next door neighbor was collecting unemployment, workers comp and monthly federal disability checks for both him and his wife, neither of which appeared to be disabled or incapable of holding a job BTW.

The next door neighbor had also completed some sort of ministerial correspondence course that enabled him to become a “minister” and proudly claimed to my brother that this “loophole” let him claim his house as a “church” and that he wrote off his mortgage payments and all other household expenses on his tax return, not only getting his disability and workers comp checks but also living completely tax free as a “minister”. He even told my brother that he should do the same; it was such an “easy” scam.

But the guy’s “ministry” consisted solely of his “Youth Outreach Ministry” which was actually nightly beer keggers, pot and porn flicks for any teenage boy willing to pony up $20 as a “donation” to his “church”. My brother turned a blind eye until the partying and noise, the teenage boys wandering into his yard and puking in his bushes at all hours of the night, the 10 to 20 cars parked on the neighbor’s lawn every night, got way, way out of hand. My brother called the local police, zoning authorities and eventually the IRS. The neighbor and his wife were eventually found out to be fraudulently collecting disability and unemployment payments and then the IRS came calling one day and the guy was lead away in handcuffs, much to the cheering and to the great relief of his neighbors.

I’m not a big fan of big government or stupid, overly restrictive and unreasonable zoning restrictions or the IRS; I’m the total opposite of the neighborhood busybody, usually adhering to the “live and let live” philosophy, but if that guy (my brother’s former neighbor) was my neighbor …. Yea, I’d use zoning laws, the IRS and anything at my disposal to shut that scam artist down and bring peace and civility back to my neighborhood.