I always find these types of threads to be interesting, on the occasions when they are posted. Interesting because you typically get the same breakdown each time.
On one side, you have the folks who hide behind the “law and order” argument, you know, “tough luck, shoulda got a permit.” These generally tend to be made up of the irreligious, if not always or necessarily atheists, types who hear about home Bible studies and don’t like the idea because they’re afraid that “Bible thumpers” might use unrestricted freedom to tell them they shouldn’t look up porno on the internet or something. Throw in a heaping helping of the mainline Catholic/Protestant types who are already naturally suspicious of “unorganized/uncontrolled” religious freedom anywise.
On the other hand, you have the more genuine Christians who think that the government doesn’t have any business using the false front of “necessary” regulations to violate the 1st/14th amendments.
I must be the exception to the rule.
Setting religion aside, if my next-door neighbor was having 20-50 people over to his house on a twice-weekly basis for any reason, I'd likely not be very happy with him. Just dealing with the added traffic would be a problem. Zoning rules generally exist for a purpose. As a previous poster noted, there's a reason why you can't open a Starbucks in your garage.
I've no knowledge of the situation beyond what I've read here, but it sounds to me like a problem caused by two (maybe more) hard-headed neighbors and complicated by a bunch of empty headed bureaucrats. Seems that a simple solution would be for this religious service to meet at a public place (church? town hall? library? public park?) and call it "resolved".
That having been said, the law in question specifically mentioning "religion" needs to be changed. That's a problem, no doubt.