- How church excludes those under 18
- How the sermon is not a great way to learn
- How it's a lot of effort by a small number of people
- How basically the whole thing is some kind of compromise that, in the end, means everybody is unhappy with the final result but at least as unhappy as each other.
I mentioned my Connect Grow Serve idea. Where there are basically three areas of things that I try to do in my life as a Xn (1. Connect with God 2. Grow as a Xn / human 3. Love / serve others). I think this is pretty much true for all Xns and some of these things we do as individuals, some in small groups and some in large groups (examples of this here). This all sounded fine and dandy until someone asked this simple question...
What's one thing that Xns do better in a large group?
This got us thinking with no good answer. After a little bit more thought (post conversation) I started thinking things like...
- Action for social justice (like all protesting in the one place for the one issue)
- Listening to a world famous speaker (just because it's more efficient, then again podcasting is probably even more efficient)
None of these are things that happen at a regular church service, and everything that usually happens at a regular church service is probably done better by a small group anyway.
So why do Xns pursue with big church? Could it be simply that it makes it really easy to just sit up the back and not be involved. This makes it as easy to go to church as it does to go to the movies. This in turn makes it as easy to invite someone to church as it might be to invite someone to a movie. The problem with this is that all this makes Xy look like something that requires as much commitment as turning up to the movies on a regular basis. It makes it look like something that is more of an inner thing than requiring any action, something that apart from a regular Sunday morning commitment won't interfere with your life. Is this what Jesus said to the rich young ruler? (Mark 10:21) Is this what Xy is about? Is it time we started pushing to scrap the Sunday morning service?
2 comments:
While I have the same questions at times (the church I attend is a membership of 4000 with about 700 who serve the church.) As I ask God for the answer to this I find that God answers, sometimes people need to see the few serving in order to be drawn out to serve themselves.
I have the added bonus of having a truely blessed Rector and support clergy and worship team who really do have the Holy Spirit flowing through them; so I go to church to be fed so that I can feed others with fellowship, with love, with service... I go to be fed and to learn lessons then I take those lessons out. Not everyone does, but then again I go to work and not everyone is dedicated to their jobs; I even have all different kinds of relationships with friends (Some who I have full contact with and share every area of my life with, some that I see sometimes and have fun with, some that are fringe aquaintances who I speak to infrequently.)
I don't disagree that large and uniform churches are going by the wayside and many many many aren't serving people as they were intended, but I think there are churches out there (the one I go to anyway) that really do care, that have a great mission and that live by the word of God every day and continually go back and ask God to correct what they do wrong, to show them what He wants them to do next and to just check in. It serves as an amazing community resource for outreach, mercy, and evagelism and really just does Gods work on a daily basis. It's like a family; you don't like being related to everyone in your family, there are always those who get on your nerves or don't have the same views as you, or don't do the same amount of housework, but you deal because it's a family and a community that you live in and you learn lessons from both the bad and good. Hopefully, you also find more ways to connect to others who need to hear Gods word (if you hold it) or who can speak Gods word to you (if you need it).
Anyway, I love reading your blog, it makes me think and re-examine my faith and my dedication and just goes to show how very important it is to not just worship "alone" but to participate in your Xn life with others (large or small groups) which is church anyway. Church isn't the structure, its people gathering to praise God together, I think that's what people and religious structures sometimes forget.
Thanks!
Hi Jess,
Glad to see you're still reading. Really appreciate it. Thanks for the long comment too!
I guess one thing that I should be clear about is that I have no problem about large groups per se. Looks like you're having a great experience with a large church and organisations like Amnesty International would just not work if it was a small group of say 5 people. None the less I guess the questions I’m wrestling with is what do we do best as a large group and what is better to do as a smaller group. I worry that too often we slip into the comfort of a larger group because it's easy. I'll keep working this through.
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