I mentioned a little while ago that Ephesians 2 was bugging me and I'm pretty over the whole Sunday morning service thing. The idea in Ephesians 2 that the spirit of God is now dwelling in the church (as in the people ) is a radical change from the fixed temple where God dwelt. Looking at many churches I'm wondering if they have become virtual temples with people only gathering in a building once a week. Other activities like Bible studies are usually things non Xns cannot engage with. At the moment I feel like God sends Jesus, Jesus sends the Spirit, the Spirit sends us and we go into a building. I wonder how well would Jesus fit into our churches? Would he be happy singing romantic love songs to God or would he be doing something closer to turning tables?
Previously I have said that inviting someone to church is much like inviting someone to a nudist colony. No matter how good the music, how great the coffee or how talented the speaker is it is going to be very hard to get them to come. It's pretty easy to bag out big church meetings and lament about how great things would have been for the first month after Pentecost. As much as I have enjoyed small house church type things that I have been involved in previously I don't think "lets all do small house churches" is necessarily the answer. There is nothing wrong with being big and eventually any infectious group will get bigger. The question is how do we get big and what do we look like when we get big?
My latest thought is we divide a church into 3 levels
Individuals, Small missions and a Collective gathering. Usually we ten to start with the collective gathering and then try and get small groups happening and then try and usually not pay too much attention to to individual action. This certainly makes sense as far as economies of scale go. Rather than start from the big and work down I'd like to try starting from the individual and working up to the collective gathering. This is what I'm thinking at the moment...
Individuals
All members of the church to the the same rhythms together (this idea is pretty much from Mike Frost and Small Boat Big Sea). They are things that the group agrees to do as individuals. They need to be tangible achievable things, so "grow closer to God" doesn't count.
Small Missions- Read the Bible (all members reading the same things - of course you can read more)
- Pray (all members praying for the same things - of course you can pray for more)
- Do 3 acts of kindness a week
These are not bible studies as most small groups are but rather missions and really the heart of the church. These are small groups (that everyone is a part of perhaps even more than one) about actively and collectively living out faith. The focus of the small groups will be to collectively live out faith with a focus on creativity, justice or evangelism.
So these could include a group that does...
So this is the big Sunday Service replacement... Once a fortnight perhaps or so...
So these could include a group that does...
- A bread run
- An art group
- A playgroup
- Visit prisoners
- An amnesty letter writing group
- Windsurfing with the aim to reach out to the local windsurfing community group
- Walking their dogs in the local suburb with aim of reaching out to the local community
- Plan / talk about the mission
- be accountable to each other about the individual rhythms
- Anything else like wrestle with particular issues or listen guest speakers (virtual or real)
So this is the big Sunday Service replacement... Once a fortnight perhaps or so...
- Eat a shared meal
- Share stories of the mission / group
- Pray for each other
