I was talking about this topic with Grey again (strangely enough, it tends to come up on a weekly basis...) and we both agreed that our absolute favorite church service EVER was one time a couple years ago when we got a blizzard and "regular" church was canceled.
There were some who live in the building, and some like us who hadn't gotten the phone call about its being canceled, so maybe 17 or 20 people showed up. And stayed. And it was CHURCH, I'm telling you.
Someone had put on some praise music in the sanctuary, and there were a few people in there singing along and worshipping through music and dance (people who wouldn't dare to dance in front of everyone else). One person sang a solo for whoever was there to listen. There were three or four sitting off in a corner praying together. There were several out in the lobby, just chit-chatting.
That's where I was, and that morning I got to know one of the most amazing women in the whole church -- and she's kind of intimidating, so I would probably never have spoken to her on a regular Sunday morning. Some of the guys got to talking, and when one mentioned a repair problem that he'd been having, a couple others went off with him right then to help him fix it. Grey hung around chatting with us for a while, and went off with our son for a while, and then came back and sort of flitted from one group to another. Our son had a blast; he appointed himself unofficial babysitter for one of the other younger ones (he was only 5 himself), and kept reporting to the baby's mother what the baby was doing. Usually the two kids would have been in different classes (age-segregated), but that morning they both really enjoyed playing together.
Some of the folks in the lobby were talking about lighthearted stuff, and another little knot of people were doing Bible research into a point of doctrine that they were discussing.
It was all completely unstructured, no one was in charge, and we were all there worshipping and fellowshipping together. No one had to shush the kids, no one had to do any lesson plans or come up with a sermon, and people could come and go as it suited them.
As I recall, my antisocial husband and I ended up staying far longer than we've ever stayed for a church service before. He's usually one of those "first out the door" kind of guys. And when we left, we felt this sense of total spiritual satisfaction that I don't think we've ever been able to attain since then.
I swear, I would LOVE going to church if they would only cancel it every week!
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3 comments:
I wish I could have been there. I think I would have had a blast with y'all. -SW
that's what they call Being Church as opposed to Doing Church.
I'm guessing you've never been part of a church where small groups (and I mean in your sense of definition) was ever thought through and implemented. I'm guessing it's always been about the large numbers and big group.
Our church has a saying: "as a church gets larger, it's got to get smaller" -- meaning that, given the theory that in a healthy church evangelism WILL be taking place, and therefore numbers WILl be rising, you've got to intentionally keep splitting the groups down into smaller segments in order for people to be able to care for and about one another and truly challenge one another. We split even our small groups after they've gone much over twenty people (thirty or forty counting kids, which we do).
I see the problem with most chuches as two fold:
They're either so stuck on the worship service and 'growth' (sheep stealing, anyone??) and the flash and dance, that they ignore the truth that people grow best simply by 'doing' life. A lot of churches suffer here.
Then there's the other end (the 'or'): they desire the small group-doing-life so much that they reject growth (not on a cognitive level), meaning when the group gets too large, instead of the painful but wonderful process of splitting people into smaller segments, they just stop inviting people, or they keep letting the group grow until there's not a good way to 'do life' -- there's too many people, and you're back to square one.
Our church thrives on being rather than doing. Part of that painful process is keeping it small while allowing a vision of the larger picture (big group worship is, or can be, a great picture of what heaven will look like. There are plenty of newer churches out there, btw -- I beleive the term is emergent -- who do the multi-choice worship style in the big group setting. Interestingly enough these churches tend to thrive in small group as well).
Okay, now I'm rambling...
Sounds to me like a little slice of Earth as it was designed to be. Didn't God create Human Beings, koinonia, before there were ever Christians?
Ahhh for the good ol' days!(Around 33-70 AD)
Be good. It's what you were created to be!
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