I read Phil’s comment to my last post entitled, Who Needs Church? and I began to wonder what would happen if Barna is right and people in large numbers really became the church and quit assembling themselves together in the buildings we currently call churches. I hate to say this, but I wonder if for many people that’s more of the concern than whether or not people forsake their belief in God.
Although I don’t think we’re going to begin seeing huge numbers of churches going up for sale anytime soon let’s go with this thought of more and more people assembling themselves as the church in homes, restaurants, golf courses or wherever. What’s wrong with that? Are these “new churches” more accessible for their friends? Would they invite their friends into their inner “church” circle? Back to Phil, what about Hebrews 10? Would the writer be ok with church around my kitchen table or at a restaurant with three other couples?
I must confess that part of this sounds very appealing to me. How about you, is this scary or enticing? What are your thoughts?
November 6, 2007 at 8:44 am
I pastor a traditional church, but I host what I consider a different, “new church” in my living room on Tuesday nights. Ask me which one I like better??!!
But you also raise the Heb. 10 point. I’m pretty sure the writer would say the same thing to both venues, because it’s an exhortation for us to do better, go deeper, and get stronger than we are now (even if we are going to 3 meetings a week). We won’t get to a point when we aren’t in danger of forsaking the assembling (read “genuine Christian Community”) Where we meet, and how much we meet doesn’t equal depth of meeting together in Christ.
November 6, 2007 at 8:50 am
So very exciting, “where two or three are gathered there i am” ekklesia….Man it sounds awesome, the freedom to worship and share and break bread. We do it in our “church”. We are seeing so many come to Christ who would never walk into our Sunday meetings. We have had at least five salvations on the golf course over the last three months. One marraige restored. And many encouraged. Church is on the move into our communities. not Barna, but the Bible…
November 6, 2007 at 9:10 am
[...] Golf Course Church I began to wonder what would happen if Barna is right and people in large numbers really became the church and quit assembling themselves together in the buildings we currently call churches. I hate to say this, but I wonder if for many people that’s more of the concern than whether or not people forsake their belief in God. [...]
November 6, 2007 at 4:24 pm
Mark,
I think you are on to some good stuff here. I moved to LA from the Bay Area about 8 years ago. In fact, I still hold my membership at my home church in San Jose (Jubilee Christian Center where Ron Kenoly was Worship Pastor for a number of years). I started trying out churches when I got here and found absolutely nothing that interested me that didn’t require a two hour drive to get to.
I kind of determined that there had to be another way. I slowly started doing volunteerism delivery meals to elderly shut-ins one night a week and to homebound AIDS patients another night. I also started doing a little volunteerism at one of the local homeless shelters. I met up with some people who kind of felt like me. They invited me to join their home Bible Study. No real leader. Kind of like a book club…we read/study a certain passage each week in an effort to be his light in our world.
When I was a regular attender, I was pretty insulated. My world revolved around church; friends, associates, etc. It is rather interesting to have your eyes opened to a world that needs the message you’ve got but probably won’t ever hear it because they’ve been turned off by the churchiness that comes from so many in the church world today.
j.
January 18, 2008 at 2:02 am
Awesome!!
Freedom to worship and share and break bread is really a very good idea.