house church!
September 25, 2006
So while Francis is temporarily on hold while we wait for our Storahtelling friends, I thought it’d be good to talk about our upcoming Wednesday gatherings, especially since they start in a week and a half! Rather than planning out the format start to finish, I thought it’d be better to start with what ingredients I want to throw in the pot. Here are my thoughts:
1) community. I’m a professional churcher, which means that I almost always encounter people in an “official” capacity. I have jobs; I don’t have a community. I do have individual friends, who love and support me, though, and maybe if I can get five or six of them together in the same room at the same time along with some food (I’m a pretty good cook), they’ll like each other, too.
2) social time. I want to have a group of people who are aware of what’s going on in my life and in who’s lives I can take an interest. I also hardly ever have time to see friends these days, and I want to set aside some time each week to be with people I care about.
3) food. I’m a pretty good cook, and I think there’s something really holy about eating together. I eat so many meals on the subway or while I’m running down the street to my next appointment, and I think that’s a little messed up. Let’s break bread together.
4) prayer. Prayer is so intimate; it’s really hard to do. I think praying together can be really transforming, though, and I want to make it a regular discipline.
5) creative ritual. This doesn’t have to be much - it could be a bible study, a meditation, someone reading some poetry or playing a song, or whatever. This doesn’t need to be the focus of the evening, but including makes Transmission distinguishable from a social club or a discussion group. If different people took responsibility for coming up with something each week, the burden would be light and we’d have some pretty cool stuff.
Anyway, unless the plan’s changed, we’re first gathering on October 11, probably around 7ish. I can’t wait!
One Response to “house church!”
Quick thoughts:
- Meetings/Rituals based on historical Jewish holidays (a sort of look back from where we started. After all in order to truly understand the context of the bible we need to understand the culture of the time.)
- I like everyone sharing… it creates it’s own sense of community. I was at barcamp this weekend (a 36 hour tech sleep over - hence why I was so exhausted today) and each participant had to give a presentation. The intimacy and vulnerability of that was amazing and fostered a lot of great discussion.
- I see you posted about Todd’s commentary to Transmission. Surprised me but I think that’s awesome. 1 Peter 3:15 - “Always be prepared to give an answer for the hope that you have.” Personally, I love this verse and think it’s key to being a christian today. How many times have you heard a non-christian say that christians don’t have a clue? How many times have you maybe questioned something in the bible? We should sound be be able to answer people with wisdom and yet too often we answer the call with foolishness. Also key to this is doing it with “gentleness and respect”. How many times has God been portrayed as one waiting to smite you for your wrong doings? So I think a training ground in some form that helps us to know and draw closer to the God we claim to serve.
- Humor (pretty straight forward)
- Without diverging from the bible, experimentation. I say this as I personally cringe. I have seen this gone awry so many times and hurt so many of the people I love. Many of whom have walked away from the church and God so walk this tightrope carefully.
- Bring it down to the masses. Figure out how to cut out the “Christianese”.
- Focus on the Church (God) as opposed to the church (human).
Those are some immediate thoughts.
By Renata on Oct 1, 2006