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Wednesday, February 26, 2014

What if We Actually Had Church?

I'm gonna be honest, I want to plant a church so bad it makes me crazy.  I have two different models in my head, one being a straight up house church plan, the other a hybrid of the house church plan with a more centralized location for teaching and activities and such.  One requires more overhead than the other.  Both plans include the bulk of what we call "church" being done in houses.

Here is my concern with what we call Church.  It's not church, it's a worship service, and often a one man + the band show.  The people come in, they sing along with the band, listen to a pastor preach and go home.  Now don't get me wrong, I enjoy worship music, and I love to listen to good preaching.  Jesus stood up and taught in crowds and preaching is a great ministry, but it's not church.  Church is not a gathering to listen to a sermon.  It's a time to connect, share, encourage, expression devotion to Christ, praise and worship and fellowship.  There should be multiple people sharing (more than announcements) and multiple opportunities to connect.  What we do in Sunday School is more church than what we actually do in the church service.  Why?  Why do we do church like this?

I have thought of several different reasons, but I've come to one conclusion, cause we don't know anything else.  It's the way it's been done, so we just keep doing it this way.  It was brought about post-Constantine with the Catholic church and we've never done aything else.  What if we did,what if we were brave enough to do church like the Apostles, like Antioch, like the early believers? What if instead of it being one man and his band, we all shared and brought more than a bottom to put in a chair?  What would it look like? I think it would look like Church.

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