If you’re reading this blog then you’ve probably read Jon’s blog and you might also have read Rosie’s blog.
Over the last few months Rosie and I have spoken a lot about fresh expressions of Church. And how it could well be possible that the deconstructed church movement may be a truer representation of how the early Church was when Jesus was still in ministry. After all, he took the last, the least and the lost on his journey. You had a group of believers who shared each others lives.
You might be thinking; Yes, but that was 2000 years ago, we can’t possible replicate that. Well no we can’t I think all of us followers can take some important lessons:
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Before we can disciple we need to trust and be trusted.
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In order to trust and be trusted we need to communicate and spend time with people.
It’s quite possible, nee probable, that there are people in our Churches that we don’t trust. It’s also probable that our Church numbers will have, at best, either stayed still or, at worst, fallen. Maybe it’s time for a fresh expression.
Much has been said about coffee house Alpha that leads to coffee house Church that meets on a Wednesday afternoon because that’s the only time people can make it. These are great but the Bible is pretty clear (though I’m still hunting down a reference) that we need a collected, or as I prefer to term it a united, time each week but Sunday’s were only chosen 300 years ago. It can be any day of the week.
So here’s the experiment (that’s the wrong word, but I can’t think of a better one) I’d love to run:
Take 24 people from several different Churches. Split them into 4 groups so at most they’d only know one other person and let them meet when and where they want (like the above mentioned Starbucks). Give them a Bible topic to cover, ie Jesus and Children (yes, it’s early don’t expect anything mind blowing) and let them discuss it and form there own conclusions. I propose that these groups be called “Refresh Groups”.
That may not look too different from house, or cell, Church groups but where it hinges is it’s relation to the time of united worship. I personally think that our teaching should be done in the aforementioned Refresh Groups. Which means united times can take on a radically different form probably lasting between 60 and 90 minutes. This meeting would contain a time of worship, with no preference to any style, and, initially, an introduction to the study to be done in the refresh group but this would last no more than 10 minutes. This meeting would be called “unite.”
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