Home Church

So the "class" is over....   After 13 weeks of meeting on Sundays with 30+ in the coffee shop called Sojourners, we have completed an overview of what lies behind/under the who, what, why's and wherefores of doing church differently.  And it was so good.  So good to gather with like-minded people who shared a heart for what is difficult to articulate. A yearning really, to go beyond what the current walls of church seem to foster.

So writing is naming things and part of the 'rule and subdue' mandate given way back in the beginning.  At least that is how I am seeing it right now and seems right to me.  So we'll keep rolling in that direction (until a more clear correction or re-direct comes visiting).  By the way,  I love how my own blog allows me to just interrupt, to return to a previous  thought or theme to add an additional ounce of further clarification right smack dab in the midst of an entirely different subject.  A blog is, if nothing else, certainly self-accommodating.

OK, I seek to exercise this naming as regards to what I will simply call  home church (HC). Standing on the threshold of this new direction feels like a profound thing.  Doing church so differently after a self-pattern followed for 30 or 40 years is, to me, no small thing. Desiring to write around it before actually doing it seems at least novel, perhaps naive, but worth some key strokes nonetheless.

The traditional, well-accepted approach.... we gather together in small or larger groups, rows of seats/pews all facing forward and participate in a formatted service.  Mostly passive participation...yes, singing of course, but no inter-relating with those to the left or right (unless the fleeting greeting of one's neighbor holds more value than I am aware).  And we watch what's on the screen, listen to the speaker(s), perhaps pray from our seats, maybe take some notes.  Someone has somewhat harshly boiled it all down to "a concert and a speech". And then it is over except for maybe 15 minutes of fellow shipping in one type of 'gathering area' or another. And this mostly done between the same people with those they already know.  And then we go home with a check mark in the 'Do Church' box, hoping ourselves more ready for the Wednesday challenges to be dealt out by the world that undoubtedly loom ahead.

Perhaps an over-simplistic, pessimistic re-presentation of the essence of it all....OK, I'll give you that. No judgement intended and really I am mainly aiming my comments at me.  But no matter how you cut it, if you pour all the transformation that has occurred in all the lives going through this weekly drill over the last 50 years into a big beaker, I submit that the volume of "he must increase but I must decrease" that could be poured out would be unimpressive at best. The New Testament lives we read about were dramatically changed and their radically different approach to life was more than just noticed.  It was infectious, firmly resisted and it cost, cost, cost.  Today.... not so much.  What up?

Several others have done a great job measuring and quantifying the end result of today's Christianity. Guys like Barna and Gallup give us the "read it and weep" bottom line results of where a couple thousand years of   the institutionalized versions of "following Jesus" has delivered us.  It's so not pretty.  No real difference in the way of doing life, none, nada, between the worldly secular guy and the member of Hosanna 1st Baptist.  Yikes! Again, this is not about "them"...I am looking at the man in the mirror and if you want to make the world a better place take a look at yourself and make the change....

End result, a hunger to go beyond this now normalized version of today's average church. A sense that what lies ahead and what it will demand will never be able to be navigated via this status quo version of "work out your salvation with fear and trembling."  Thus, at the tender age of 65, what has kind-of-worked for so long has, over the last year or so, been found to be a cracked cistern that simply cannot be relied upon to hold sufficient life water.

So I hear myself telling others that "I am ready" to turn the Etch-a-Sketch upside down, give it a good shake and start all over.  Start meeting with a smaller group of 15-20 or 30....kind of vague-ish on the number but you get the point.  Jesus had his 12, had Peter, James and John as a special sub-group of 3 and they all did life together 24-7.  And a non-homogenized group it was, full of disparate professions, zealots, hot-heads, a tax-collector thought to be too cozy with the Romans and a thief who stole from the treasury he was assigned to manage.  Nothing too idealistic about them.

And so off we go to emulate some of the same features of what our New Testament brethren laid down as an example.  To go on a kind of camping trip where all of life's normal props and diversions are nowhere to be seen and things get organic real quick.  Sand in the food, bugs in the sleeping bags. And the proximity of other eternal souls with their irritating ways of doing things, their incessant overuse of certain words, how they chew their food and why can't they see how ridiculous they look sporting Culpeppers old jersey number.  Smallness brings an instant level of increased transparency, being more or less leaderless, listening to the Spirit for Him to be the guide of conducting our church is edgy and can put on edge. A perfect environment for misunderstandings and petty disagreements galore.  Organic, messy, no convenient closets to hide your stuff which lies strewn all around your tent for all to see.  Doing dishes with river water, starting fires with damp wood. You get the picture....If you can have Dylan or Clapton un-plugged then this is church down and dirty.

Jeesh, here I am saying all this and the HC boat is still at the dock, yet-to-embark.  One can only imagine that their will be sufficient things to "name" as the little dingy of 453 Carol Lane joins with some other little dingys, happily bobbing along on the dark waters, seeking more robust transformation but really having little idea what it is they are asking for.  We remind ol' Santiago to be mindful of what he asks for.  Mas tardes padron....mas tardes.