Come to Our Missional, Emergent, Post Charismatic, Bible, Barbeque, Worship Center

So I have spent almost a year on the internet reading, researching and pondering what I believe and what others are saying. The people I read are varied – to say the least. I read Calvinist, Reformed, Charismatics, Emergent, Post Charismatics, Atheists, Cult survivors, and so many others. Some know exactly what the ‘Church’ is supposed to look like, some aren’t sure and others just hate the whole institution.

Husband decided last May that we were not going to do anything for a year. We were going to detox and just let things settle. And we have. But there is a shifting in our spirit somehow coming into the Spring season. May is not that far away and we realize that we are no closer to having an idea of what we will do then than when we left a year ago.

One of the first books that we read last year was ‘So You Don’t Want To Go To Church Anymore,” by Wayne Jacobsen. In the last few nights we have revisited the book and read it again with somewhat fresh eyes. Eyes that have had the scales of the institution fallen off. We love the heart of this book but have more questions now than before.

The main question is this; seemingly, in the New Testament, the Body of Christ did intentionally meet together on what appears to be a somewhat regular basis. In these meetings, in whatever format, there was fellowship, teaching, music, encouragement, prophecy and eating together. I think you will agree that to do this, takes some intentionality. It takes someone to ‘lead’ and others to participate. I think that what Wayne puts forth in his book of really letting the Holy Spirit put these gatherings together has to have some purposeful direction from a human being also involved. I don’t think he would disagree.

But to be purposeful in trying to start something scares us to death. The minute you do decide to start something you have to decide what to start. Does that make sense? In the very act of beginning something you have to decide 1) what to begin and 2) what not to begin. Decisions have to be made to decide what to include and what not to include. You can say that you will start something that will have no true purpose other than meeting but I can’t see how that would really happen. Just in deciding to have the meeting, boundaries will naturally be erected.

So, what do you start? Do we call it missional, emergent, bible centered, just fellowship, a gathering for worship, a barbeque, a charismatic fellowship, a home group or what?

A very wise pastor wrote to us the other day. He said this. “In looking around all the church plants before we started our church here in our town, I pondered all that I had seen. It seemed that those churches that deviated from centering their congregations around anything else other than to Love God and to then in turn Love each other, in time became sidetracked and shipwrecked.”

As I thought about this it became so clear to me. To create a fellowship, say around ‘signs and wonders,’ produces either a desire for more of them or a pride in the fact that it is happening and thus became off kilter. It becomes about signs and wonders not about Him. To create a fellowship around gifting and hierarchy produced my story here at this blog. To create a fellowship around the prophetic word produced churches that became unbalanced in their chasing after the newest prophet or making everything a prophetic word and results in the disillusionment of many Christians. It again wasn’t about simply loving God and others.

And here is where I hope I don’t offend many who read here. I’m wondering if even the striving for a more missional model or a emergent type of a structure will again end up in another ditch – just off to the other side of the road. It seems in trying to distinguish ourselves from another group or distinguish ourselves even to ourselves we just build another rigid structure – just out of a different material.

What if our structure was the non structure of having a group of people who gather together to try to encourage each other to love God and love others? Could you take what is true of each of the other camps and include it when appropriate? In other words, if someone is sick then, of course you would anoint them with oil and pray for their healing – but you would not hold healing services. If someone is dealing with a demonic force in their lives, of course you would pray for the spirit to depart and for the Holy Spirit to fill the empty place – you just wouldn’t open up a deliverance tent the next week. If a need became evident of finances or help to the poor that the group could have an impact in, of course a missional model would be seen. And when a couple of guys or girls with a broken sexuality decided to be brave enough to have us love on them, we might even be seen as emergent.

But none of the above would define us. The only definition would be to Love God and Love Others. Whatever flowed in or out of the group would be an example of that statement and not the definition of our group. (One key thing would to not let our statement be rooted in pride or it would become just another structure.)

What do you guys think? Could it be done? Could there be humility in facilitating a group like this? Where are the pitfalls? Am I being too simple? Too naive?