Our church decided to go on a 21 day fast, starting yesterday. I was just thinking, before the announcement, that I needed to take a break from watching TV so much. We DVR our normal allotment of “24,” “Lost,” “Heroes,”"The Apprentice,” and “Grease” which is a lot in a week! (Abby has been DVRing “Oprah” as well)

So, if you calculate that out, I was watching about 4.5 hours a week (DVR saves and hour and a half of commercials). The problem came in when I started going outside this and watching TV more. I noticed it creeping in and taking my focus away from prayer, study, reading, blogging, and time with others. So, now to adjust and refocus.

What I told Abby is that I’m not watching TV, movies, or listening to anything but uplifting music/Bible on Mp3/or any book on tape.

Meanwhile the goals for this fast will be:

• Continual integration of prayer into normal life
• Dedicated Bible study/research/review
• Blog a day (except Thursdays) on some Biblical Principles I hold onto that have shaped my life and made me who I am
• Grow my reading speed by 50%

I’ll keep everyone apprised!

Tags: fast

Last Wednesday Matthew came over and we talked about InFlux and small groups. He’s giving me the green light to run with it.

Green light=scared and exited

Well, it seems that noone is ever equipped fully for any task that God gives them. The hypothesis goes that if you were confident in your ability to do it, then you wouldn’t have to depend on God. I know that God has been preparing me for this, but now that it’s starting to happen it’s a little more strange. Studying house churches for two years is one thing, actually practically doing it is another.

It’s almost like going to school for two years and then finally getting a job in the same field. You may know all that you can about a subject, but the real world is always different. Add that together with the fact that this group isn’t really starting as a house church, but as an extension of a traditional church and things get really interesting.

The thing is, I know that God put me here, at least for a time. I know I’m going to be learning, and this seems to be a safe environment to do it. Also, the associate pastor at The Gathering Place Chruch, Pastor Dan, is a great guy and I really feel on the same wavelength as him. He’s very educated, knows all the church theories and statistics, and has a heart for the age group we are involved in (18-24).

We had a “leader’s meeting” for all the heads of ministries in the church (though were are classified not as the leaders, we were invited), and Pastor Dan actually said that one of the problems with the church is that we are portrying the Sunday service to be the “be all, end all” of church, and it shouldn’t be! This is amazing to hear from a pastor.

What would happen if the church leadership decided, “Hey, lets only have service every other week. We’ll have small groups on those weeks instead. This way, you can all still have time to accomplish all your responsibilities and spend time with your family.” Crazy? I think not.

Anyone that knows me understands that I think Sunday services are a very unefficient use of peoples time. Even pastor Dan admits that although The Gathering Place is one of the friendliest churches around, people aren’t well connected. Sunday services don’t function that way unless you are a very outgoing person who likes to start up conversations with complete strangers.

It seems that Sunday church’s intention is to “equip the body” at most churches, but it’s hard to equip everyone in a service with a general message that is tailored to reach the most people. You can’t equip someone that way. In fact, the next few Sunday services are going to be dedicated to “end times prophesy,” which I think is great in terms of helping people to get out of a “the world is going to end and I don’t have to worry about the next generation” mentality. I’m sure the messages will be encouraging and I will enjoy them, because they are Biblical and will teach on the Victorious Chruch. Still, that is teaching and giving understanding, and can only “equip” from a general point of view.

So, anyway, I say all this to communicate the fact that I think the church is a great place to grow. I’m excited to see what will happen.

Any thoughts?(more in next post)

As promised, there are things that I like about the traditional church that I’m not sure can be replicated by the house church movement:

• I’m not sure that in a house church, the way I envsion it, you could have the transgenerational, mixed segmentation of society. Traditional churches do.
• The ability to set up different groups to meet different needs is great: there are singles groups, affinity groups, and such.
• The sense of being part of something greater is accomplished when there is a great number of people worshipping together (this can be replicated when a house church is big enough)
• Large churches can organized to weild tremendous impacts on social thinking (our old church is helping a government form based on biblical values)…Though house churches could possibly do the same when large enough, or well known enough.

Can anyone else add to this?

Errrrg. I went home and spoke to Abby at lunchtime and she questioned me a bit and made me get thinking again…also had a guy from housechurch.org write a little blurb on my last post. Just looking at the titles on his “basics” page got me a little frustrated again.

I know most of the stuff there…I don’t have to read it. It’s the same stuff that has had me riled up for almost three years now.

Here’s a few things that frustrate me about “church,” in general, as it’s known today.

• The environment is a passive environment. There are too many people sitting around looking at the “pastor.” The spiritual gifts are constrained (order is a good thing), because the leadership might not even know who some of the attendee’s are.
• Because the environment is passive, and because there is such a large crowd, the message is very general and thus is only minimally impactful on the congregation (like shooting a shotgun).
• “Coming to” church promotes a dividing line between church and life. Church isn’t in the world, church becomes within the walls of the church. A Sunday service cannot equip the believer in struggling with the everyday moral/ethical dilemmas in life.
• Church can become inward focused.
• Church is supposed to be the fellowship of believers…and the priesthood of all believers (God always wanted it to be that way…maybe we haven’t changed since Israel rejected the voice of God at Mount Sinai? I can’t believe that)….Sunday services promote the priesthood of the pastor and his staff (and the elders)
• People need relationships and time together to develop trust and accountability to feel comfortable and grow…Sunday Church doesn’t do that.
• It costs millions of dollars to build sanctuaries that sit unused for, usually, 156 hours of the 168 hour week, and comprises over half the expense for the building! (and then we have to hear the pleading from the pulpit to pay for it).  Think of the state of the world if we could funnel all that money into missions!

So, basically, when I think about the tens of hundreds of man hours that goes into preparing and producing a Sunday service, and I think of the very general, minimal effects…I think (in general) the Sunday service, as we know it, is a waste of time.

I like topical Bible studies, but I think it should be a forum, and people should be taught how to do the Bible studies themselves. I like having a service with an alter call, but I think salvations would naturally happen in relationships (and have a longer effect).

Next, I’ll number all the things that I like (yes, I do like some things :)….

Tags: housechurch.org, church, “pastor.”, Sunday Church, Bible studies