Richard emailed me a link to Pete Rollins’ latest blog post:
http://peterrollins.net/blog/?p=44
When a Man Loves a Woman trailer
So I had to comment in support:
I very much agree with what you say Pete. My approach is that I go along on a Sunday morning to ‘church’ because I want to have contact with people who believe (pretty much) the same stuff as me. I do not support the singing, preaching, sound system, car parking, etc. because I pretty much entirely disagree with the grip that Sunday morning services have on church and indeed disagree with what actually happens on a Sunday morning.
I’d been encouraged not to cooperate partly by Steve Chalke when he basically said not to support the status quo at your church if you didn’t agree with it, when he was speaking at Spring Harvest a number of years ago!!!
However, I think that cutting myself off from the established church would not help change happen. I guess it is the church renewal v. church planting argument at this point. I choose to not abandon my brothers and sisters. So I do feel subjectively connected to the people (which is the church), but I do not feel subjectively connected to the ’service’ activity (which is not the church after all).