Right, let’s face it, the most important thing about Sunday morning is to pick up a copy of the weekly newsletter so that you know what exactly is going on in the life of the church for the rest of the week!

Aw, come on! The most important thing is face time with your (church) family, not something that you get a lot of on a Sunday morning (especially when the music/singing group decide to prevent all chat before kick off).

Anyway, living in the Internet era should enable us to not need to grab a hardcopy of the newsletter… well in theory anyway! In practice most churches aren’t net savvy enough to practice ‘push’ email where information is pushed to ‘consumers’ of said via email. So the alternative is to get a friend to pick up a copy for you.

Surely it is without doubt that every church recognises that there will be some who can rarely attend church, due to work or perhaps because they live elsewhere at the weekends…?

So, get along to prayer meetings, house group, meals, parties, mission presentations etc – that should give you your fill of face to face encounters with your brothers and sisters. If that isn’t enough then get yourself invited to people’s houses for meals, or babysit (and then refuse to leave when the parent’s get back!). Better still, invite others to your place or on holiday. Why not employ some of them?!

But I do recommend turning up on Sunday am once in a while. You never know, it may have changed…

The question was asked today why do we celebrate communion? My immediate thought was because at the time, having some sort sacred meal was very culturally relevant and a good way of connecting this “new” religion with the diverse religious communities around, particularly as the passage we were looking at the time was from Corinthians (a cosmopolitan city with a variety of temples and religions). Whilst all the gospels talk about the last supper, only Luke records that Jesus tells the disciples “to do this in remembrance of Him”. I wonder how much the early church read into these words (at the expense of the other gospels) to institute a communion meal that would help people connect and how much we have now read into it to see it as instituted by Jesus rather than by Paul and the disciples. This is not to say it is wrong to have communion or that Luke was not accurate, but maybe its time for a rethink about what we mean by communion and how we find ways that connect with the people today in the same way a sacred meal would have 2000 years ago.

Further to my ‘Denomination Domination’ post I would like to speculate that we can be church amongst

Bewitched movies churches. I.e. just because you want to change your pattern of fellowship with other believers, you don’t have to exclude those in your current church (i.e. the church that you ‘attend’).

However, what does seem to be necessary is a re-prioritisation of how much time you are going to spend with who, but this is a long way off from dumping anyone entirely. Our mission of discipleship (internal church activity) should still be a priority in the situation we find ourselves – I tend to recall the passage around:
1 Corinthians 7:20
Each one should remain in the situation which he was in when God called him.

and imagine that this could apply to continuing to participate with the church we are in, whilst we allow ourselves fellowship with those from outside ‘our’ ‘church’.

Naturally there is a danger, if we practice this slightly subversive form of church, that existing church leaders might have a problem with us… but one would hope not! I imagine it would only be a problem if they were particularly territorial or possessive!

OK, any one denomination doesn’t have a monopoly on church, however, perhaps we have a cosy cartel?!

Well, I’m probably going a bit far there – no one has a monopoly on following Jesus. But isn’t it strange how the presence of denominations or distinct groups does pressurise Christians to either be part of one group or another and people who cross boundaries are called spiritual gypsies.

Submission to leadership appears to be a major sticking point. Crossing established boundaries does not mean that one is unsubmissive to all, but it might mean that one is more responsive and less neglectful of one’s wider set of brothers and sisters (I perceive that moving (permanently) from one group to another often includes unnecessary acts of rejection and exclusion).

I wonder if crossing boundaries and participation in multiple groups (albeit a small number) is an alternative to the two most popular ways of change:

• Church renewal
• Church planting

Perhaps there is a third way?

I heard a friend recently state that ‘we need to live comfortably with uncertaintly’.

As human beings we like the security of knowing where our lives our going, how we are going to provide for ourselves. We even like the idea of knowing loads of theological stuff. Somehow this insulation from surprise makes us feel confortable.

BUT – surely we should be uncomfortable with the false security we give ourselves? Surely we should only find comfort in His security? Comfort from The Comforter – without having to know the future, without having to have extensive plans or knowledge.

And there I was with my ‘No Fear’ T-shirt on, feeling as scared as the next person!Max Manus video