Real Church

Well, life happens so so much for extra posts this week ...

Last Saturday was our first meeting of a new church, one trying to be "organic" as it is labeled. Being our first meeting, we shared a meal, talked about what brought us to Colorado, which one story had God so much in it it just prompted other stories of God acting. A couple of people had stories on how Satan tried to block their participation, either in the conference that we initially met at or that week's meeting.

I think to the passages that talk about the purpose of gathering -- to encourage one another, to edify one another. These stories and time with people ... this was great. Never went to a "service" like this. And for those who insist that meetings are for "worship" (find a scripture that says that that applies to the New Covenant): Real honest stories that I think glorified God more than a song, a prayer, three more songs,a sermon, another song, song, and closing prayer.

The weekend before I was at a Ransomed Heart Wild At Heart Boot Camp. I was on the work crew. We went out on Wednesday, and met as a group daily in our time there, twice on Saturday. Our Friday-Sunday morning meetings were practical matters, prayer, and talking about how we felt the Spirit moving, while Thursday's meeting did the same with some more stuff since we had more time. We had an extra meeting Saturday to talk about how we saw God move that weekend. Smaller groups met at other times spontaneously, and we had our work together too. Again, for a weekend we were a "church" that met daily. And again, I think was more glorified than a month of Sundays in a typical traditional church.

That's not to say a group gathered for traditional church couldn't experience the same -- there just has to be as much time if not more looking into the faces of your brothers and sisters than staring at the back of their heads while the professionals and semi-pros "perform", time spent talking about God and what he is doing in lives today and what he has done this year (not what he did in the first century and before), in a way that encourages and edifies.