Requisite Danger

“Sitting around the living room having coffee and cold drinks with Christian friends, the conversation turned to a favorite topic: church bashing. Almost all criticism of church – “All I do is look at the back of other people’s heads”; “The music is out of date”; “The preaching is boring”; The pastors are selfish and manipulative”; “The staff is clueless or hypocritical” – assume that church means what happens on Sunday morning. Think about it: when have you ever heard criticisms of how the dispersed church practices its faith – expect when there is a major moral scandal of a famous Christian? It seems to me that 98 percent of church criticism has to do with one hour of the weekend.

“What if we could shift from seeing church as doing our weekend duty to seeing the historic elements of church as spiritual practices – as a springboard for a way, an order, a practice or a structure for spiritual life?”

So begins the introduction for the newest book I’m reading, “Giving Church Another Chance: Finding New Meaning in Spiritual Practices” by Todd Hunter.

Wow, such a powerful statement – that that should remind us that the hour or two when folks get together on Sunday morning is NOT the end all. Todd describes it this way in chapter one,

“Most every human activity has meetings associated with it. Corporate marketing teams meets, sports team meet, surgical teams meet, teachers meet – but none of them confuse the meetings with the real task. Meetings exist to facilitate the actual work.

“…Like most human endeavors, the church has meetings associated with it. Unfortunately, while most people do not confuse meeting with their work (the game or show), churchgoers often do.”

We need to “rethink the purpose of the meetings” – we need to change the reason we meet together as a corporate body. Instead of coming together to GET something OUT of the meetings, I believe we should come together for two main purposes:

Continue reading Confusing the Meetings with the Real Task