For lack of time, I'm going to post some comments by Tallskinnykiwi that resonate with me...
It is about "house churches" but not really house churches...it's hard to explain...but his entire post is more reflective of how I have experienced and known church my whole life.
I recommend the whole post, but here are some quips:
Church for some of us happens in TINY increments, TINY spaces and sometimes with TINY amounts of people. It happens many times a week and many times a day when the various aggregations of God's people come together around coffee or taking care of business or helping someone and especially at mealtimes. It happens more often in my kitchen than in my study...
...for the most part, it is tiny and often not recognized as “church” by those who attend a traditional-style church that is defined by a two hour meeting on Sunday. Simple/organic church people have got a cold shoulder from “church” leaders for a decade. Singularity frowns on modularity. They are considered a threat to the system. They are called “house church” but that doesn't really fit what they [we] are doing. Its not house church and its not “small groups” and its not rebellion against church. Its attempting to BE the church as God intended it...
...if you want to be a well known conference speaker or a local pastor with CLOUT in your denomination which measures success in the cold-war terms of size, weight and longevity (Friedman), then a shift to the emerging-missional-organic church is a VERY BAD CAREER MOVE. It may be great for the Kingdom, but it will NOT pimp your image or make you money or get you on the speaker list at conferences - Most conferences only invite speakers who RE-INFORCE their existing model which in most Christian circles, is the centralized ecclesial model with a tithing system, a set of buildings that need butt-filling and an army of M.Div Seminary graduates who need a position as pastor in the kind of church that theological education has trained them for. Not saying that system is bad, but I am saying it is DIFFERENT and difference is a threat that the promoters of that system do not want to deal with...
...Co-existence is possible, however. And so is the possibility of the various models blessing each other...
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