A Humble View of The Gathering

I love this quote from a Wittenburg Door Interview with Rob Bell, pastor of Mars Hill church in Michigan.

We say, "This isn't the church, this is a church service. It's just an hour where we have some teaching, some singing and you'll hear about things in the community." If there are 43 "one anothers" in the New Testament—serve one another, carry one another's burden's, confess to one another—you can only do a couple of those in a church service. Until you have a community that you are journeying with, please don't say you are a part of this church. You just come to a gathering.
Wow, isn't that true. Our church services are just "a gathering."

Who is it that I'm journeying with? Well, there's my wife, Pam. I'm sure our joint ministry takes in a good number of those "one anothers." (I spent a good deal of time trying to figure out how to word that sentence without eliciting smirks from people with dirty minds; if you smirked, then I obviously under-estimated your depravity.) The worship team at Anchor is the group I'm closest to, the people I'm most likely to open up with. So perhaps our Thursday night practice is more "church" than what happens on Sunday morning.

Anyway, we all need to not think too highly of what happens at the Sunday Morning Big Show, and to recognize that what happens in people's lives the rest of the week is what really counts. Of course, we all know that, so unlike most of my posts, I'm not delivering any Grand New Insight.

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About Me

Steve DennieCareer-wise, I've been hanging around and writing about and cheering on churches and pastors for the past 25 years as my denomination's Communications Director.
I write primarily for my own amusement. If anyone wants to eavesdrop, they're welcome to it. My heartbeat is serving God faithfully through the local church. But my posts repeatedly stray into sports, politics, movies, and other nonsense.
I've been blogging since 2004, and it's been fun. Please understand that, though I work for the United Brethren in Christ denomination, the nonsense I spew out here comes from my own semi-functional brain in a totally personal, non-official capacity. Yes, that's a disclaimer.

About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by Steve Dennie published on October 11, 2007 12:16 PM.

Random Monday Catchup Thoughts was the previous entry in this blog.

No Room in Lexington is the next entry in this blog.

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