I am fascinated (and somewhat frustrated) by the various ways one can do church. I am fascinated because we are moving into an age of freedom and experimentation for the church. I am frustrated because I am not yet sure where I fit in with these various new expressions. Several years ago when I was pastor, I led my church into a seeker model. In my time of attending churches since then I have helped them in the area of becoming welcoming and working together with other churches to be a demonstration of the gospel. I have also attended an experimental, discussion-oriented church, and right now I am just trying to find the next step.

As I continue to read, Wide Open Spaces: Beyond Paint By The Number Chrisatianity by Jim Palmer, I found the chapter entitled, Here Is The Church And Here Is the Steeple… Can Church Be Everywhere, With Everybody, All Te Time? to be one of the most interesting.

When he was a pastor, he writes, his church functioned on three levels.

• A cause—expressing the love of Christ to the world in word and deed
• A community—a fellowship of people encouraging and supporting one another
• A corporation—an organization with bills to pay, budgets to balance, buildings to maintain, programs to operate, and paid personnel. p.26

He confesses that he increasingly focused on the corporate aspects because his personal identity was wrapped up in leading a “successful” church measured as by attendance, budget, and buildings. Also, he confesses to formerly believing that people needed that kind of system to be effective as a community and a cause. (pp. 26-27)

Looking back, he questions the effectiveness of his church in becoming a community because it was meeting and programmed based with limited interaction beyond the scheduled gatherings. He now regards much of what they were doing as a church as causing hindrances to developing relationships by implying that church was a place, that believers needed a hierarchy of staff to develop spiritually, by focusing on external measurements of Christian maturity, and promoting a system of giving that separated the giver from the recipient. (pp. 26-28)

Then he suggests a new way of doing church that is dependent upon on two things:

• Being consciously aware of who and what is happening around me as daily life unfolds and being intentional about being discerning
• Acting upon the opportunities everyday living, interactions, and relationships offer. (p.30)

In this new way of doing church, there are no prescribed meetings or schedules, though he adds that most Wednesday evenings he meets with some people for conversation at a Starbucks and Monday nights some friends invite their neighbors in for dinner, but it all has freedom to ebb and flow as necessary.

Day by day I’m seeing that under the radar, beneath the surface, and off the grid is a world of nobodies being the church. There is very little traction for marketing some sort of church-growth philosophy or strategy from it. It would never occur to my friends to use the word missional. We don’t have a “strategy” to reach “unbelievers,” because these people are simply our friends with whom we spend time and share our lives. Face it, there’s not a lot of novelty to having a friend or neighbor over for dinner, going biking, catching a movie or concert together, hooking up for coffee and conversation, arranging a trip to the park for your children to play together, or getting involved in some mutual interest or hobby. p. 43

It sounds wonderfully freeing, but I have some questions.

• Is it enough? I think most of us understand that we need to live with an awareness of the opportunities that God provides, but is that enough?
• Does it fulfill what we understand to be the scriptural teaching and examples of concerning church?
• What about a commitment to one another as a community and having an on-going “iron sharpening iron” type of experience?
• What about having a corporate witness as a diverse group of people who love one another and get involved in demonstrating that love to the community?
• What ideas do you have that take advantage of this kind of freedom and fresh expression that might look differently?

Oh, I would really, really like to hear from you on this!