If I don’t love Mabel… « BYSTANDERS TO GOD'S GRACE

http://weavingmajor.wordpress.com/2011/06/11/loving-mabel/
Sometimes it's easy to read scripture without hearing it. This is especially true when a passage becomes too familiar, or is so general that if we don't think through exactly how it applies to our life, then it's essentially nothing but platitudes. Kelly's rewrite of 1 Corinthians 13 takes a familiar passage of scripture and contextualizes it in such a way that it becomes immediately relevant.

Eating Together

In John Alexander's book, Stop Going to Church and Become the Church (I'm not sure if that's still the title of the book, but that's what it was a dozen years ago when I first got a manuscript copy.), John lists some touch points for determining if the church you're a part of is one with a predominantly entertainment model (the congregation attends Sunday morning services and mostly just sits and watches while paid staff perform for the bulk of the event) or closer to a body model (in which members are actively involved regularly (and not just on Sundays) in each other's lives). One such touch stone that he lists is the amount that the church eats together. He says:

"How much do folks eat together in your church? I suspect that frequency of eating together is one of the best indicators of the health of a biological family. And I wonder if that's not equally true of church families."

Our church has monthly potlucks in which we all stay after the Sunday morning service and eat together. We often have at least one BBQ a month in the summer. And the pastor's family often invites people over to their house for a meal. I suspect that if we tried to get together any more than that, it wouldn't work. People in our little congregation tend to be too busy for much more than that. (We do have meetings that don't involve food. So it's not like we only see each other on Sundays. I'm just saying that adding in yet another gathering time probably isn't realistic at this point.)

John spends a fair bit of time in his book talking about where people spend their time -- how much of it is spent being a church vs. other activities. I think time spent together is a problem that our church is struggling with these days. When we first joined the congregation almost 9 years ago, it seemed that people traveled less and gathered together more. I don't think anyone in the congregation would be opposed to the idea of getting together more often. But practically speaking, I'm not sure how it could come about right now without it being forced.

I think that taking a specific, eating together, and using that as a measuring stick of sorts regarding the health of a church is an interesting idea. What do you think? How often does your church eat together (either in small groups or as an entire body)? Do you feel that the time spent together helps to grow and build the church?

It strikes me that some churches measure how well they're doing based on how many people attend the Sunday morning services. I wonder how well those same churches would fare if the criteria was how often they eat together rather than how many people are sitting in the pews?

True fellowship with God

Our pastor handed out a survey a couple of weeks ago and I'm just now getting around to working on it.  For the most part it's measuring stuff that I think our church is already doing pretty good at (caring for one another, understanding that holiness is something to strive for but not something we'll achieve in this life nor can self-righteously demand in others, etc.), but I just hit one question that has me stumped:

When measuring a church, we must look at the degree to which believers in the local church are regularly experiencing fellowship with God and one another.  Question: To what extent are the people in our church experiencing true fellowship with God and with one another in an integrated way? -- from the book The Measure of a Healthy Church

What is "true fellowship with God" and how in the world would I know if our church is experiencing it?  I can imagine coming up with an answer for myself (which would probably be something along the lines of, "is that even possible when you share a pew with kids?") but to answer that for the church? How should I know?

And what's the bit about "in an integrated way"?  Does that mean fellowship with God and one another at the same time? Or in the same setting?

Sounds like a bunch of Christianese to me.  Perhaps it's explained in the book but all I have is a photocopy of the survey. So, what do you think it means?