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Re: The Church Service

Posted: Tue May 21, 2013 9:54 am
by jriccitelli
Bud you mentioned Steve’s fantastic online lecture ‘Some assembly required’, I have recommended this to other people and I want to listen to it again, since its been over a year. I hope Steve does more stuff on that topic. (And thanks Bud, I do appreciate going by JR online because it is short)

Thanks for ‘any’ feedback on this topic, I ‘really’ like input on this, and only if you agree with me.
No - I am just kidding – ‘any’ input is the whole idea of discussion. I am very convinced something should be done, and I want to also express that the solution is simple and natural. But the results may be amazing.

Re: The Church Service

Posted: Tue May 21, 2013 10:24 am
by Roberto
Hi jriccitelli,
Interesting discussion! Would you called two or more gathered a "church"?
I prefer to move slowly through conversations, one small step at a time.
r

Re: The Church Service

Posted: Wed May 22, 2013 1:17 pm
by jriccitelli
I wouldn’t ‘technically’ call this an assembly, but I would say it is a small assembly (Point being, yes Jesus is there!). And being small we actually have better conversation than with a group (I know that sounds self evident, but that’s what I’m getting at, this ‘should’ be evident but the traditions have blinded the faithful). I personally love a good discussion within a large group but I notice that generally only a few do all the talking, so I like to have groups move back and forth from 12 back to 4, then back to 12 or whatever (this seems natural).

I use to think discipleship was one on one, then I felt I it wasn’t as effective as having a larger group for bible study, say 10-20. I then learned 3 or 4 worked better, yet we could all meet together in the same room just at different tables. The best relationships and conversation happen one on one, or with four at the most. I have participated in large Church gatherings in one large room numerous times - the Alpha program for instance with over a hundred people all at tables. One time we have had over a 200 people sitting amongst 40 or so tables allowing our Church family to meet together all at one time, with freedom to move amongst tables, it was called a connection night. That was what Sunday morning Church should be, imagine the growth and friendships that could be made. The variety of tables and needs you could meet would be unlimited; The college group, the singles group, the high school group, the Romans group, the Genesis group, the mingling group, the I don’t have a group, etc. Freedom for pastors to meet and talk table to table, kids able to sit with their dad rather than only with the high school group, personal prayer, or to give care to a specific need, all while at Church!

But so much structure and tradition have been ‘added’ to what was originally a room of believers, the idea now ‘appears' difficult because people have become so used to the added things that we have forgotten what it was to begin with. I looked through a couple books on church ritual and service from both the Catholic and Orthodox churches. The books ‘attempt to explain’ all the pomp and ritual, and gestures and icons, and the sitting and standing, and the candles and the this and the that, some 200 pages in one book attempting to explain what all this stuff means from the beginning of the ceremony till the last amen (why would a real assembly of believers need any explaining at all!?). Yet in all these books I looked to see how much page or time was devoted to the fellowship of the saints during the service, ans. One page.

The move to free people from this Sunday morning ritual reminds me of trying to wrestle a chew toy from a pitbulls mouth.

Imagine your Church service starting with a group of believers assembled in a room, and singing together, and reading together, and being friends, sharing and breaking bread together. Then just when you are ‘becoming one with one another’ - you are corralled into a pew to sit facing straight ahead for an hour, for a service that completely prohibits relationships, when moments before you were worshipping God with intimacy, fellowship and study among friends - sitting together around a table. What happened to that first assembly? Can it not happen on Sunday? Do I have to sit in a structured service every Sunday, forever?

(Remember less than 20% of churchgoers regularly participate in small groups, and less are exposed to intimate Christian friendship and fellowship)

Re: The Church Service

Posted: Fri May 24, 2013 11:27 am
by jriccitelli
I use to agree with the constant whine of preachers who repeat ‘why don’t they get it Lord?’ Why doesn’t the congregation get inspired? (Or motivated? Or learn, or grow, etc.?). Now that I realized that if the preacher would just quit preaching and sit down with the congregation he might learn something, he might learn that his preaching isn’t as effective as having a conversation with someone.
Imagine if the pastor or preacher had focused on a handful of people who were equipped well enough to lead table study’s and let them teach or facilitate their groups, the pastor just has to check in on each group from time to time, how cool is that! Real disciples having real Church, making more disciples and everyone growing together intimately, on a Sunday!

Objection! You would have false teachers and ill equipped teachers running amok throughout the church!


If a pastor does have that problem, well it just proves the pastors preaching hasn’t been very effective.
The pastor ‘should’ already have small group leaders who do studies in their homes. There is no excuse or reason a pastor hasn’t already gotten to know all of them personally first, that’s what Jesus did. If the disciples need discipline then that should have been the priority (instead of writing a sermon), if you think giving an evangelism message is what the Church has to hear, then maybe your in the wrong place, evangelism is for unbelievers, the believer then becomes part of the Church to grow and be assimilated. The sermon cannot do what conversation can do. Godly conversation and teaching is the fruit and means of Christianity. Learning happens when speaking the written word with one another, how can they speak if they’re stuck in a pew?

Objection, the pastor’s job is to lead and teach as a well-trained minister of God!

If a pastor cannot teach a disciple to disciple than what is he doing? Our commission was to make disciples, and shepherds are just mature disciples (some). An evangelist can make a believer but a teacher makes a disciple out of a believer. Too many preachers think they are the next Spurgeon, Finney, or Graham and spend every Sunday trying to prove themselves, all the while the real fruit rots on the vine and the real sheep go back home happy 'hoping' someone was saved that day, but they return home hungry. Many Christians do not have time to build good Christian relationships during the week, and don’t. Many don’t know how to engage in edifying conversation because it is not happening at Church were it should be modeled, and wander away from the flock during the week, sometimes forever...

Re: The Church Service

Posted: Sat May 25, 2013 6:55 am
by Michelle
Hey, JR, Here's something from Christianity Today. What do you think?

Re: The Church Service

Posted: Sat May 25, 2013 10:48 am
by jriccitelli
I totally agree with the article. I have come across Mazur’s articles before. Eric Mazur says ‘learning interests him far more than teaching, and he encourages a shift from "teaching" to "helping students learn." I will link two similar secular teaching notes on the subject;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQra4baNwP8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNxCporOofo

Secular learning has a different goal than Christianity and discipleship, but some of the points here are that students actively ‘engaged’ in the learning process become more and more engaged. Being asked questions all the time to see that they are really understanding increases understanding, and that students can learn a lot by talking to each other, and learn a lot about each other.
I understand that many people are auditory learners – but – the goal of discipleship is the human relational aspect, just as the goal of Christianity is to love one another, grow together and to become a member of the body. I have learned that you cannot love someone unless you ‘know’ them. We should be emphasizing ‘knowing one another’ so we can love another, rather than this vague shallow love often expressed in Christianity as being thought of as authentic Christianity.

(I might note that 'underlining' is mentioned in the video as an important tool for students, that is why I underline, it helps when scanning for main points)

Re: The Church Service

Posted: Sat May 25, 2013 11:06 pm
by Michelle
jriccitelli wrote:I have learned that you cannot love someone unless you ‘know’ them. We should be emphasizing ‘knowing one another’ so we can love another, rather than this vague shallow love often expressed in Christianity as being thought of as authentic Christianity.
Why can't you love someone unless you know them? Tell me about the vague, shallow love that is often expressed in Christianity as being thought of as authentic Christianity. How is it different from what is real authentic Christianity?

Re: The Church Service

Posted: Thu May 30, 2013 11:18 am
by jriccitelli
This was hard to answer without using real life examples, and I have many examples. But I want to avoid stories of personal friends who have been let down by church and leadership, and avoid observations in my personal life.
If someone 'says' I love you yet knows basically nothing about you - it is vague and shallow. What is being expressed is the difference between phil-anthropy and phila-delphia. I can say that I generally have a love for all people (or lets say God has let me feel his compassion for people I do not even know), and It’s easy to ‘say’ we love everybody, but we later learn our actions reveal the truth. I am just as cautious when saying I love people when I do nothing to help them, I’ve learned we shouldn’t say I love you when not willing 'to do' so. The word love has become almost meaningless in secular senses, and it seems it may also be a bit tainted and diluted among church society. It is hard to talk of the love people have for one another since it is an emotion, but just as well: emotion for one another is something you can see, or should hope to see.

If someone says they love baseball, ford trucks, pizza and Jesus and yet you never see them spending time with any one of these things it would be hard to listen to them talk about their love for these things when they have had ample opportunity to have expressed such, and haven’t.
We should be allowed time to ‘grow in love’ with our family 'at Church'. If you truly love people and God, you want to spend time with them and experience the Christ that is ‘in’ them, that is why I am motivated to get the preacher to sit down and let Koinonia happen.

Someone said ‘Love is a journey not a destination’, and yet some people seem assured they have already arrived, and then sit alone content with themselves.

Re: The Church Service

Posted: Sun Jun 02, 2013 10:33 am
by jriccitelli
Again its Sunday. I am going for a second visit to a home Church this morning (actually in a home), although it is 30 minutes away, it was worth it last time I went. We got to know most everyone there, and had some really good conversation along with singing, and prayer. That was the service: really good biblical conversation, songs and prayer, amazing, all on a Sunday morning!

I mentioned in passing that discipleship was missing from Church. I have long believed that the commission was to ‘make disciples’, yet somehow the preacher and pastor have confused discipleship with preaching and lecturing rather than conversation, as if lecturing is the ‘only’ way to learn, or hear what God wants for us (if you are a pastor and believe otherwise, show me). A disciple (pastors and preachers are disciples too) should focus on making disciples, those disciples in turn teach – not preach – other disciples*. So now when the body assembles on Sunday you have a room of disciples who can talk with, and fellowship with, and learn alongside other Christians with various needs and passions for studying the bible. What church of a hundred doesn’t have at least 12 or so mature believers who can lead others in study or prayer? If you don’t have at least ten, I wonder how you could call it a church, as afterall the church ‘was’ made up of disciples!

As an example, I have led bible studies for years, and as much as I love telling everyone what I think, I have learned to allow myself to only ‘occasionally’ monologue for 1-3 minutes at the most, in order to devote the whole time to exegeting scripture with ‘questions’ and letting ‘everyone’ speak. Then as soon as possible I hand the question sheet over to another person who reads off the questions, I try to just oversee the topics integrity and soundness. I feel I am ‘successful’ when I have got the group going in a biblical Godly conversation over Gods Word, ‘without me’ interrupting!
Just as I believe small group leaders should be involved in an ongoing discussion and discipleship with the pastors (yet without lording over), so table leaders are the biblically mature believers who shepherd tables on Sunday, not lording over the conversation or others as we are ‘all’ sheep with ‘one’ head ‘Jesus’.

Note that I do highly value correct doctrine, that’s ‘why’ I am saying the sermon is not the way to have Church. I have studied intensively and my main subjects are Soteriology, The Prophets, comparative religion and apologetics, etc. but I also encourage everyone to follow their own biblical field of growth. And aside from all that - the ‘goal’ - of discipleship under Christ is to be one with one another, nit together in friendship and love. I believe we could have a Church ‘full’ of members who ‘know’ one another if small groups were the main event on Sunday, imagine the amount of interaction and growth if all the small groups met in one room on Sunday.
High school tables could be seated next to middle school, or the 16 year old could sit with his dad at the Colossians group, the 16 year old could mentor at the middle school table or simply join the Exodus study group on his own. I have experienced this in two churches (as I mentioned the Alpha course does a similar thing), and it was great. The bigger the room the more the interconnection, and some churches do have huge rooms, if they're not cluttered with pews, all facing forward.
(Someone said 'it will be too noisy', well we’ve done it with 100-200 with no problem. Look at restaurants, they can do it and we don't even have dishes clanking or people drinking alcohol)
(*I know pastors sometimes need to be psychologists, plumbers, mow grass and change light bulbs, but if there is not enough time to pastor disciples, maybe we should change the title)

Re: The Church Service

Posted: Mon Jun 03, 2013 11:08 am
by jriccitelli
I did get to go to the small home Church on Sunday. We had fellowship and some food first, the ‘pastor’ talked for 4-5 minutes then we discussed the bible and had conversation over the subject (John Chap.1 and related subjects) for about 40 minutes then we sang and prayed together. The pastor has a good voice and played his acoustic guitar well. It was a beautiful selection of songs, I might say very personal, and Holy, and heartfelt, leaving time for quiet also, which was blessed by the singing of birds around us since we were able to have the small gathering in the backyard of the persons home, as Sunday morning here was already warm. The prayer time allowed for conversation and intimacy.
My only complaint was that it went by too fast, and that they ran out of coffee. We also spent a half hour afterwards at their next door neighbor’s house visiting before we left.

So did we have Church?
Can you have Church without a sermon?