Richard emailed me a link to Pete Rollins’ latest blog post:
http://peterrollins.net/blog/?p=44
When a Man Loves a Woman trailer
So I had to comment in support:
I very much agree with what you say Pete. My approach is that I go along on a Sunday morning to ‘church’ because I want to have contact with people who believe (pretty much) the same stuff as me. I do not support the singing, preaching, sound system, car parking, etc. because I pretty much entirely disagree with the grip that Sunday morning services have on church and indeed disagree with what actually happens on a Sunday morning.
I’d been encouraged not to cooperate partly by Steve Chalke when he basically said not to support the status quo at your church if you didn’t agree with it, when he was speaking at Spring Harvest a number of years ago!!!
However, I think that cutting myself off from the established church would not help change happen. I guess it is the church renewal v. church planting argument at this point. I choose to not abandon my brothers and sisters. So I do feel subjectively connected to the people (which is the church), but I do not feel subjectively connected to the ’service’ activity (which is not the church after all).
if you heard this stuff years ago, I would suggest it is not a good strategy for change OR renewal as church seems to have reverted even more towards the sunday service and status quo particularly as the dominate CBC approach seems to a squashed the creativity present in redstart.
Good point. I guess there is actually a difference between choosing to not reinforce the status quo and actually doing something different. Of itself, not doing something achieves very little. I guess the key lies in telling people what is wrong and providing (or living) an alternative. Anything along the lines of an organised meeting, particularly one that meets on a Sunday is hardly an alternative. It is a challenge to myself to do something else and I think that that something else lies in friendship and spontaneous action/response getting rid of rules and routines that even alternative churches tend to fall into. It’s not about a different set of routines, or a different set of styles – it is about no routines, no fixed styles – it’s about freedom and being driven by passion.
I really appreciate this comment responding to Pete’s original post:
http://peterrollins.net/blog/?p=44#comment-457
Where Glen is very challenging about our dream of church.