In conventional ministry the life blood of ministry is information. The underlying assumption is that knowledge changes people so find the right people who will present the right information to everyone else and they will change. It isn’t working out so well now.
If sacrificial love is as important as Jesus, Paul and John make it out to be why doesn’t this value shape what we do? If love is more important than knowledge than why do we spend so much time absorbing information and so little time interacting with people we care about? In as much as I believe in a simpler approach to church organization the size isn’t the pivotal factor. It really isn’t about how many people are meeting where. It goes deeper than that. It is about the Spirit having an opportunity to work through the body and that a Christlike genuine sacrificial love be evident in the lives of those who are committed to each other. If we organize ourselves in such a way that we prevent real genuine caring relationships to form and we put curbs and barriers up to manage people we are squeezing off the life blood of Christ’s body.
He goes on to say that knowledge is essential to prevent weird directions, but is secondary. Read the whole thing.
<idle musing>
The structure of our meetings and church bodies is not a secondary consideration; how we are organized has a huge effect on the results. In the May Christianity Today there was an article that said we are not “brains on a stick” (which just got posted today), yet we organize everything around information transfer (i.e., the sermon). That needs to change in order for God to get our whole lives under His control! And just changing it from emphasis on the sermon to emphasis on the liturgy doesn't reslt in more interaction! A responsive reading or collect prayer isn't any more interactive than silently absorbing a sermon! We need real community, not just a Sunday morning “worship hour” in order to become the body of Christ on the earth.
</idle musing>
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