Lama's log

I went over to Bradford this week and in and amongst watching a bit of drama I had another discussion on the frustration felt over experiencing real community in church. The dilemma of when to leave a church because it is not being community it is simply doing community.

It's a toughy. Meeting in a building, singing songs and listening to a preacher just doesn't hack it. If you change that all about though and get a small group of folk together and do a bit of liturgy and 'alternative worship' and call yourself emergent church, my guess is that that won't hack it either. The buzz word seems to be 'authentic'. I hear it so much I am beginning to tire of it a little. There is a lot in it though.

Authentic meaning that people commit to each other and seek to explore faith seems to work. I'm not sure the format is all that important but the intentionality is. If services are held in order to preserve what has always been done, after a while folk may struggle.

We have started a mid week service at our place. For all the world it seems to me to be emergent church but the term has never been used because being is emergent it not the aim, being community is. I found myself this morning being in the position to invite one of the families from my son's school along, something I haven't attempted in some time. It is a group of people enjoying each other and seeking God (last nights discussion on the agenda's of the Gospel writers with regard to the transfiguration is something I have not experienced before in a church service).

The people in the group have come though not with a sense of washing their hands of an existing community but from working with it. The aim is not about worship but about people and the commitment to community and the work being invested is high. In other words they are not expecting 'the church' to put on a more authentic worship event. They instead are seeking authentic discipleship.

Sometimes church is such a gorgeous place I want to bust.