Saturday, November 14, 2009

Writing and guitar...

Many times, I find myself wishing there was more time in the day.

I know I am not the only one who has ever thought this but it is time to do something about it.

For me, I want more time because I dont have enough time to write and think and play guitar...
So, I am going to start writing songs and playing them on guitar...

What do you wish you had more time for?

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

A gathering of people who share life together

What if the church was simply a gathering of people who share life together?


I love thinking about these things, and I find myself thinking about them a lot. The only struggle I have is that when I look at what other people do in response to questions about how the church could change or about what it could be. It seems they almost always abandon everything including their church and tradition in order to start over.

For me, for whatever reason I have this strong need to help the current church shift. I cannot justify just starting something new and forgetting that I am a part of a huge tradition of people seeking God.

As a Methodist, when I go back to our beginnings with Wesley, they really seem to fit with everything the "new" churches are trying to do. The problem is that current churches are in no way similar to where the Methodist church started.

So how can we help the current church notice that they are missing it; to help them see they have missed one generation already and are on the road to miss several more?

I think one way to do this is to simplify what we are doing. We have a program for everything as if the programs themselves are a way to salvation. What would it look like if we cut out many things we currently do and just intentionally gathered together?

I think that there would be a lot of good that comes from this.

How would we still do worship of God without all the exact same people doing the exact same thing every week?
How would relationships between generations change?
How would staffing the church change?

What if a churches focus was simply "Loving God, Loving Neighbor"?

What if the church was simply a gathering of people who share life together?