Relational Church
We started a new sermon series yesterday at Bristol Road on Christian Community that I’m very excited about. Rubel kicked us off with a great sermon on the difference between the institutional church and the relational church. The contrasts are stark, and only in comparison do the failures of the institutional church stand out. The startling thing is lots of the institutional church behaviors are things that have not only been accepted but are frequently encouraged in our churches.
Truthfully, this is bigger than a sermon series. This material has the makings of a movement. If engaged and absorbed, church as we know it can be changed for the better, and that is really big. Part of the excitement is fear, though. There’s a lot of unknown that we’re heading into, and while this unknown promises a greater degree of community and spiritual closeness, it’s still unknown and that’s a little scary.
The first real change to the way we “do church” is the invitation process. We still do a song, but now people are asked to go to the back of the auditorium instead of to the front. In the back are the shepherd and their wives, our ministers and their wives, and some key male and female ministry leaders. There is no time limit for prayer and counsel, there is no final song waiting for the response cards to be filled out. There is relational love and community.
I don’t know what this will look like when it fully blossoms, but today I’m excited.
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Brad Palmore
Brad, that is how we do prayer time at the end of the service! It’s awesome. And about once a month we have anointing, where one can be anointed with oil as well.
http://www.northsidechurch.org.au
There have been many times in my life I would have welcomed just such an “invitation.”