What we
do on Sundays, from 8:45 - 12:45, (from setting up chairs to singing, learning,
drinking coffee and cleaning out the pot) is our worship gathering. From 12:45
pm on Sunday until the following Sunday at 8:45 am, is our worship service.
Each supports and demands the other.
Gathering
provides context, training, encouragement, story-telling, equipping, etc.
Service provides the necessary outlet for an authentic worship gathering.
Mission and service, flowing from authentic and costly daily worship as we give
ourselves over to Jesus, are the critical, non-negotiable outcomes that give
meaning and substance to our gatherings.
A very scary statement when it falls from the lips of church practitioners. There may be a few places where the statement still holds true, but for the most part, unchurched people are not, in the least, attracted by what we do behind closed doors on Sunday mornings.
Yikes, speaking of scared, did you hear that one church spent $3,500,000 on a new pipe organ. The rationale? Attendance was down. My mother-in-law's church spend mega-bucks updating the sanctuary in the hopes people would come. They didn't; he left; the congregation is left with the debt.
The only positive application of the statement in the title is to be found in the story of an Alaskan family who built a new play area for their children. Imagine their surprise the next morning....
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