This idea starts to welcome simple church DNA into established church structures.
There is a biblical value of church that many of us are sorely missing out on. Here it is:
We ALL bring something of Jesus when we gather. (I Corinthians 14:26)
God speaks to all of us....the educated and uneducated, rich and poor, fat and skinny, greedy and generous, black and white, short and tall, mean and nice...ours is a living God that speaks to all mankind through His word, His spirit and His people.
Do you believe that? If not, there is no need to read on. If so, you may like this idea.
Here goes. Follow these 10 steps:
1. Pastor is supposed to preach on Sunday.
2. Instead of preparing a sermon, he prayerfully selects a story from the Bible. Let's say he choses John 10:1-10
3. Pastor prays that God uses it among the church and tells no one what he is planning to do (because people freak out over change).
4. Pastor takes stage to preach, opens Bible and reads passage.
5. Pastor says something like this: "This story is so good!! When I went to prepare to preach on it, I got totally excited about what the Lord may show each of you from the story. I bet that God has some powerful things to say through you today and we need to hear it."
6. Pastor asks people to place themselves into groups of 4-6 people that they are fairly comfortable with. It is ok to be with your friends and family. (At this point the people will look at you and do nothing for a few seconds and the anxiety in the room will increase 10 fold. This is how you know you are moving in the right direction.)
7. Pastor asks the groups to have two more people read the story again...once for the head and once for the heart.
8. Pastor asks groups to work at the following 3 questions: 1) What do you understand in this passage? 2) What do you not understand in this passage? 3) What will you do to obey what God is saying to you through this passage? OR these 3 questions: 1) What do you notice about God? 2) What do you notice about people like us? 3) What will you do to obey?
9. Ask for a few folks to share something that they heard from someone else, that was very powerful. (Rule: they may NOT share what they said, only what they heard another say.)
10. Pray and Dismiss church.
What happens?
- Some people get mad the Pastor because he made them uncomfortable. Pastor may get some emails being told "preaching is what we pay you for."
- Some visitors feel weird for a minute cause they don't know anyone. Who cares? At least they know from their first day with you that you all share with each other and listen to each other. That's what every human longs for.
- Iron sharpens iron.
- People are mutually edified.
- Everyone shares.
- Everyone is heard.
- Scriprure comes alive for people.
- Some people make new friends.
- People learn each other's names.
- The Pastor gives some of his power away.
- The volume in the room rasies substantially as it buzzes with spiritual dialogue. So cool!
- Jesus is glorified.
- And imagine that the church doing this is about 200 people in size...instead of one long sermon being preached, there are about 600 short sermons being preached by 200 people. How cool is that?
Note: I am not suggesting that you a) do this to tick people off (that is a wrong motivation) or b) do this every week. But what may start to happen in the church that does this once a month?
I just believe it is time to get people talking. They have so much to give each other.
This idea starts to welcome simple church DNA into established church structures.
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