so here i am at a coffee shop

these days are so numbered. 20 weeks left, to be precise. i thought i might jot down some stuff on the state of the ekklesia, for lack of a better term. maybe more to remind the me-of-the-future how & what it was than to communicate to you, O Loyal Reader. as you may or may not know, b and i have embarked on a great and strange mission to actually live out some body-of-Christ stuff. beside us a number of other intrepid (or foolish) have traveled. we have listened and learned a lot from groups such as the quest (columbus) and The Landing Place. and read a ton--i posted some of the more significant small/simple/home church stuff a coupld of days ago. we really believe a couple of things are obvious about what christians should believe and live out their beliefs--though we recognize that we don't hold the corner on that market and that there are lots of other good ways to act out the gospel. but i thought i might type a couple of things i've found significant--at least for posterity sake. 1. the gospel is to be lived out. that means as many people should be brought into the doing of the gospel as possible. this could look like so many things. for our group, it means at least that many individuals should be able to try their hands at "teaching", "worship", "prayer", and leadership in general. responsibility should be shared; it's the responsibility of those in recognized leadership to get those outside of recognized leadership to take responsibility for leading. 2. "making disciples of all nations" is tougher than it looks. the more formally Christian, the tougher it is to get out of the rut of "what seems right." some of the most active, most service-minded, most insightful and bold and wise believers in our group are those who have been in a relationship with Jesus for the least amount of time. those of us that have been believers for a really long time, especially those involved in one particular "brand" of christianity, are the most resistant to change, growth, discipleship. 3. reading is important. all the world seems to be a text. words seem to be cheap, images cheaper, and the complacency about service is only rivaled by complacency about maintaining an analytical stance on anything. it is easier to pop on the TV than it is to struggle through a chapter of scripture; easier to talk on the phone than to get into an accountable relationship with a peer-Christian face-to-face. 4. music is important. the tenor of the group changes based on the type of music. bombastic music seems to move the group toward seeing the music/worship leader as someone important and separate from the group. quieter music seems to de-emphasize the leader and make it more of a group decision to worship. 5. people like to hear themselves talk. i have no idea how to work with this yet. 6. there is never enough time. we meet for about three hours on sunday mornings and by the end I feel like we've barely begun to scratch the surface. attention spans will not allow for much more than that, however. i admit that in the past i never could understand how in the bad-ol-days the pentecostals and methodists and baptists, etc. could meet for a whole day. now i can. 7. we all think we have a great handle on what God is up to. this goes for me maybe even more than others in our group. it's tough and humbling to lay down our expertise about who God is, what he's up to, and what our response should be. we've not had big explosions of showy spiritual gifts yet...i'm not sure what we'd do if that ever came up...but it's interesting to see just how tentative everyone is about what to expect from week to week. for instance, we talk about the idea of church from week to week, but we have not yet formally come out and said "this is a church" meaning "this plays as important a role--if not more--in your life than attending a well-performed service with a loud band, emphatically delivered sermon, mobs of prayer-warriors, videos, etc." the idea that this would be challenging to some re-emphasizes to me our tendency to put God in a box...to assume that he can only show up if certain conditions are brought about by our own actions. i am like this just as much as anyone else. okay, we have to go home now...this was constructive, but only a begining. i'm sure i'll come back and revise/delete some of these later.... anyone want to comment on any of these thoughts?