more ecclesiological musing

back when rick served as our resident bodhisattva, he often said things like "our worship gatherings are inconsequential to who we really are" and "our gatherings do not define our identity." since he also said things like "the boston red sox will never win the world series until the city forgives buckner" and "pedro martinez is the sexiest dominican i have ever seen," i never really took him that seriously.

what did he mean by suggesting that our worship gatherings were not the beating heart of our community? in our estranged, yet closely related theological backgrounds, a church leader's function was so heavily emphasized that we often referred to them not by a sanctimonious title, but in reference to what they did. thus, we tended to refer to the guy who got paid the most, "the preacher," the lady who spent a torturous hour with us on sunday mornings "teacher," and the guitar player with repressed sexual desires "worship leader or worship guy." on a practical level, if the worship gatherings weren't at the center of what we were doing, why the hell did rick and i waste years of our lives in seminary parsing greek verbs and crafting smooth sermonic transitions?

so i never really allowed rick's idea to germinate within the acidic soil of my mind. instead, i spent the majority of my time preparing for home church teachings (sometimes spending as much as ten hours, usually clocking around 7), crafting discussing questions (since we're such a progressional church!) and worrying about the quality of the hour and a half of time s & s spent together on thursday nights, while all the really important developments, such as deepening our relationships, connecting with individuals who would later follow Christ (hey al!), admonishing one another of sin (yup, we still believe in that), challenging one another to holiness (uh-huh, that too) and finding ways to incarnate the compassion of Christ and effectively proclaim the hope and truth of the gospel took place at the salem beer works (bring back the imperial stout, you e.o.e.rs!), michelle's diner, at packing parties and in the beds of u-hauls and, lately, around the bio-diesel processor. john lenin famously said that "life is what happens while you're making other plans." i think the same can be said about spiritual formation, equipping, discipling or whatever other forms of christian shorthand you want to use to talk about growing up towards our head who is Christ.

in the end, i'll probably never stop thinking about our worship gatherings. i'll continue to fret about whether i've prepared enough for a teaching, wish i would have constructed a baptism liturgy a little more creatively and spoken a little more clearly about the mystery we elevate and ingest on regular occasion. however, i'm going to try my best not to let our worship gatherings completely determine or, God help us, be a detriment to the spiritual maturity God intends for us. i am beginning to suspect that a shoe is as apt a metaphor for services as it is for buildings.

i was just kidding about rick's pedro infatuation. he's always been more of a 'tek kinda guy: ) i would also like to note that the following quote reminded me of rick's teaching and led to this occasionally libelous reflection.

"Jesus was not a church planter. He created communities that embodied the Torah, that reflected the kingdom of God in their entire way of life. He asked his followers to do the same. Emerging churches seek first the kingdom. They do not seek to start churches per se but to foster communities that embody the kingdom. Whether a community explicitly becomes a church is not the immediate goal. The priority is that the Kingdom is expressed. Inherent to kingdom activities is that the community will reflect the local context, and therefore forms vary greatly." emerging churches, gibbs and bolger, pg. 61.