Gareth Bezett

At the CWCC conference, Dan Kimble talked about the process his church went through when trying to discern how they should do their weekly gatherings. This basically involved going back to scripture and trying to look for elements and principles from the early church. The danger here is trying to take a 1st Century model and expecting it to work today, however I think Dan managed to steer clear of this trap. Acts 2 is the model that is often help up as representing the early church.

I was then surprised when he described the results of this process. It seems that no matter how much he thought they were stripping away contemporary assumptions, he was still left with a 30 minute sermon and worship lead by a band. He had some creative stuff done with their gathering space. He also showed us some other examples of spaces that he had seen at other churches.

How willing are any of us to put away the trappings of our traditions? Should we? Can we sacrifice our church programmes be the church of the Missio Dei? More about this to come.