I am sorry that the previous post, "Creating a safe place to meet God..." was so brief. But the gist of the conversation was about expressing and understanding the needs of people, regardless of age, who are no longer interested in attending church. Rich, the entrepreneur - more than a businessman, expressed the place that his friends are at. He articulated clearly the mistrust for the institution by these people. The elder, Terrie, who is not the institution but represent it by her position, listened and totally agreed and understood. She is a person who naturally loves people and provides organic ministry through her home and life. She gets it.
The problem is defining the service. What will it look like. It was us trusting each other and looking at each other and asking clarifying questions and listening, etc that we were able to come to some good places of risk.
Part of the problem is that we really don't know what is going on and we are too quick, I believe, to try to define and program the "service" or whatever. What if we provide the space and time to get together, someone lead some singing with an eye on the Spirit and the other on the participant, someone bring a word from the Book, someone share their story, someones pray, participate in the Body and the Blood, clean up the sancturary better than we found it, and look forward to next time we meet. If someone is sick, we pray for them. If someone has a need we try to pool our resources and meet it. If someone has a baby we smell it and kiss it and celebrate, if someone gets married we stand with them, if someone has a question we give room to the Spirit to bring understanding...
There was no formula other than to love each other and trust each other. I learned a lot...
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