I started writing a blog post this morning and then decided to scrap it and just see what people thought instead. Several questions have been occurring to me lately:
1. Provided the Gospel is rightly presented, do we have to “do church” the way it’s always been done?
2. If we do church the way it’s always been done has that placed more emphasis on liturgy and less on the prompting of the holy spirit?
3. Can we do church differently and still represent God properly?
4. Can we shift our emphasis from trying to please people to trying to reach people?
5. Can we go places we haven’t gone and do things we haven’t done in the interest of bringing the Good News to people that haven’t heard it?
6. Is our corporate “packaging” of the Gospel turning people away from it?
7. If it is, can we change the packaging but not the gift?
8. Can we worship (musically) with different instruments than we normally do?
9. Can we play non-traditional music and still worship?
10. What does proper worship look like?
11. What would happen if we stopped doing church and started being church?
12. What if everything Jesus said was true?
13. What if we loved people as they were and stopped trying to change them and instead let God do it?
14. What if we let go of our inhibitions about how we worship and just started worshipping?
15. What if we taught our kids how to live by teaching them how to love?
I could keep going forever, but I think John is ready to be awake, which means I’m going to need both my hands to start cleaning up messes and putting out fires.
What are the answers to all my questions? I think that would be different for everyone. Personally, I have better questions than I have answers, but I’d welcome hearing yours. Dialogue is a good thing. I’ll leave you with a picture of John doing what he does best: little boy mischief.
A Work in Progress 