A bit of an off-the-wall one this - but it's something I've been wondering for a little while ...
Where is the Christian community in our churches? Where, specifically, is the fellowship when we worship? Our worship gatherings seem to be about something else other than fellowship. And that's why so many churches tag the 'fellowship' bit on the end: "Come and have fellowship over a cup of coffee".
I fought for nearly four years to persuade my church that it would be good to have coffee after every service - for a long time we only had it once a month. And it strikes me that what goes on over coffee after the service is at least as important as what has happened for the previous sixty minutes. But why do we need to tag it onto the end?
How can we make our worship gatherings - the sixty minutes in the sanctuary AS WELL AS the thirty minutes over coffee - true fellowship and community?
About Me
- Marcus Bull
- I am married to the lovely Claire, and we have a son, Thomas, who is 8 years old. I am a Baptist Minister working in a Baptist-Methodist-URC (United Reformed Church) LEP (Local Ecumenical Partnership). That's one church but three denominations!
1 comment:
Great post Marcus. I wonder if there are 2 issues here. The first is that perhaps we see fellowship different to worship, worship being something which is totally focused on God - often meaning in our church culture that we sit, stand, listen but dont interact with one another.
Fellowship is that kind of word which gives us permission to interact, but it is not seen as reverrant as worship.
Often fellowship can be more happy, loud, enjoyable than our worship - have you ever noticed just how after a service finishes that the noise levels increase, there's laughter, busyness, smiles etc. Seems weird that our focus of worship seems to empty these actions...
Perhaps when we start to see how we can express fellowship down the pub, in the park, on the streets, in our houses (and in the church building), and that our worship can also take on different characteristics and dynamics that reflect more about realtionship than routine or duty or 'this is the way we've always done it' attitude, then we might start to realise that God is worshipped and indeed ministering to us through many more ways than just a sunday service.
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