Shifting the Image of Church

A burned-out pastor was exploring a healthier way to “do church.” He heard about a growing house-church movement

in another country and contacted the group to find out what was happening to cause the growth. Their model was for people to gather in someone’s home, bring a bowl of food to share and share time talking informally to others. Someone might start a song and there would be a brief prayer as a group.

The pastor wanted more details. “Who leads the study?” “What materials are used?” “What do people share?”

Frustrated, the house church leader repeated, “We gather, share food, share conversation, and pray for each other. People share what they’ve learned about walking with Father that week.”

The pastor’s pragmatic side came out, “What if they were so busy they don’t have anything to share that they’ve discovered?”

The house church leader replied, “Then we would suggest they consider using that time to spend time with Father. That’s more important than any single meeting together. If they come, they can take something from everyone’s bowl of learning about Father. You Westerners have a model of church where it’s one person’s job to fill up a big bowl of information and learning about Father and then gather with people whose bowls are empty. They go away with something in their bowl to consume and then bring their empty bowl back next week. Our model is that everyone brings a small bowl with something in it to share and everyone goes home with something. It does not all depend on one person having to prepare enough for everyone else to consume.”

Just saying … the size that gathers is not the issue but the dynamic of real, honest sharing does.

When I heard that story, it reminded me about an old image of heaven and hell. A person was shown hell where people were sitting before large bowls of rice with chopsticks that were more than an yard long. The food was there but they could not get it to their mouth. Then the image of heaven had the same picture of people sitting before rice bowls with long chopsticks, but in heaven they were feeding each other.

Interesting … I’ll take heaven, thank you very much.