When you use the word churches it’s like you assume the people need to be gathered.

Do you believe the word church (ekklesia) means the gathered people? Because it is how you appear to use it in the beginning of the post.

When I read the NT, I see the word ekklesia like this…

“To the people of God (church) who live in Corinth”.

The people of God, not the clubhouse or meeting place or meeting.

Do you see?

Church services and smaller meetings can have different aims (e.g. teaching, worship, ritual), but I think the New Testament suggests that our aims should be a more holistic building up of the body and preparing us all to go out to serve the world. That can include teaching, worship and ritual, but it also needs encouragement, prayer, lifting up the broken-hearted, equipping and planning our serving. So I think we need the meetings to be led by people who can be open to the Spirit’s leading and discern people’s needs, and then ensure that the different inputs, including teaching, meets as much as possible the current needs. Some elements will only appear some weeks.

My concern about the model in this article is the focus given to the teacher. It is true that a teacher can often also be gifted as a leader, but that’s not necessarily the case.

I agree that we need more interaction among the group gathered, and also that without teaching the church gathered remains less aware of the depths of insight available to them, which is why we need teachers.

However, my experience of the Church, and of teachers therein, is that teachers often fall deeply in love with their research and revelations, and sometimes are not gifted in imparting those things with in an interesting way. In addition, teachers can become very fixed on their own rightness, and can have a marked influence on the people they teach to become rigid and legalistic, sometimes on remarkably insignificant points. Although you have talked about the conversational tone, if behind that tone is a determined view point that brooks no argument, after a while, it behoves the group not to argue because they don’t have the debating skills required in order to support their own argument in the face of a strong and determined overseer.

We are definitely in the midst of change … and God clearly is taking us forward carrying the Church with us into the future, and debates like this are very helpful to explore the possibilities.

Kind regards, Rob Douglas

Great comment. Thanks.

(1) The sort of knowledge provided by preaching is over-rated. We need some of it sometimes. But where else in life would we need to keep being taught every week. When I worked in environment protection, I went to occasional conferences, but I didn’t go back to Uni every week.

(2) So discussion, sharing, testimony, prophecy, meditation, etc, should all be used, just as in 1 Corinthians 14, and just as you say here.

(3) But occasionally there will be need for some specific teaching for the group, and then there is a place for short (10 minutes!) teaching segments to augment the more usual group teaching/sharing. But again, as you say here, it should be shared around where possible.

(4) If we are outside the structure of a denominational church, we need to be self-disciplined. Bob Dylan once wrote (in a different context!) “To live outside the law you must be honest.”

We have been using these principles in an independent group for more than 3 years now and it seems to be going well.