I have heard lots and lots of churches say that church is more than just Sunday morning. I have said it, others have said it, it’s been blogged, tweeted, facebooked, preached, and taught. We agree, church is more than just Sunday morning worship service, right? So why do we do everything on Sunday Morning during the worship service?
Let’s take Rick Warren’s five purposes, it’s a pretty established and a good place to start. If we say that we exist to fellowship, worship, evangelize, disciple and do ministry, we should be doing those things in every day life, together as the church. We should be witnessing together on Mondays, we should be praising God together on Thursday, we should be having fellowship on Friday, but instead we cram it all into Sunday.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Sunday mornings. I enjoy the time together in fellowship and worship, but so often we attempt to do everything at one time. We come together to worship, and we do preaching/teaching time, then we give and we have fellowship time, do the alter call for evangelism, and try to make sure we get everything done in one day. Why?
People act and behave in the way they are use to. We have been doing the Sunday morning thing for so long, that just becomes church day, and people will continue to do everything on Sunday until the culture changes. We have to change the culture.
Here is my thought. We have to plant churches with small groups, or in house church settings, some way to create a small cluster group that does things together. We need to give them scheduled opportunities to serve, minister, fellowship and evangelize. We need to move some of what we do to small groups during other times and focus on Worship on Sunday morning. Ditch the announcements, lose the alter call, focus on worship through song, and focus the sermon away from teaching to exaltation. I know this is radical, and many out there will immediately bristle. Why? First, because it’s change, and we know how many Baptists it takes to change a light bulb. YOU CAN’T CHANGE THAT LIGHT BULB, MY PAPPY DONATED THAT LIGHT BULB. Change is not easy.
I am sure there are many that will say “but we will miss people who won’t come to small group”. That may be true, but currently we are missing people who don’t come to church, miss Sunday School and would love to be in a small group.
There is no perfect solution, but we live in a Post-Christian era and people aren’t just walking into worship services anymore. How many non-believers have walked into your church of their own accord (not being invited by someone who did outreach) and become part of your church? Have people joined your church by letter, or Baptism? Have they been previously churched? You may be one of the churches that is baptizing people every Sunday morning (maybe you should try baptism in a small group), but if you are reaching mostly unchurched, you are not in the majority. Churches are in decline because our methods are outdated.
Maybe it’s time to begin to shift the culture as a whole and move away from the Sunday Morning Entertainment Spectacular where people are more spectators that participants. Perhaps the culture of the church needs to move people into an environment where it meets in many different venues, many times and does the work of the church. Maybe meeting daily, house to house, breaking bread and having favor with all people? It seemed to work in Acts 2:46 & 47.
I agree that we need to shift expectations for what “church” is to smaller groups of people serving, fellowshipping, reaching out, etc…and that personal relationships will be the key to the vast majority of new conversions.
…However, I disagree that there needs to be any less emphasis on teaching on Sunday mornings…many of those new folks who get connected to a small group will likely begin attending Sunday morning well before they are mature disciples Christians…and as such nee regular, clear teaching on the gospel, and what being a Christian is all about. The apostle Paul told the Corinthian church to NOT do things just for the believers present, but to intentionally alter their service so that the message would be more clear to outsiders…
As we become more of a post-Christian society, those outsiders will likely come after first connecting with a small group rather than wandering in off the street, but there will still be some present, and they will need clear teaching on important topics.
I have recently become convinced that the ideal of a gathering of believers for “worship” only, separated from other church functions, is not what God intended for the NT church worshipping in this fallen world.
I anticipated that this would be the strongest reaction, mostly because we have such a difficult time escaping the paradigm, keeping the system we have now because it’s the system we have always have. We even read the NT through the lens of our culture, assuming that the gathering in which they need to speak prophecy and less tongues is automatically a Sunday Morning Worship service. Paul says “when you meet to worship” and since we meet on Sunday mornings, that becomes our view. The reality is, there is nothing that says that isn’t a small meeting on Tuesday night. The point is meeting together more often, being together and being involved more and moving beyond our simple Sunday morning system.
I understand the main thrust of the article, and generally agree with it.
I don’t really thing whether Paul is refering to large or small gatherings in 1 Cor. Makes much difference. The principle applies to both: Be clear, be mindful of potential outsiders your midst, and make adjustments as necessary. This will likely mean doing some teaching, and will likely mean telling those present about a few key opportunities to further their fellowship and discipleship (ie, announcements).
I have been a member of churches where the only way to join is to become a member of a small group. And small group leaders are empowered to keep the members of their group accountable with regard to regular attendance and participation. The large group meeting is viewed more as a a gathering together of the various small groups. The “front door” of the church is the small group, not the large group.
1 Cor. 14:26, for example, describes the format of early church meetings. The group dynamics of our typical worship services do not generally allow for something like this to happen. But if I am reading correctly, this type of meeting is at the nucleus of what church is all about.
I’m not sure about trying to implement this mindset in a long-standing church that has never done it this way. It would no doubt be very divisive. But I do see the value of this if you are starting from scratch.
Also, Watchman Nee has a book called Assembling Together, in which he discusses different types of church meetings, and the different purposes of each. He is describing the way the Little Flock movement in China operated during the time the book was written. But the basic concept that different types of meetings serve different functions in the church is an idea that I think is worth considering.
Thanks for the post, Dan.
Dan,
As with many things we write or read we tend to see them in an either/or mentality rather than both/and. I think your post, certainly in most of America should be read both/and. Also, I would have appreciated to hear what you and your church have done to try and transition to some of things you wrote, as well as the issues and problems and successes that have come from moving in this direction.
I for one don’t believe giving up worship on the Lord’s Day is something to consider (simply because of the New Testament example), but my church is certainly trying to implement more opportunities (small groups) that meet at various times throughout the week. Another thing that keeps our church utilizing Sunday School, Wed night youth and children, is that we have over 40+ children/youth who are picked up by our church whose parents will let them come, but they themselves don’t want any part of church (at least at the present).
Small groups have difficulty (during the week), at least from my experience, with managining husband/wife jobs, children’s school schedules/activities, etc. They seem to work (at least consistently from an attendance perspective) to singles, young married w/o children, and empty nesters. This is just my persepctive with multiple churches and the attempts we had with them.
I’m not opposed, I would say I’m a fan, but only in a both/and methodology. I should add that if small groups hurt the ability to minister to the children/youth I referred to eariler, I would end small groups rather than jeopardize our ministry to these children/youth.
You have to change the paradigm from age-graded to SMALL GROUP meaning everyone there.
The small group gets together and teaches the children and youth and adults. You can disciple leadership and responsibility into your youth by giving them charge over the kids craft time or worship time (DVD or live if one or more can play an instrument) while the adults go one level deeper if it is appropriate to the topic/scripture at hand. That is a variable from week to week.
You can’t do small groups for the whole church like you do Sunday School: adults only, median adults with kids, 30s-40s, etc; because you will run into logistical problems re: what do we do with the kids; our SG meets at 6pm, but the kids SG is at 4:30 on the other side of town; etc.
The small group has to be all encompassing unless there are, as you said, the few that fall into the category of only being single or empty-nesters and their schedule is much more flexible. The alternative is to do a SG study on Romans (or whatever) at the church when there are already activities/events/studies for the kids.
We need discipline for these things where the need isn’t felt and we are on short supply of discipleship in the US. Contrast this to Damascus where Muslims are coming to Christ so fast the remaining Christians can’t disciple all of them. They are forming discipleship groups of twenty or thirty people and people come. The reason is because the need for this kind of fellowship beyond mere social gathering is an obvious need in a place where it’s likely that a stray bullet will kill a family member or a stray missile will destroy your home. Or look to the slums in Africa, India, or in most of the rest of the world, where the only place Christians can turn is to God and their brothers and sisters in Christ. We just don’t see that kind of need here. But I’ll say that it’s likely coming our way.
Great idea, love it. Have no clue how to get it done.