Turn-&-Greet-Your-Neighbor Time Could Be Backfiring

[from Awake From Atrophy]

“If we truly believe that it’s essential for us to build real relationships with each other to be a healthy church," Jacob continued, "then I think it’s essential that we build time for that in our services. As I already said, it’s naïve to expect this to happen without our members making a concerted effort. In ancient times, when the practice of eating was dropped from church life, their members came to church from the same community. They lived together, worked together, and already had relationships. But that’s not how life works anymore in the Western world. Most people in America, for example, attend church with people who would otherwise be total strangers to them.”

“I can see that,” Randall said.

“Unfortunately, the typical church design leaves relationship building to the ‘leftover time.’ If you want to build real relationships, you have to come before the services or stay after to connect with people.”

“Well, we make at least some effort,” Drew protested weakly. “Every church I’ve been in has at least the ‘greet your neighbor’ portion, as you called it.”

“Yes, they do,” Jacob returned. “But does that facilitate real relationships? Are people more authentic with each other as a result of that time?”

“Well, no, not really,” Drew admitted.

“You know,” Jessica piped up, “if you think about it, that element might actually have the opposite effect.”

“How so?” Jacob asked.

“Well, I think a lot of people put on a ‘happy face’ during that time,” she explained. “We all end up pretending things are great. We don’t have time for a real conversation and we don’t want to share something vulnerable and awkward about ourselves only to sit down right after.”

“I hadn’t thought about it that way,” Jacob said. “It makes sense, though.”

“It seems like those attempts at relationship building actually make people less authentic,” Randall mused out loud.

[check out the rest of the book at http://www.amazon.com/Awake-From-Atrophy-Reformation-Member-Driven/dp/0983756228/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1346842280&sr=8-1&keywords=awake+from+atrophy or email me for a FREE e-book version of the book at scott@memberdrivenchurch.com]

The Risk of Weekly Teaching--Teaching at Practice Speed (Part 12: Values & Practices)

How do we find the time for a meal, Bible Study, and Open Ministry in our Sunday services? If you've read the last few posts on our defining practices (Eating MealsTogether, Bible Study, and Open Ministry), you might be doing the math and trying to figure out how we fit this all in one hour on Sunday morning.

We don't. And we're better off because we do less.

Seriously. Your math skills are on the money. First, we meet for much three hours (and it's not in the morning). But even still, we don't do all of those practices every week. Even with a longer service, we don't have time to do it all every week. We do eat a meal every week--it's the first hour of the service--and then we alternate with our after meal ministry theme for the day. One week we do Bible Study and the next week is Open Ministry, then Bible Study…you get the idea.

But I thought you had to have a teaching every week for it to count as a church service!

Show me the verse that says that, because I've never read one. What's I have seen calls us to study the scripture. But a deep dive into the scripture every week isn't required. In fact, engaging in powerful, life challenging teaching every single week can actually be counterproductive.

Yes, I said counterproductive. And it's not about sermons versus interactive studies (see earlier post on that). The more powerful the content, the more this applies.

See, people can learn more and grow more when we teach them less often.

Typical pastors spend hours and hours crafting powerful sermons--sometimes as much as twenty hours a week! I used to do that myself, when I worked at more typical churches. And on Sunday they deliver a message that grips your heart, stirs your soul, and convinces you to change your life.

It's awesome.

Then, seven days later, while you're still working on changing, he brings up another area of your life and does that same thing. Now you have two deep changes your convicted about. Then another challenge the next week, and another, and another, week after week, year after year. It's like trying to drink from a furiously gushing fire hose.

  Truly changing something in your life takes a lot longer than seven days to accomplish. Time and emotional energy and serious persistence are required. People need to process the ideas fully. People need to practice multiple times to move from sloppy to smooth execution.

But every Sunday, members in a typical church are masterfully persuaded that if they really love God they need to change this new area, too. It's overwhelming and discouraging and after a while can make people numb to the need to change.

So churches end up with over-educated and under practiced Christians. (Sound familiar?) They know all about dozens of changes they could make it their lives, but they gave up implementing them all years ago. They no longer plan to change after most of the sermons they hear.

Instead, in our member-driven church, we deliberately slow down our teaching pace to give our members more time to process and implement. We usually have themes we stay with for a few months, to give us all time to practice properly. Remember, we believe in Growth Through Practice.

We call this teaching at practice speed.

What used to be the centerpiece of the early church service? (Part 9: Values & Practices Unpacked)

Did you know there's a half chapter in the Bible on how to handle the meal portion of your weekly church service? 1 Corinthians 11.17-34 covers principles like: choose pot-luck approach over everyone providing only for themselves and if you're too hungry to wait then have a snack because it's important for the whole church to share the meal. Paul also challenges us to take seriously the communion portion of the meal. That's usually the only section referenced in a typical church.

There are multiple mentions of eating meals as a regular practice of the early church. Acts 2:42; 2:46; 20:7;  etc. In fact, scholars believe the early church centered their gatherings around a shared meal. They called it the Agape (godly love) Feast. Meals as a spiritual practice is all over the Bible, from the Passover to the Lord's Supper to Heaven described as a wedding feast.

So our first defining practice is Eating Meals Together. For example, one of our members brought the dish below not long ago. And it's not cupcakes. That's actually meatless meatloaf with mashed potatoes and cherry tomatoes. It was delicious! (I'm still trying to figure out the "meatless meatloaf"--is that just called loaf?)

Don't get me wrong. Eating meals during Sunday gatherings is not a biblical requirement. But we do think it's a great way to live out the mandate to pursue Authentic Community. It also reflects our value of Growth Through Practice. (See other posts for more on our core values.)

If being a real community, the family of God, is so important to having a healthy church (and I don't know a church leader who doesn't say so), then what are you doing to stimulate that during your services?

The "shake-your-neighbor's-hand" time in the service? Seriously? Does anyone actually believe that's going to build authentic relationships? If anything, it encourages us to be more fake! It's harder to reveal that I'm hurting knowing I'm about to sit right back down. So I've just smiled and said, "I'm fine" in response to the standard "How are you?" greeting.

What it looks like practically:

Our meals typically last an hour. As a result of having a weekly meal, we don't meet on Sunday morning, but start at lunch time and go into the afternoon. It's harder to get up earlier to cook and breakfast food doesn't have as much variety and lunch/dinner food. The food is placed on long folding tables. A handful of members sanitize their hands and stand on the back side of the tables, dishing out food. And each week I email a food theme for variety without boredom. Some of our favorites have been: casseroles, kid's favorites, red & green (where each dish should have red and/or green in it)…it's fun. And delicious!

The question isn't really why we choose to eat together, but why don't all church still eat meals? It's so effective for building community. It's not hard or expensive to do. So what happened? Seriously, what do you think happened?