Uh, bad idea. I know we want to encourage laymen to study the Bible. But I’ve been to too many pool-our-ignorance Bible studies to be fooled by the idea that congregational partipation is a panacea. If we want some kind of non-monologue sermon, at least limit the participants to the church elders or those who can be trusted to speak the truth. The last thing we need is for untrained laymen to speak heresies and foolishness out of ignorance, in front of the whole congregation.

Jew has a point here. People have a tendency to respond from personal experience and presumption than from knowledge of scripture. In some cases the laity may be just as knowledgeable in certain matters, but that doesn’t mean he has the authority to speak about them.

I don’t intend to widen the gap between ministers and laymen, because God is not a respecter of persons. But I do think everyone has a particular function and role. That doesn’t mean a pastor is more important than a layman, it just simply means that he has (ideally) been given a mandate from God to help bring the saints to full maturity in Christ. Because of his role, he is held to a stricter degree of judgment for what he says.

Exactly, Darius.

“A more unique idea is that of stations, which are small areas setup for people to go to during the service. There they can do various things, such as pray, journal, meditate, or an artistic activity.”

This sounds like a cross between the Stations of the Cross at high churches and Centers at preschool/Kindergarten (the kitchen center, the reading center, the Lego center). I’d probably like this myself, but it would take some direction and discipline from both the church leadership and the congregation to use this in a balanced way.

I admit I learned much more from my pastor’s Monday night discussion class–which he lead, but questions and dialogue were encouraged–than from his sermons. That discussion format worked great for ten to thirty people, but it wouldn’t have worked with 500 people on Sunday morning.

But I think the idea of people doing various activities (painting, journaling, praying) during worship, or as a supposed means of worship, seems to run counter to the idea of everyone being in one accord. I mean, I can’t imagine Jesus speaking while people were doing their own thing. Unless I misunderstood something, this just seems kind of disjointed.

I definitely agree with that. Jesus did not establish the church as a democratic institution, in spite of the tendency of some to abuse their power. Words like “apostle”, “pastor”, “elder” and “bishop” denote authority. This is often misunderstood in our country. When we hear “submission” we think “domination.”

One drawback to progressive ideas about church structure is the undermining of the God-ordained model in favor of a man-ordained model compatible with modern society. Becoming a Greek to win the Greeks should not involve abandoning godly principles of organization, which weaken the impact of the message.

Yes, large gatherings can make progressional dialogue alot more difficult. Emerging types (and me for that matter) typically favor smaller gatherings and planting new churches rather than growing big churches.

Jew, about heresy being sprouted, in the case you mentioned either someone went into the service believing a heresy, or the have misunderstood something someone else has said. If it’s a misunderstanding, dialogue allows this to be corrected. If the person says something heretical, dialogue allows this to be confronted (hopefully in a congenial matter) - a great teaching opportunity for the preacher (or someone else) to address a problem he likely never knew existed. The historic orthodoxy of the Church and the church’s own doctrinal statements aren’t ignored. If it was a monologue format, the person’s errant views would go unnoticed and uncorrected.

It is also possible of course for the pastor to say something wrong (although one would hope nothing heretical). In a monologue format most of the congregation will accept the wrong statement, and a dialogue there’s a chance it can be straighted out.

The personal experience (and questioning) of the people in the congregation can be a great asset in illustrating and explaining certain things.

A more unique idea is that of stations, which are small areas setup for people to go to during the service. There they can do various things, such as pray, journal, meditate, or an artistic activity. This shows an interesting combination of the experimental and historical impulses.

This is very appealing to me. Setting apart time to worship God with others in media other than just corporate music. I think this would support specialization in the gifts and allow ministry in these specific areas to become much more effective.

Don’t get me started. My husband and I have had many a discussion on this topic over the years. Finally, I’ve agreed to quit calling them “Bible studies” (in favor of terms like home group, life group, cell group, etc) and he’s agreed to keep attending with me. These gatherings do have value, but not the value of academic learning about/from the Bible.

Jasen said, “It is also possible of course for the pastor to say something wrong”

I’ve had this experience a few times in my life. Not when I’ve questioned or disagreed with what the preacher said, but when I’ve caught him actually saying something factually wrong. In a non-preaching setting it might be possible to correct the misinformation on the spot and keep the preacher from making a fool of himself.

- private rebukes for teachers
- no more than one person speaking at a time
- organization

I think it is silly to assume that the pastor is the only one qualified to teach in a large gathering. But then again, I am leaning towards the idea that churches should be deliberately kept small and local.

Maybe I’m more of a stickler about things being biblical, but I don’t see how painting or journaling could be classified as worship. Certainly, painting is a gift, but does utilizing it constitute worship? I think one would be hard-pressed to find chapter and verse for that. Let’s say I’m a really good hair-stylist. If I style your hair really well, is that worship to God? I’m really trying to understand the logic here, honestly.

I mean the word “worship” is the combination of the English words “worth” and “ship”. Its like we’re saying we are giving God his worth by what we do. That’s why we are admonished to present our bodies to Him as living sacrifices; it is only reasonable that we should offer ourselves to the One who has reconciled us by the shedding of his own blood. We offer ourselves as vessels to be used by, and conformed to His will and not our own. Therefore, the concept of reinventing worship seems, by its very nature, the opposite of worship.

I suppose even praise via music, in itself, is not worship. But it provides a means of setting God apart in our hearts, and helps us cultivate the thankful attitude necessary to present ourselves for His service.

In the bigger picture, I’m all for anything that increases our creativity; the church is starved for it.

I agree with Colin that churches should plant rather than grow really big.

good discussion. No- preaching with dialogue doesn’t really scale up to large congregations… which is, I think a beautiful apology for smaller communities (which plant other communities as they grow).

You all have a lot of good questions and concerns about this form of preaching- I’ve tried to answer some of them here and here… and here.

I hope the links help draw a more well-rounded picture for you!

peace,
bob

The future needs both the emergent church and the mega or giga (over 10,000) church. but what we need most are churches that are reproducing themselves. So the real issue is what are the emerging churches doing to reproduce themselves.
Bill Easum

i see hundreds and hundres of tiny missional cells popping up online and offline and they are all very small and will stay that way. multiplication keeps the number down

i am also seeing very large yearly festivals and some of these are larger than ten thousand - maybe this is where the big thing will happen for EC, and not a mega church

also - a lot of EC churches do not have a worship service at all so its hard to compare models.

EC is not model driven.