Last Wednesday Tim and I went sailing, there is nothing remarkable about that, we go every week during the season if we can, and we often share a meal with friends there afterward. We usually begin by talking about sailing but normally the subjects change and as conversations flow then more intimate details are shared. As we drove home that evening I pondered the depth of friendship and fellowship we had shared and pondered the fact that although church should be more like that quite often it simply isn't...
What is missing?
I am left wondering that following a BBQ I held yesterday for a number of folk from the three churches in my care...
How can it be that folk have worshiped together and "worked" together for so long and yet don't really know one another? I ask that question in the light of a couple of comments made last night by folk who felt that they had managed a really good chat with someone they'd known for years for the FIRST time!
So I am left wondering; I wonder if faith and worship are such private experiences that we don't talk about them, we come out of a service and head to the hall for coffee, but we don't talk about our experience. Is it that we don't have the ability or the language to talk to one another about our struggles ( surely we shouldn't have any) or our experience of God ( maybe that would make us super-spiritual and nobody would understand)?
Why don't we talk about prayer, promptings of the spirit, difficulties and dare I say it differences?
Have we so separated ourselves from our faith that we cannot move from worship to fellowship with any form of ease? Is that why sermons and hymn prayer sandwiches are "preferred" to dialogue and interaction?
How can we live out the gospel: "Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved
you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you
are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other."(John 13:34-35) if we don't even know one another?
Just looking through the gospels it becomes obvious that Jesus and the disciples shared deeply in their lives together, eating together and talking together were central to their experience. In Acts we read of a church that shared, it wasn't a church of Sunday best only- it was a church of dirt and grime, of everyday life and struggles, of joy and celebration and of sharing!
There should be nothing missing- but I am still left wondering why so often there is.....
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