bald man blogging

One purpose of the Law is to point out sin. I’ve only ever heard this elaborated in terms of the individual and his or her inability to meet the Law’s standard. This line of thinking goes on to say such failure is necessary, for it demonstrates our need to be saved. Some extend the position to cover the community as well as the individual.

I’ve got no problem with this; but something else occurred to me, another way to elaborate on the sin-illustrating purpose of Law.

Sin is shortcoming, the failure to meet God’s standard and expectation. The Law, in addition to pointing out the shortcomings of individuals and communities, illustrates the shortcomings of itself. A system of law - unthinking, unfeeling rules and regulations - cannot meet God’s standard, namely love. It is impossible to codify love among humankind with its near infinite diversity, (a diversity that we must expect, for we are made in the image of an infinite God.) Not even a Law handed down by God is up to the task.

The standard of love forces us to rise above the mere application of law.

So you’re a regular Sunday morning, gather-round-the-praise-band kinda church. You have several small groups that are doing really well; but the heart and soul, the identity of the church is still found in what happens in the building on Sunday morning.

…AND you want to change that. You want to be a network church, a church whose identity is rooted in these home groups. Furthermore, you want the Sunday thing to become a gathering of these many small churches.

How do you get from A to B? Well, here are some questions that come to mind:

1. How are you staffed? (Setting aside my personal opinion on the matter), are the paid positions defined in such a way to create and support the network of home groups OR are they defined around the Sunday thing? How many staff hours are focused on home groups vs. Sunday stuff? What about the volunteer positions?

2. How are you budgeted? How much of the collection goes to developing the home groups vs. maintaining the Sunday thing? How much autonomy/freedom are the home groups given to collect an offering and decide where it goes? Are there systems in place to facilitate this?

3. How are activities and events planned? Do they come from the home groups or from the staff? When a home group gets an idea - say, a big idea - how do they get help to pull it off? Or do they hand it off to a centralized group?

4. Speaking of activities, how are the home groups networked? Are systems in place to permit the flow of information among the groups? When one group gets a big idea, how do they let the other groups know they need help or just want to invite them along? Is the information flow like the post office - everything comes whether you want it or not - or like the internet, driven by the user who downloads at her discretion? What minimum level of connection to the network is required for a home group to be considered “on-line?”

5. Finally, what about the Sunday thing? Do the home groups feed into the Sunday event OR does the Sunday event feed into the home groups? Which is supporting which? What it the best rhythm to stand behind the home groups and provide a sense of connection among them WITHOUT overstepping and replacing the home groups as the focus. Do the home groups have a say in what happens on Sunday, perhaps rotating the planning responsibility among them? Or is there a multi-lateral committee with representatives from most or all of the home groups who plans the Sunday thing?