destructuring


Some thoughts after reading some more of Wolfgang Simpson last night:

Here are two different types of meetings that both occur at the same church: A wedding and what I'll call a fellowship dinner. The wedding is highly structured with timings, blocking of people's placements, many scripted sections, and a cast of people in the spotlight, with a crew behind them making it all happen for the audience.

The fellowship dinner is very loosely structured with only perhaps a starting and ending time and maybe a prayer before everyone eats. Everything else that happens is spontaneous and unscripted or staged and a huge variety of things can happen.

Most church services or meetings, whether they occur in a big building or a small living room are more like a wedding. Performers, scripted, support crew, while the majority in the room are a static audience. All the structure that is necessary for a wedding service actually impedes functioning and growth for a regular church meeting.

Imagine two pictures: A surfer riding a wave and a man's head alone coming up out of the sand with a hand waving two feet from the head. The surfer is what the church is supposed to be. The whole body working together.

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