When we say the word “church” we usually think of the building..you know Sunday morning, a pulpit and stage, maybe some pews. But do we need all those things to have a church?
Not for a community in Pheonix, AZ.
For many people living at the Stone Oaks apartment complex church means block parties, poolside socials and Saturday morning breakfast. For this group church isn’t so much about the order of service, it’s about building relationships.
“As a society we relate well where we work and play but don’t relate very well where we live. We pull into our garages and never come out to get to know our neighbors. It’s a very segmented, very private world,” Louis says.
I love this idea not matter what your Sunday morning routine is. We used to know our neighbors, and then we moved our front porch to the backyard and called it a deck…we’ve disconnected with our neighbor. Hard to love your neighbor when you don’t even know their first name. Imagine if we as the Church embraced an idea like this…I’d bet that your invitation to church on Sunday would be met with much greater acceptance.
If I’m wrong, I’ll make you breakfast.
AMEN AMEN AMEN AMEN AMEN & AMEN
Thanks, holy cow. I tooootally agree. I think the early Church might have been something like this. It says that they met everyday and in their houses, and they broke bread together, and they added to their number daily, and they have favor with men.
I imagine the early Church as an awesome community of people that were truly supernaturally loving and loved each other so much, and sacrificed so much for each other, and met a lot and talked. I imagine that the outsiders were attracted to their love for each other (hmmm, Jesus said something like this,I think) and the great community they had, although they were poor and mistreated.
This is a stark contrast to what we have today, I think. I’m glad that they’re doing this, and even more glad that you blogged about it. I’ve heard of organizations around the nation trying to facilitate stuff like this, I hope I hear more of it (if it’s actually effective and what God wants - I think it might be).
Michael, Michael, Michael. Are you trying to steal our material? Nah, just kidding. This resonates so closely with what we were discussing at dinner on Friday about the “gated community” ideal in America. Well, I for one will not fall for it. My gate will be run over tomorrow. And I’ll be shopping for a new insurance carrier.
awesome, exactly the kind of stuff i’m looking into right now.