2/12/2009

THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY ECCUMENTICAL TOURS

I have a new idea almost every day, but some of them mull around awhile, and some of them actually turn out to be something.

This morning I woke up with an idea: a new Sunday/Saturday night family club!
This is how it works: I round up all the friends i have here who are unsatisfied with church,
and together, once a month, we make own church be ROVING.
We all go en mass to visit churches, pray for that local body and the staff while attending worship, and then with the kids go out to eat after to discuss the varied worship styles and pray for one another
(then write an anonymous blog reporting on the churches we visit).

So many of the people I know here (and in USA) are unhappy with their current church. They genuinely love God, want to honor him in their lives and want to walk in the power of the Holy Spirit seeing God use them for good on this planet. They ALSO long for more out of their weekly connection with the body of Christ and want have something more from their worship and fellowship. It seems like for all of us, corporately connecting with God and connecting with others is so impoverished. It seems like an epidemic.

I wonder if this ECCUMENICAL TOURS is going to be one of my bizarre "crazy ideas" or if it's actually something that will become a calling and turned into action...

2 comments:

Robin Harris (ICE Coordinator) said...

It's brilliant! I love it! What a great way (a positive one!) of responding to discontent... spread out and be a blessing, and probably learn something in the process. I hope you do this, and I hope we get "updates" on how it goes :-)

K!Mberly said...

One friend wrote me:
My only encouragement as it relates to your recent blog entry below is that it is more observation-oriented than participative. We see in 1 Corinthians 12 that the church is a body, and each of its members (eye, ear, foot, etc.) fulfills its unique part to help build up the body. I see you as a "hand," given your fantastic drama skills. I get excited when I think of how much impact you could have by using that hand within a local assembly to build it up for the glory of God and strengthening of the body. I know when we talked in Phuket in the van, you were disappointed that many churches are not receptive to drama. But we both have seen it very effectively used. Likewise, our worship dance at church last Sunday was the most moving worship experience for me in a long time.

So I would encourage you to continue to use your gifts for the Lord in one assembly where you can have an impact. Maybe this can then grow to become a blessing to other churches as the Lord leads.

My reply: I am an action kind of gal with the drama, but I've found that this "hand," has a "heart" that for the past number of years is really pastoral toward a specific group: those who are estranged from church, not attending, not on board and plugged in...or having kids or husbands who are not following Jesus or that interested in church. That's the part behind this blog entry/tour idea that i left off: a way to draw into fellowship some fringe people. Dreaming that through conversations about worship styles and sermons at various churches, engage them. Of course at this point it's still an idea...When I started meeting with "the 5 stars" they were actresses who were admitting that they followed Jesus, but were not involved in a local church. Now we no longer meet, but all 5 of them are committed to a local fellowship.