Monday, March 27, 2006

A breakthrough


This ties together some comments on previous posts with the next book on my reading list, which is Liquid Church. This is an exciting new book on ecclesiology.

Health Warning: I've only read the introduction and overview so far, so you might want to check back when I've finished it.

However as I understand it at the moment, the thesis is that the future of church is not attending an institution at set times, but networking and informal relationships. Church is a verb not a noun. So blogs which people comment on is "being church" (not sure about the syntactical structure here), and as we build up a network of them, the Gospel is preached and spread. Instead of going to Sunday worship we can meet down the pub, as has also been suggested to me, and worship there.

It sounds too simple, and too good to be true. What am I missing?

3 comments:

charity said...

Ah liquid church is back again.... Pete Ward is a lovely bloke who says nothing very new in the area of church development however is quite motivating. What is not so good is the shakey theology of exlusivism that arises every so often.

Anonymous said...

re what R U missing... building community? putting faith into action - corporately - ie. working together for change? ministry of the word? liturgical stuff eg. sacraments? try not to forget what you're committed to as a member and a preacher.. oh yes preaching?!...

Paul said...

Good points. So:

Can you have a sacrament down the pub?

Can a blog be used for preaching?

What is a community? goes on the list to come back to.

Commitment is a good point.

I have now read chapters 1 and 2 and I have some issues. New post in a few days, I expect.