Most of The Crowded House networks are examining how they might hold a “gathering” from time to time – a joint meeting of a series of households. The aim of these is to strengthen the bonds within each network and give a visible front to the network for people for whom that might be helpful. There might even be people who are on the edge of the household groups who might attend this.
I was chatting with Tim Chester about this last night, as it is certainly something any Perth network would be wise to look at – especially in the suburban sprawl that is this fair city.
Tim said something important: He mentioned how the Edge network (which he heads up) has had gatherings which, if they are compared to a larger service in another church might look pretty lame. It’s not uber professional and the singing is just that – singing, rather than a well performed worship session a la the current default mode of most larger evangelical churches. However he noted that if non-Christians did attend a gathering there would be no effort to try and impress them with the quality of the music or any of the other components.
“We are not trying to say to them ‘ See we can do things just as well as anybody else can,’” said Tim.
What Tim does want though – and this is crucial – is the quality of relationship in the gathering to be a shopfront window into the quality of the relationship in the individual household congregation. The aim is not to pool the collective talent of four or five households in order to increase the quality – as is the aim of the “cell and celebration” ethos behind a number of devolved larger congregations – but rather to demonstrate that that same quality evident in the gathering is available at the same level, and with as much verve and energy, in the local household context.
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