(andy)apologies now for the lengths of todays blog!!


this is all bits cut out of an email i wrote taht it thight might be worth putting up here

anyway, stuff with church has been getting a little interesting recently in relation to structures or their attempted lack of. not sure how much you know, although jen might have mentioned it, but bea, simon, and especially me are trying to do this whole church thing as something that is not a clearly defined structure, with the admin etc that st tms and church in general likes to put into things, but is more about making people responsible for what they eat. this book bea has called on eating by susie orbach which talks about eating when you're hungry and stopping when you're full, and also when you are hungry, stop and think to yourself, "what am i hungry for?", as a way of building healthy eating patterns.

anyway, this book has been a significant help in bea (and the many other women bea has converted to it!) and being able to eat healthily. i was thinking about this, and aplied it to how we do church and realised that so often, we are just fed a massive meal every sunday with a few snacks in between, during the week, and that all of this stuff we were expected to turn up to, to "be good and finish your plate" as all children get told (in england at least - a little less practical in america although a lot do!). i also noticed some friends of ours who have a 6 month old baby, which they had to feed each day, several times a day, he needed discipline, he needed telling when he needs to eat, he needed baby food, not meat.

and it all suddenly dawned on me. if we are mature enough, we should be able to be responible for our diets, that we know when to eat, when to stop, what we want, what is balanced, what is unhealthy, what makes us fat, what we enjoy. in 1 Corinthians 3:2 it talks about poeple not being able to eat meat yet. and there we see people, new christians who are hungry all the time, people that need others to tell them when to eat, when not to eat, to give them structured meal times, to check they have a balanced diet because they arent mature enough to do it themselves.

the problem being that a lot of people never got out of the mind set they were brought up on which was, be fed, eat what you're given, dont think about what it is, just eat it. people never took responsibilty for what they eat and ended up eating too much inappropriate food with very little exercise to burn it off.

and what simon, bea and i are wanting to see happen is get poeple to a place where they can ask themselves, "how do i feed on God? what do i want to eat today? am i getting a complete, balanced and healthy diet?" we are all different poeple with different tastes and requirements. whilst there some spiritual chicks that need someone else to go out, find food and be fed lots so they can grow up quickly and healthily, there are loads who have eaten to much to be able to fly!

the difficulty being, how do we model this? all people have ever known is the standard church structures that provide the big meals and take away a lot of choice and so personal responability. i'm not saying structures are bad at all, but they are there to provide a specific purpose - to build a framework for healthy eating when we grom up and become responsible for our own eating. no baby would ever work out how to feed itself, cloth itself, learn to walk etc, but need adults to teach it these things so it can do them for itself and then pass it on to its children. dan cooper had a good picture of a hermit crab. the shell it uses for protection works well for it, but there comes a time when it needs to lose its shell and find a structure that does not limit its growth.

so how do you break out of these structures when people have them so ingrained in their minds? how do you make people responible for what they eat? the difficulty i have is, that a lot of this stuff really is a teaching that needs modelling, a pattern as you described the, a blueprint for what He wants His church to look like. by its very nature, it can't be something a small group or clusters focus' on to look at, but needs to be something that breaks small group boundaries down and says, its "i'm not about structures - you know how to eat properly, take responsibilty for what you eat. if you dont like eating sausages, dont eat them. but find a source of protein you do like".

like the hermit crab, this is not to say we live an undisciplined and unstructured life, but one where we actively take responsibilty for what we do and dont do.

and i think this is where a lot of the stuff i wrote a while ago in the "nu church essay" comes in, about saying to people, be creative in what you do, be yourself. break down the church structures that confine you so much. meet with God in the ways YOU meet God, not in the few ways possible so far. and in all this we'll see the freedom that allows others that won't go near a church structure (whether thats a small group or a literal building) to be a part of the body at large. it also allows people to be creative and be themselves in how they meet with God. and it will create so many expressions of peoples lives with God, such a rich diversity of relationships that people cant help but see God and His people living in freedom, creativity, honesty and integrity, and that is attractive.

i hate the idea of preaching if i think of it as standing in front of a church and talking. but if i think of it as writing things on a blog that others can read and comment back to me on, then cool. its makes me read the bible, look things up, think about what it says, "meditating upon scriptures" if you will. and all this in a way thats me, that allows me to worship the Father in Spirit and in Truth.