Tag Archives: exploring

Recap from "Exploring the Future Church" Session 5

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We had a terrific wrap up to our discussions about belonging to a community and church membership on Wednesday night. You can download the handout that guided our discussion so you can follow along.
A big THANKS to all who participated, especially Michael Nelson for hosting our gatherings!
Big Takeaway from Session 5: The general consensus was that Theophilus does need “members” (although “member” may not be the best term to describe what we mean). Members of Theophilus are simply those that belong to the community. The discussion also led to an agreement that there should be certain behaviors that are expected of those that belong to the community. Some of the possible expected behaviors that were discussed include 1) embracing a baptismal spiritual journey, 2) embracing diversity and welcoming new people, 3) investing in Grace Groups and the community life of Theophilus, and 4) discovering your unique spiritual gifts and using them to participate in the ministry of Theophilus.

Recap from "Exploring the Future Church" Session 3

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If you’d like to follow along you can download the notes from Session 3 here: Session 3 Handout

Big Takeaway from Session 3: We took some time to read an article called “A Rite of Passage“ (p. 12-16) that describes baptismal rituals in the early church. The symbolism and community participation involved in this rite would have had a profound effect on the Christian community. It has many similarities to modern day initiation ceremonies in social organizations. We then reviewed “Church Bs” membership practice for our comparison. This church talks about membership being similar to “teammates,” which is a helpful analogy using modern language. We also wrestled with questions around how to contextualize membership in an “open source/wiki” world. How do you help people belong to a community without setting expectations that are either too low or too high?