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  Mark 9:33 am on May 12, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

  Table Questions 

  One of my favorite habits we have in our house church is “Table Questions.”

  It isn’t anything super formal.  We gather in the evening time each week, and begin by sharing a meal.  We share, laugh, pass the potatoes, and catch up on each other’s lives and missions.  It feels like a family reunion of sorts.

  And then, before finishing up our meal and moving on to a time of prayer and worship, someone shares a specific question at the table that helps guide the conversation into a time of discovery, worship and common reflection.

  Table Questions are something you can do in your missional communities, house churches, small groups, or simply your family’s dinner each evening.  It is reminiscent of Jewish practices, where a question is asked at table and there is dialogue and learning – both for the children and adults.  This is where family learning happens!

  The table is a place of safety, a place of unity, a place for partaking in food and each other.

  To be honest, Table Questions, not carefully thought through before asking them, can lead to disaster.  Allow the potentially divisive question to wait for another time - Table Questions draws people out, it doesn’t recoil them into hiding.  It offers a simple starting place for each person to contribute no matter their faith maturity or intelligence, which will help them find their voice later in the evening as you all share in a “worship potluck” (1 Cor 14:26).

  Pass around the responsibility of Table Questions to new leaders in your community.  Give lots of people the chance of fascilitating meaningful conversation.  Even non-believers in your gatherings can lead this!  It gives all a sense of ownership, and helps the group cultivate new leaders for new churches not-yet-planted around other kitchen tables!

  How to ask a Table Question that leads to life:

  • Understandable. Think about the specific words to use.  Say the question once, and say it succinctly.  Make it easy to understand, and folks will be happy to answer.
  • Perspectives. Ask questions that point not to hard truths, but to one’s experience.  For example, don’t ask a question starting with, “Is it right to…” but instead, try, “When have you ever experienced…”
  • Value-Driven. Draw on questions that might lead to values your community holds.  For instance, ask, “What does love look like in your life?”
  • Collaborative Questions. Avoid trial matters.  Avoid doctrinal matters.  Avoid political positions.  Again, these things can wait for another time, perhaps later in the evening, or at another gathering all-together.  The aim here is to cultivate collaboration, not competition.
  • Have Fun. Give people opportunities to tell their own story.  Ask them to share favorite memories, challenging circumstances, and more from their own life.  Keep a playful spirit about you.  And always give people the chance to ‘pass.’

  Great ways to start a Table Question:

  • “When have you ever…”
  • “How might we…”
  • “In your experience, what does ______ look like?”
  • “If you could say one thing to someone else in the room that would build them up, what would you say?”

  The table is a sacred space for humans.  It is where our LORD waits for us – a great banquet table.  I am sure there will be many questions asked at that table (mostly, us asking God all those BIG questions we have for him…), imagine your Table Questions as an echo to that banquet feast coming soon in Heaven!

  

  Sean Durbin is discussing. Toggle Comments

   
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    Sean Durbin 4:05 pm on May 12, 2011 Permalink

    I LOVE table questions!

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  Mark 9:02 am on March 31, 2011 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: City on a Hill Community   

  BOTH AND 

  While I’m the first to admit that there needs to be “all kinds of churches to reach all kinds of people” – there’s a catch in my throat even as I say the words.

  I think its because I know that most Christians when they hear those words believe that today’s dominant expression of church in America should continue to be the default image in our minds when we think “church” .  This expression of the Church is the Sunday morning programmatic model, built around staff, buildings, high-cost infrastructure – with the aims of becoming another “mega”church.  This the picture most people think of when they think of “church” – at least here in the West.

  And yes – every part of me is thankful to God that there are tens of thousands of churches built around that expression of God’s family – it is obviously reaching tens of millions of people with the authentic Gospel of God!  Praise God for that!  Lives are changed!

  And yet – there are still 250 million people who were not a part of a church gathering last Sunday – and have no connection with a church…many more still may have no true commitment to the Lord Jesus.  And that number is growing all the time.

  So a quote stands out to me:

  “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve already got.” — Genius unknown

  Jeff Kirsch, a member of the City on a Hill faith community has a recent, great post on some of the metaphors and assumptions Jesus used to describe what God’s Family looks like – yeast, field, flock, seed, soil… this is a Kingdom, a church that doesn’t need institutional maintenance and a ministry marketing department -

  …it is a “subtle contagion”…

  …or as in Mark 4:26-29 the farmer (read pastor) sleeps while the Kingdom grows beyond his control!

  Why not work with the grain of the Kingdom, rather than against it?

  Let the Gospel seed grow underground in your friendships, permeating every nook and cranny of your life – truly trust that the fire of mission and divine love will bubble up in people as you share life on life with them.

  Trust that Jesus truly is the head of the Church – and not you and your staff.  Could it be that our churches look too much alike – each vying for the same 15% of the population – meanwhile hundreds of millions more are looking desperately for a church that looks like Jesus-with-skin-on in their context, only to find the same praise band or Powerpoints wherever they go.

  I’m writing this not out of anger or bitterness; I’m writing this as a missionary, crying desperately for the Christians to reach out to a lost world.  Could it be that the biggest obstacle for people in discovering the true Lord Jesus and his Church is our pre-conceived notions of what church is and how it should function in the world?

  The lost need us to recapture the characteristics of the Kingdom of God and to tear down the walls of the church-box in our mind.  The desperate are dying for us to incarnate the Gospel in fresh ways on our block – even as we love and bless what God is doing down the street.

  I am cautiously optimistic though, as I look at the horizon of “church planting” – the wineskin of the church is becoming fresh, new. Churches gathering in nightclubs, poetry circles, homes, parks, under overpasses and in city centers.  Churches that live together 24/7, that function as a little family and a source of light and healing for their blighted neighborhood.  I’m seeing new forms of God’s family take shape in our little organic church network.  I’m seeing new faith-community experiments bubble up all over Chicago, and the country.

  Its time to take the lid off – where might things spread if we took Jesus’ images of his Church seriously?

  Its BOTH/AND.

  

  Mark W, and peter lambert are discussing. Toggle Comments

   
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    peter lambert 2:30 pm on March 31, 2011 Permalink

    are you suggesting we actually follow Jesus instead of the institution? You Heretic. Lol. Some very serious food for thought in your post

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    Mark W 4:24 pm on March 31, 2011 Permalink

    If we explode the image in our minds of what church is – if we let down our guard and our expectations – if we set aside our own visions of success and look instead for what God might want to do; even as strange and unique as it might seem to the prevailing “church planting” world – for God’s glory – let’s give it a shot and see if it sticks! I think a little “bio-diversity” in God’s garden might do us some good.

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    Jon 'JB' Butler 4:08 pm on April 3, 2011 Permalink

    Good thought provoking post.
    I think we can sometimes forget that maybe our lives and expression of faith in the living God, should be as living as him.

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    Mark W 4:22 pm on April 3, 2011 Permalink

    Jesus presented with us a “way” meaning he didn’t ask us to “admit he existed” or “attend a specific gathering on a specific day” – This Way is what 1 John 2 means when it says, “we are to live as Jesus lived.” That’s what discipleship is about – as much as we’d prefer it to simply be a series of worship songs and prayers, etc.

    Jon – thanks for your thoughts – how does our lives provide an “expression of faith in the living God” as you suggest?

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  Mark 9:25 am on February 20, 2011 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Facebook ( 3 ), Generation Y ( 2 ), Richard Beck ( 3 )   

  Facebook and Eschatechnology in the Church 

  Much has been said of late on the inter-webs about the (negative) influence Facebook and other social media websites have had on attendance at church worship services.  Richard Beck, psychology professor at my alma mater ACU (makin’ me proud!), suggests that there is a certain psycho-social human need that is met in the gathering together each Sunday morning. Seeing the same familiar faces, catching up on the goings on in the lives of friends, and “visiting,” is a major reason why many of us attend church in the first place.

  Beck says that teens and young professionals of the emerging Generation Y, among the most comfortable on technologies like Facebook, are also the folks least likely to be regular attenders of church services.  He claims that the same needs met by regular in-the-flesh gatherings can be met by checking status updates online, and most kiddos simply don’t want to spend an hour and a half doing something they can do 15 times in 5 minutes!

  Interestingly, he’s done the research and concluded that our Facebook friends (the ones we pay attention to anyway) tend to be our actual friends! Facebook isn’t replacing our social world, it is reflecting it…complimenting…even augmenting it!

  But what about the other purposes of gathering together?  Like worship, teaching, physical touch, laughter?  What about social justice, community service, and more?  Beck says that all the surface level practicals of arranging our social lives can now be done online or via texts, whereas the deeper reasons for gathering can be focused on more and more.

  Now when we gather, it is to see God glorified, or our neighbor loved – with fewer distractions! We see this happening with fewer minutes being used during a worship service to do announcements – now we just ask folks to join our Facebook page to stay connected all week long!

  Can Facebook help us “do life” with our church 7 days a week? Sure it can – but it can also perpetuate shallow relationships too.

  Can Facebook help us serve our neighbor? You betcha!  But it can also keep us sequestered to our dark little apartment, or keep blinders on to everyone who isn’t in our own little social network.

  —>  In short – Facebook merely helps you become more of who you already are! If you are a shallow jerk in your actual relationships, you’ll have apps and tools to make you an even BIGGER shallow jerk online!  (Farmville, anyone?)  If you love the LORD and are passionate about seeing his Kingdom come, you will be a part of helping it come on Facebook as it is in heaven!

  At a congregational level, if your church can’t seem to get past conversations about sports and the weather during your “fellowship times,” why will people attend your gatherings when they can meet all those needs from their smartphone?  And if your church is begging God for revival, if they are constantly listening to each other’s heart and the heart of God – there will be no shortage of ways to use the power of Facebook to meet those needs.

  Think about your faith community now – how might social media augment what you value as a community?  How might it help reorient your values in a positive way?

  God seems to reveal himself and propel us in mission each time new technology emerges (think stone tablets, Roman roads, the Gutenberg press, blogs, and more!)  With tongue placed firmly in cheek, I call this “Eschatechnology.”