ANOTHER WAY TO BE CHURCH?

When we think about church, what immediately comes to our minds? The church building? The worship service? Church mostly means worship with singing, sermon, offerings, benediction and the never-to-be-missed “Amen” song for NLC.

Last week, a few of us were invited to a home for lunch. We know each other quite well because we attend the English Worship service at NLC. We had a simple and tasty lunch, coffee, red beans soup with lots of time for conversation. We started lunch at 12:30 and left the home only at about 5:30 pm.

We talked about a lot of things with both seriousness and banter. We shared about some of our life challenges, concerns for our church community and thought about what church will be like in the future. We also talked about politics and how Christians are to be involved. I really enjoyed the time together.

Over the next few days, I muse over what happened and wonder if the time together over lunch can be considered as another way of doing church? I wonder too if church life in the first century was actually like this.

We were exhorted in Hebrews 10:25 with this: “not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”

The key is meeting together and encouraging one another. I had both over this lunch.

I came away convinced that we need to rethink our traditional view of church life. Let us start experimenting boldly better ways to be church. Ready? Set? Go ….

Dn Chan Mun