Participatory Church Meeting

The Following is the Script for this Video:

Jesus told the Jews, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy..’” BUT . . . “I tell you, love your enemies.”

Today, if you’ve attended church meetings for any length of time, you have heard that it was said: “We go to church to worship God.” BUT . . . the New Testament gives us an entirely different reason for meeting.

In his book, Paul’s Idea of Community, Robert Banks says, “One of the most puzzling features of Paul's understanding of ekklesia [assembly] for his contemporaries, whether Jews or Gentiles, must have been his failure to say that a person went to church primarily to 'worship'. Not once in all his writings does he suggest that this is the case.”

Rather than meeting to worship, the New Testament says church meetings are to build up the church, to build up fellow believers. I Corinthians 14:26 shows us the kind of meeting that does just that—with “each” having the opportunity to contribute what God has given them. A few verses later, Paul says that what he is writing “is the Lord’s command.”

But today, we are not familiar with participatory church meetings. What would one look like? Let’s try to visualize it. The meeting has two clearly stated aims: to “build one another up” and to “make disciples,” as Jesus called for. He said making disciples would be done by “teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded.” Paul said Roman Christians were “able to instruct one another.” So what might a church meeting look like if those truths were to shape it?

That first verse, “teaching them to obey,” reminds us that, among the gifts he has given, Jesus has supplied the church with gifted teachers. And the second verse tells us that even though it is not their gift, teaching is a part of the one-anothering other members do within the body of Christ.

Everyone in the meeting has a role and something valuable to offer. The gifted teachers can oversee the meeting itself. They can study and explain the text being explored. And they can develop questions for the group to discuss.

The other members of Christ’s body can also “teach” by illustrating points from the text from their own experience. They can point out how it applies to real-life situations. And they can use the text to encourage others.

The room itself is arranged to help participants see and hear each other. In this meeting, two with the gift of teaching will oversee it. When Jesus explained how his disciples were to make disciples, he said they would teach their trainees to obey what he had commanded. So today, before the meeting started, the two teachers had chosen the command of Jesus as amplified by Paul in Colossians 3:13—“Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”

Two teachers, Tom and Brian, begin the meeting by unpacking Col. 3:13. For example, they note “one another” appears about 100 times in the New Testament—rooted in Jesus’s new command to “love one another.” They illustrate the biblical uses of “bear with” and “forgive.” And they note that if we follow the Jesus who forgave us, we too will forgive those who wrong us. He did—and so we do. After ten minutes or so of teaching, the teachers begin including members of the body in the conversation.

TOM: Tom begins this phase by asking: “Why is it important that we Christians learn to bear with and forgive one another?”

JASON: After a moment, Jason responds by saying: “Forgiving others is important for staying close to God. Once, when I failed to forgive someone, my own fellowship with God suffered. I could not sense his forgiveness even after confessing my sins.”

BRIAN: After someone else agrees and adds a similar experience, Brian asks: “What obstacles blocking the way might we need to overcome before we’re able to forgive?”

GRACE: This question required some reflection, but Grace finally said, “I sometimes have to fight against the urge to get even before I'm ready in my own heart to drop the charge.”

Before the meeting, the Tom and Brian had asked around to find someone recently wronged by another Christian. That had happened to Elsa—and she was willing to tell about it. So the next question went to her.

TOM: “Without naming names, what exactly happened when you were wronged?“

ELSA: Elsa nodded: “Someone I thought was my friend started the false rumor that I had been arrested for shoplifting back in high school. Two other friends had heard her say so. They got back to me, saying how the rumor had started.”

TOM: Following up, Tom asked: “After you were wronged, what did you have the urge to do?”

ELSA: “At first, I just wanted to write her out of my life—never to have any contact with her again.”

TOM: “I understand that you finally forgave her. How did that happen?”

ELSA: “I had no peace,” Elsa said, “so prayed over it. I remembered, as a girl, lying to my parents about a boy I was seeing. After I admitted the lie, both Jesus and my parents forgave me. Because I had been forgiven, I was able to forgive.”

BRIAN: “Does anyone have a question regarding this matter of forgiving others who wrong us?”

NAME UNKNOWN: “Do we need to forgive right away? Or should we wait until the one who wronged us asks us to forgive?”

BRIAN: “That’s a very important question. Let’s explore that next week as we continue to learn how to obey Jesus’s instructions for us to forgive.”

TOM: “Let's spend some time in prayer. Turn to one or two next to you, share your concerns, and pray for each other.”

JARED: “Father, I ask that you fill Greg with your Spirit and wisdom as he steps into his new personnel management role for his company.”

GREG: “And, Father, I pray that you will open the hearts of Jared's parents as he shares the gospel with them on Tuesday.”

NAME UNKNOWN: “I would like for us to sing, ‘Lord, listen to your children praying.’”

Lord, listen to your children praying, Lord, send your Spirit in this place, Lord, listen to your children praying Send us love, send us power, send us grace. Lord, listen to your children praying Lord, send your Spirit in this place Lord, listen to your children praying Send us love, send us power, send us grace.

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Just as the water in a garden hose is meant to reach the lawn through multiple outlets, so Jesus means for his living water to reach and grow his church through the diversity of gifts in his body. But if our meeting formats restrict the outflow to only a single stream, the church—like a dry lawn—cannot grow as Jesus intends.

Participatory Church Meeting

In t

his Book:

Through the Kingdom Door