Note: This is not a commentary on the practice of churches across the world and I don’t intend to say that ‘we do it right and others do it wrong’. God is bigger than any form of the Church and I believe that He uses them all despite their differences. I do believe that we should do our best to be true to mission of God (function), regardless of our different forms and in that way, God will be honored in our unity.
The mainstay of many churches around the world is the weekend worship service. In the western world we have become so busy that we want to try and ‘do’ our church time in one shot. The idea of a weekend service has been around a really, really long time…dating back to the Roman Empire in the 6th century. It’s no wonder that many people define Church by the way its weekend gatherings are held!
At Vintage we are attempting something different*. As we have many different times and ways* for the body to get together for encouragement, study, prayer, and community we don’t have the same need to try to fulfill the responsibilities* of the church in one time. At Sanctuary we have one goal in bringing everybody from Vintage together: To encourage the worship of God. At this monthly time, we don’t just have an extended time of singing, but we are hoping to use this time to redefine what worship is…worship is when a person’s entire life is attuned to who God is and in turn constantly seeks how He wants them to live. We do this through prayer, encouragement through scripture and teaching, meditation, singing, communion, and some talking around the tables we use. Every time of Sanctuary is different. We set the room up different. We take communion in a variety of ways. We have a different order every time…and we are trying to keep it simple.
On the outside this may appear to be ‘a normal service.’ But there is one main difference: We are doing out best to keep the attention of the night on worshipping and connecting with God. We believe that an experience with God will bring about life-change that is beyond anything a human could produce. We are not trying to pass on a ton of information to people that has the potential to become more self-serving than God-focused. We are simply doing our best to keep people’s eyes focused on Jesus and who God is. We never want people to leave saying, “Wow, the speaker/band/media/ambience was so good…” We want people to leave saying, “God is good.”
This last Sanctuary felt very much like our old ‘house Sanctuaries’ at the Gerken’s, but was probably the closest time to fulfilling the hope of what Sanctuary is! We set the room up in a round. Used one amp for the guitar and vocal so that they could be heard. Used no mics for the people sharing. Spent a good amount of time meditating on scripture. We had a time of sharing what God was speaking to people. I left saying…”God is good and His presence was honored.”
Honestly though, Sanctuary is the most anomalous ‘thing’ that we do at Vintage. It is unlike everything else. We are still hoping to make this time more and more fruitful in encouraging the worship of God. We don’t have it figured out…but I think we get closer every month. Pray that God will continue to give us wisdom in how to create a time that will bring Him the most honor.
*Different in form, not in function or belief
*We also have dinner parties, connector events, 3’s, discussion groups, home groups, and other random gathering times. We don’t just have these as a supplement to Sanctuary not ‘doing it all’, but because we believe that all of these time are valid expressions of the Church. I’ll talk about all of these things in other posts.
*I believe that the Church has specific responsibilities to the Body itself. There is an entirely different aspect that is the Church’s responsibility to God. Here’s my list:
-To mentor both new and long-time believers in the way Jesus taught us to live
-To teach the Bible
-To provide opportunity to do good works
-To foster community (not just in the ‘we see each other in the parking lot or foyer at church’ way, but to create space for genuine, messy, life-on-life living)
-To set an example to all believers how the mission of God (redemption of all that is His) is practiced
-To create space for worshipping of God in community (I guess that kind of is the big one that covers all the rest.)
I would love some feedback on this article, it seems to be written by a young guy working in France. You can check out his blog a little further down to read about the church called “Vintage Church.”
It’s pretty far out of our western box, but something draws me to it at the same time. I like the emphasis on the body and the worship.