Comments on: Talking Sense http://www.sammarsh.net/?p=1466 A blog with some thoughts, randomly disconnected, on issues of Christian theology and anything else that grabs my attention. Sat, 04 Sep 2010 07:19:42 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: Sam Marsh http://www.sammarsh.net/?p=1466&cpage=1#comment-115 Sam Marsh Tue, 17 Feb 2009 19:32:21 +0000 http://www.sammarsh.net/?p=1466#comment-115 I know exactly what you mean - it's certainly worth asking whether it really is important that people understand every word spoken or not. A guy in our church stood up recently and said how loved he felt by the people at church and how it felt 'like heaven will be.' I'm sure this had far more to do with feeling part of a 'family', than whether he understood what the preacher was harping on about... We've been experimenting recently with services where we make an *especial* effort to make every aspect of our gathering orientated towards guests who may not be used to coming to coming along. This isn't to say we ignore these things the rest of the time, but on the third Sunday of each month we put our best foot forward to crank up the band etc. This is, if you like, us at our most 'accessible'... I know exactly what you mean – it’s certainly worth asking whether it really is important that people understand every word spoken or not. A guy in our church stood up recently and said how loved he felt by the people at church and how it felt ‘like heaven will be.’ I’m sure this had far more to do with feeling part of a ‘family’, than whether he understood what the preacher was harping on about…

We’ve been experimenting recently with services where we make an *especial* effort to make every aspect of our gathering orientated towards guests who may not be used to coming to coming along. This isn’t to say we ignore these things the rest of the time, but on the third Sunday of each month we put our best foot forward to crank up the band etc. This is, if you like, us at our most ‘accessible’…

]]> By: matthew r malcolm http://www.sammarsh.net/?p=1466&cpage=1#comment-113 matthew r malcolm Tue, 17 Feb 2009 10:25:47 +0000 http://www.sammarsh.net/?p=1466#comment-113 This is a difficult one: On the one hand I think it's good that my own church seems to be really aware of this issue, and often explains things and uses non-technical language... but on the other hand, I sometimes feel like we are so worried about the perceptions of outsiders that we don't act like a genuine family/household: We effectively act with the assumption that everyone is a visitor who may not have ever heard the gospel before - and so outsiders never get the opportunity to simply "eavesdrop" on a church family in action, complete with its distinctive vocabulary. This is not really an answer though - more just an agreement that there must be some kind of appropriate mix of accessibility and distinctiveness. This is a difficult one: On the one hand I think it’s good that my own church seems to be really aware of this issue, and often explains things and uses non-technical language… but on the other hand, I sometimes feel like we are so worried about the perceptions of outsiders that we don’t act like a genuine family/household: We effectively act with the assumption that everyone is a visitor who may not have ever heard the gospel before – and so outsiders never get the opportunity to simply “eavesdrop” on a church family in action, complete with its distinctive vocabulary.

This is not really an answer though – more just an agreement that there must be some kind of appropriate mix of accessibility and distinctiveness.

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