We met last night in the pub again - it was quieter, but somehow the chance for sharing more intimate and private issues is more limited. The music was quieter but still not quiet enough. A new venue is needed or a request to turn the music off is needed.

I came away from last night thinking hard. Getting everyone together is difficult and I don't have the personal resources to visit those who can't come (that's assuming they would welcome a visit) and it does begin to put us in the realm of traditional church/pastor which I am trying to resist. Then again I might have to re-think that. As yet we don't seem to want to link up on the computer. I may have misread that. It may be that for that to happen, we need to know each other better and as last night was only our third meeting I may be expecting far too much.

We talked about some very pertinent issues:

1. What is prayer. How do we pray?

2. God is in us. We are God's prayers

3. What is church for?

At first glance it might be obvious what the answer to these questions are, but far from it. We talked about the different ways of praying - words or feelings. We also talked about the difficulty of praying for situations and events. Is the request for a parking space in Sainsbury's too insignificant when hundreds of children have children have needlessly died as we have been en route to the supermarket.
But what was significant was that we touched again on the Holy Spirit's actions in our lives. Why are we sometimes prompted to stop and talk to someone in the street? (and in one instance that was a stranger). The exciting thing for me was that we touched on the idea that we are answer to someone else's prayers. That God is in us and we are the physical works of his hands. This has implications for a theological reflection that others will see God in our lives and as we tell our story, we are announcing the Good News.

This led onto what was church for and here there was some difference of opinion and so I hope that it prompted us to think a little harder. On the one hand church is a time for quiet reflection; not worrying about anything for an hour or so and having some 'time out'. I suggested that church might be a gathering place for us to tell our stories; of what God had done with us and through us during the week - a time to share stories and be reinvigorated to keep on doing things. I'm not sure what we thought about that, but Martyn Atkins' chapter will help to look at that again.

And another thing...

Oh, and we talked a lot about what church was supposed to be for. The thinking was that it didn't connect with us or to put it more kindly, it no longer connects with us. we may talk about this tomorrow (we're meeting in the pub again and as it's a Thursday I hope it will be quieter) and if we do, I might mention Martyn Atkins' chapter in Mission Shaped Questions which focusses on church as mission...but as you know, we are all equal here and so far there hasn't been an agenda.

Our second meeting was a smaller affair and after the noise of the pub, we opted to meet in a home. Interesting because although it was a more intimate setting and we were able to be very open and honest with each other, we all agreed that there was something special about talking about God very openly in a crowded pub environment.

Once again, there was no problem with people talking about things they felt strongly about and we discussed things that were very personal. I think this must be a tribute to the instant bonding of people - kindred spirits if you like, united by a very real desire to connect with God.

One of the things that struck me was that we recognised that we had all gone through phases of life and we had changed considerably over the years. The question arose, 'how does church change to accommodate us as we change?' We talked about it for a while and didn't come to any conclusion.

The other topic of note was that it was easy to identify three of us in Fowler's faith development model (stage 4 and 5). Whilst I appreciate that this model has its critics, it again begs the question of how does church accommodate people as they move from one season of life to another.

Can anyone suggest some books that might give an insight here? I am also wondering now how our group might deal with this should we want to continue to meet after the 12 weeks are up. Does the charisma of the meeting become institutionalised in order to give it longevity or does the group only have a set life-span?

We have had to miss a week so I posted a contemplative exercise on the other blog (5 Feb) so that people didn't feel disconnected.