Not a house/home group

As mentioned below, I am keen that we do not fall into a routine so we forget why we are here. The group came together to be experimental. The issue here is that we are a newly formed group with new people coming. We are not in the business of getting bigger but in the business of 'experiment'. So the most natural thing to conclude is that we do something different to what we might think of as normal. However, some of us maybe needing something from God personally before we can be more fully christian (by that I mean more missional). This is very early days for us. In After Mcdonaldization, John Drane ( p102-104) asks us to consider what business we are in. Quoting from The Experience Economy by Pine and Gilmore he draws on the point that we are in the transformation business. He asks us to consider the question, 'What is the product that the church is offering to the world'? The question he poses is how much confidence (faith) do we have in the transformational process? We 'offer it for nothing at the point of delivery'. If we are going to be missional are we in the business of transforming or do we need to be transformed ourselves first? Maybe we just need to be reminded of our transformational relationship with Jesus first? Perhaps this is where we will begin this evening. I want to get out of talking and do some transforming. I wonder what the others think...and yet what we have achieved so far is a safe space to talk about issues that have not been verbalised in a church setting before; where church does not have the recources to listen to people in a confidential space; where these things tgend only to be 'confessed' to the minister and not to one another. Drane goes on later (p113) to quote from Roxborough and Romanuk in The missional Leader. They cite an example where the church leadership was unable to get projects accepted by the congregation because the congregation were full of anxiety (87). 'Until people can put their feelings into words and be heard they are held captive by unarticulated anxiety. Leaders must create a listening space...' We have (I think) the start of a listening space but at this stage I don't know whether this is enough, especially if new people come. I would never deter new people but it means I need to think harder about a wider group of feelings and thoughts, especially if I take Fowler's faith development seriously.