Blog

Thursday, March 24, 2005

The expresso leadership team met last nite. 5 of us gathered to talk about how we are finding God spiritually, what is church and what a new congregation at Opawa could look like.

Excellent discussion. My summary:
- We'll meet weekly; with a cycle of 3 weeks of discussion, 1 week of mission, 5th week of fun.
- Looking at Tuesday nites, 8-9 pm, in a local cafe.
- Discussion nites will have an opening ritual and a closing multi-sensory prayer. In between is discussion, with the group choosing the topic/question and different people taking turns to 'kick-start' each evening discussion.
- We're not yet sure about how often we should do communion.
- This will be a congregation of Opawa, seeking to offer a complete church experience, yet seeking to develop it's own life that could look very different from existing ways that Opawa is church.
- We talked about the tension between small group and being church. How good can a conversation be amongst more than 12 people? If we talk around tables, will that still give us good conversation with a growing mix of one yet many, big yet small? (Any thoughts out there? Can you experience good community in a cafe with 50-70 people clustered around tables talking about one 'kick-start'?)

We have gone away, with different individuals working on opening and closing rituals, others on logo's, others on 'group guidelines for a healthy learning experience.'

One of his ambitions is to open a cafe "with great local art on the walls and a poetry open mike and free internet access, and a space for adult literacy classes and debt counselling".