Four Reasons we Gather on Sundays
Deconstructing the Gathering
For those who have been deconstructing their faith, whether with the purpose of finding a more true Christian faith, or whether you stumbled into your questions by accident, eventually the skepticism will turn towards your understanding of the Sunday church gathering. Why do we do this? Is it necessary? Is this how the church was meant to gather from the beginning? Or is this an accommodation of culture?
For those of us who have come out the other side of deconstruction with our faith not only intact but renewed, our questions are slightly different: how is this forming us? Is the Sunday gathering, the way we understand it, healthy for the community? How does it make us think about our faith, how does it form our posture towards God and the world, and are the problems we see today stemming from how we gather? Not easy questions to answer, but very much worth exploring.
Yesterday I offered four simple reasons that Watermark Church still gathers every Sunday, despite emphasizing the table fellowship of the home as the center of the early church. Here they are, as well as some discussion questions for Watermark House-churches.
Four Reasons we Gather as a Whole Community on Sundays
For worship, prayer, communion, and the teachings of the Apostles
Acts tells us that when the first generation of Christians did came together: They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (Acts 2:42) Simply put, we come together to hear the teachings of the apostles. Jesus never wrote anything, but he raised 12 students up to embody his message, both in life and in writing. The early Christians were very bookish and the life and teachings of Jesus, passed to us by the writings of the apostles, were the center of their reading, writing, and studies.
With those early followers of Jesus, we sit and listen as their letters are read aloud. And with them, we envision a new world that God is bringing in place of this one. We envision a world of peace and justice, who’s law is grace and who’s greatest weapon against their enemies love. We ponder our king, Jesus, and the life that he is calling us to, a life made visible in men and women like Paul, Junia, Matthew, Phoebe, Philip, Mary, and so many others who endured the cross in their own ways. We read them, we seek out their context and mindset, we look at the world through their eyes, and alongside them, we seek to embody Christ and his cross in our own world.
To Prepare Our Hearts to be Sent
In Lukes account of the life of Jesus, gives instructions to his disciples regarding their posture in the world. They aren’t given faith as an accessory to life or as a tool to help them on their way. They are given a faith as a guide to the mission of the Christian life. What is that mission? The deconstructor asks. Paul calls it the ministry of reconciliation (2 Cor 5:18). It was the ministry of Jesus –reconciling all people and things to God and each other – and it was the ministry that Jesus trained the disciples in. They didn’t merely live as Christians in the world, they believed they were sent. The life that they were given to live was a mission in itself, a public performance of the life of Jesus, lived out for all to see.
As we head out into the marketplaces of our modern world, we must remain aware that we have been sent. There are people there who need to be in the room with Jesus, and that’s us. We are not in power, we are a tool of the powerful one. We do not have the answers, but we have the loving and merciful presence of Jesus, who is willing to be broken and poured out for their healing and salvation. At the Sunday gathering, we prepare our hearts for the mission of God in the coming week. We listen to the stories of what God has done, and we envision what God will do as he sends us into our daily rhythms.
To Make the Kingdom of God Visible
One of my favorite things about Ash Wednesday is that it is a day when I am awakened to just how many brothers and sisters I have in my city. Showing up to the bar and being served by a bartender bearing the ashen cross on his forehead reveals the growing kingdom around me. When my barber shows up at church alongside local business owners and lawyers, to the unhoused persons, waitresses, moms, and landscapers in between, the Sunday gathering helps make the kingdom of God visible. The family is bigger than you think, wider than you think, and includes many that you likely would not. And gathering in this way forms us towards enemy love and reconciliation.
When we enter into the weekly gathering of Christians, we join a group of people that we would never gather with under any other circumstances. Our circles of fellowship are determined by our interests, our work, our hobbies, and eventually people are sorted, many types of people are excluded, not by will, but by circumstance of life. As Dr. McKnight says, the Sunday gathering is a Fellowship of Differents. When the body comes together in this way, we are joined together with those we would never find comradery with under any other circumstances. Jesus has joined us, and the gathering makes that visible.
To Submit to Jesus
We do not gather to talk about our dreams, but Gods dreams. We do not ask how God can help our careers or to achieve the life we want, but wether or not the life we are after came from Jesus or from the empire in which we live. We do not encourage fealty to our nation/kingdom, but Gods kingdom. We do not come to study how to become like Paul, but rather, how Paul was striving to become like Jesus. We do not come to encourage patriotism, or nationalism, or any particular economic system over another. We do not represent a voter base or a political party. We come to submit to Jesus. We elevate Jesus above our interpretations of the Bible, we elevate his love and acceptance over our hatred and division, and we look at our own lives in light of his.
The main goal of gathering is Christoformity. That is, becoming formed unto Christlikeness. Jesus is the Word of God. Jesus is what God is like. Jesus is what we are to strive to be like. We put down our swords and pick up His cross. And in this way we bring worship to Jesus, often accompanied by song, and always by communion.
Discussion Questions:
For Those Deconstructing Their Faith:
Have you ever questioned the necessity of Sunday church gatherings in your faith journey? If so, what led you to do so?
How do you think cultural factors may have influenced the way churches gather on Sundays?
For Those with Renewed Faith:
How has your perspective on Sunday gatherings evolved or changed after going through a period of deconstruction?
In what ways do you believe the Sunday gathering can positively shape the community and the individual believer?
What are some challenges you see in the way churches gather on Sundays today, and how can they be addressed?
How can the Sunday gathering help Christians prepare their hearts for the mission of reconciliation in their daily lives?
For all:
Discuss the idea of being sent into the world as a mission. How does this perspective change the way you view your role as a Christian in society?
Reflect on the concept of submitting to Jesus and striving for Christlikeness in the Sunday gathering. How does this differ from other possible motivations for gathering as a church?