So what does the gathering look like? (Part 4) Tony Payne

I have attended a couple of services like this.  Some like it (in fact both churches practising this style had great growth), myself, and family.. didn’t spin our dials… I prefer something compressed and direct.  I prefer that folk hang around for 30 minutes to an hour to chat afterwards over cofffee.

Hi Steve, Tony,

Steve - you raise an interesting point of the hang around / chat time afterwards. I reckon this is a critical part of what we do at church, and what we do in the meeting is essential for setting up that time. We can pose questions to be discussed later, preach a ‘provocative’ sermon etc. But perhaps most importantly, we need to make sure that the last thing we say / do doesn’t ‘kick people out’, but rather encourages them to stay - inside in the building or somewhere else - depending on where the best space is.

Michael Jensen14/10/2009 04:03 AM

My observation is that dividing a sermon in two never results in the same amount of time… sermons - even short ones - seem to need a ‘wind-up’ and ‘wind-down’ and preachers as a race are really quite ill-disciplined. I always groan when I see that there is a divided sermon!

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Tony Payne

Tony Payne

Paul is one of the Staff Editors at Matthias Media. He is married to Cathy and has three fantastic kids. He loves student ministry, reading, writing music and playing the saxophone, and is looking forward to meeting Jesus face to face.

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