Over the last few months we have been discussing how we will gather as a ‘church’.

We are aware of the need for the mission to shape our gatherings and not the other way round. But we need to do something now…

So what we came up with is the following 4 week cycle.

Week 1 – Focus Meeting – only the missionary team can attend and it is intentionally about equipping for mission, prayer and bringing us back the core reason we are in this area. On this week if you were visiting the area and ‘wanted to come’ we wouldn’t let you!

Weeks 2 & 4 – Primary Communities – the term ‘primary’ is intentional as these smaller groups will be ‘church’ for us – our primary place of nurture, teaching, worship and mission. I sense (know)that in most of our churches Sunday is primary and a smaller community is optional. We have opted to go for a fortnightly meeting as our base point. These are intended to be open meetings, but meetings that support us in our won spirituality as we serve in mission

Week 3 – Big Gig – Simply put a bigger event where we really do broaden the scope of what we do and who might feel welcome. It might be as simple as a party, it might be an easter celebration, a baby dedication, a community work project. A priority in big gigs is to run things that our neighbours and friends will feel very welcome being a part of. They will rarely be overtly ‘churchy’ but they will be very missional.

Outside of the structures we expect that we will relate to each other as friends. If we don’t see each other except for when we meet up then we need to question the genuineness of the friendships anyway.

Above all we need to keep coming back to our calling to be a missionary team here in Brighton. A ‘church’ may see gathering as the primary concern – we need to see relationships with neighbours as the primary concern.

What’s exciting is that I can see our team have really got it and are enjoying being the people God has called us to be.

I’m not sure if the rhythm we have set will work, but if it doesn’t… we will change it! Simple as that…