“Being the Church ‘Outside the Box’”

Posted on September 30th, 2009

Pastor’s Column published in The Informer (FBC’s Newsletter for October, 2009)

At our second cluster retreat in Richmond last weekend, our Spiritual Transformation Journey initiating leadership team was asked at a breakout session to reflect on and answer the following fictional scenario:

“Due to an unfortunate “happening,” Farmville Baptist Church lost all of its buildings and resources inside its buildings.  In the face of this new reality, share ideas of how the congregation can be the Church, the “living presence of Christ,” to those He is calling and gifting it to serve.”

I must admit, it was hard for us to imagine how we could be the church “outside the box,” outside the white brick building located on 132 N. Main Street.  But we all agreed that we do not cease to be Farmville Baptist Church just because we no longer had a building.  After some discussion, we came up with some interesting possibilities.

First of all, we talked about how the church could take our worship service “to the streets,” gathering under a tent in our parking lot, assembling in places like Brock Commons on Longwood campus, or meeting at Holly Manor or even at Piedmont Regional Jail.  We might rent space in other churches, in schools or the movie theater to hold our worship service.  We could also hold smaller worship services at many different locations (like in people’s homes) and then gather as the whole church family once a month in a rented space.

We might consider having Sunday School in restaurants, in people’s homes and dorm rooms, and not just on Sunday mornings, but every day of the week and at different times during the day.  We could expand our small prayer groups and hold prayer meetings in the homes of our shut-ins and in the activity room of Brookview.  We could utilize technology more—like email, our church website and Facebook—to stay connected 24-7, and to post and update prayer requests.

Finally, we agreed that instead of focusing on “our” ministries in “our” building, we could focus on joining forces with the many wonderful ministries already established in town, like FACES, Habitat for Humanity, Meals on Wheels, “Reclaiming Our Lives Ministry,” and others.  We also wouldn’t need to wait for the Missions and Outreach Committee to come up with missions opportunities—we could just do missions and intentionally serve others as part of our daily lives.

These are some of our answers to this fictional scenario, but we can actually do some of these things already regardless of whether we have a building or not!  What possibilities can you imagine for Farmville Baptist to be the church “outside the box”?  I hope you will ponder this question as a way to invite God to show you how Farmville Baptist can be the presence of Christ in our community in fresh, exciting and creative ways!

— Journeying on, Michael

Tags: church, outside the box
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