I peeled this satsuma for Beth the other night. We always make a bit of a challenge out of it, and I feel totally secure and full of self belief when I am able to peel the whole skin off in one go. As a bonus my daughter thinks I am a cool dad when I do so!

The other night I looked at the peel as I lazily placed it on the floor. It struck me that this did not look like a satsuma anymore. It was recognisable as one, but it was also very totally different in shape. If someone had never seen a satsuma or orange before I think they would find it difficult to believe that this used to be a small spherical object.

As I looked I felt an idea. The church could kind of be like this.

There is the ever big conversation going around on what church is, how it should change, what it should keep and so on and so on and so on. I feel the church needs to change, to open out as the peel in the picture, but still be recognisable to those ‘in the know’ that it is church. For those ‘not in the know’ maybe it should be a surprise that this is church.

I felt the idea that the church should be unpeeled and reach out into the community in the same way my peel does. Some bits stretch out far and are long and narrow, some just push out a bit and are short and stumpy. None of the peel bits are uniform and regular, but then people are not uniform and regular either!

The church should try to reach out in all levels of the community and in some areas it will stretch masses and be received well while in others it will only scratch the surface and so be quite stumped.

The satsumas ‘guts’ have been eaten by my daughter. They provided nourishment for her. The guts of our church, the people, should be providing nourishment for those in the community. As the guts are revealed the skin stretches out in loads of different directions. As we ‘come out’ as church, we find ourselves touching various parts of the community that we live in.

Ho do we achieve this? I don’t think we can with organised set things. This kind of pattern is achieved only when people are released to do things that interest them, when we are encouraged to get out and mix with people in our own individual way, when we are enabled and allowed to get out an infiltrate our community.

If that happens, our ‘satsuma peel like’ churches will stretch into different parts of the community and have a positive effect for change.

I think this is already happening, but it is not recognised either by the ‘church’ or individuals. Think of one person and the networks that individual is involved in. The networks could be vast in number: for example I am in a number of networks ranging from my family, friendship circles, work circles, people I sit near at football, people I play volleyball with, this blog …. there are many.

If we recognise our networks as given by God and usable for God for the progression of his church we will then have a church that stretches in to the community as far as we allow it to. As individuals if we see our networks as mission opportunities we are allowing God to make use of us through our gifts and talents.

I know of two possible examples here.

I have a friend, Gary, whose son plays football on a Sunday morning. He has started to support that group of people on a Sunday morning by being ref and offering some coaching … and he is building relationships with a group of parents. Surely, though, this guy should be in church on a Sunday morning!!?? It is. surely, terrible, that he is out there sharing his life with real people when he should be worshipping the Lord on a Sunday morning!

I have recently joined a volleyball club that meets on a Tuesday night. I am getting to know people very slowly. I enjoy being with those people. But … Tuesday night is the night when the homegroup I am assigned to meets! I feel incredibly guilty that I am out having fun with my new volleyball friends when I should be studying the bible and praying with those from my church in someone’s lounge! Surely, I should be at the church meeting!

It seems to me that too often we try to compartmentalise or control. We train for ‘evangelism’ and try t do ‘evangelism’, whereas God gives us gifts and links in which he just wants us to live genuiney and with integrity; to live provocatively I guess.

As church we need to support where this is happening rather than worry about oversight, accountability, or whether people are being ‘fed’ and so on. All those things are important, but I just think sometimes we use those statements, at best to try and keep control, or at worst to stifle new ideas which are creative and innovative. Sometimes we think they are the more important things and so creativity and mission opportunities are lost.

Surely, our roles should be to encourage the opportunities that come our way, whether they come on a Sunday morning, a Tuesday evening or whenever they may be. We need to be looking at how we support people whose God given opportunities, like Gary’s, take them out of our mainstream ‘normal’ worship services so that they still have an opportunity to grow with others and with God. This may take some more creative thinking.

I like the idea of my satsuma peel church. I like the idea of all of us being out there in the way God wants us to be, changing individual lives as individuals. I like knowing that, if we allow him, God will use all of us in a unique way.