One of the new things we have started as a church community is meeting to eat together on a Wednesday night. This has started as a way to discuss what kind of church we want to be. I’ve guided us in this exploration by using an ‘ideas tree’ as seen in the photo by asking people to write what we want more of and what we want less of …. e.g. more hospitality or less formality.

After filling the tree with post it note ideas we then looked for patterns in our thoughts and, thankfully, found some. The next couple of weeks have been focussed on taking a ‘more of’ idea such as community engagement or hospitality and then chatting through ideas of what that means and how we can do it in the context and restrictions of our lives.

This week we had a good strong direct conversation about the reality of our situation as a church and the reality  of our ability to develop things in the midst of a busy city life.

The task is not an easy one!

A result of that honest discussion is that the Wednesday evening meal will be ‘tweeked’ a little. Rather than talking about what sort of church we want to be every week we are going to see what alternating a discussion with a check in, eat and pray for each other would look like. I other words we will alternate between talking church and being church …. although I know we are being church when we talk church as well …. but i think you get my drift!

Although the conversation was tough, even awkward at times, it was good and needed. I firmly believe that if a group of people are seeking to birth something new then honesty needs paramount in discussions. The fact we jumped to honesty rather than stay in politeness so soon is a real encouragement to me. It’s an encouragement because it means people care.

So … this Wednesday we will eat, talk, hear each others stories and pray together ….. so if you are on The Peninsula and fancy eating with a group of people that want to birth a church and bless this community ….. then join us. I just ask that you let us know you are coming so we can cater correctly.

We call this event agapai – a word used by the early Christians derived from agape (meaning God’s love) to describe ‘love feasts’ when they got together to eat and pray together as well as share bread and wine as part of the meal. The name seemed to fit a little with what we are trying to do here.