Interesting Imagine discussion this afternoon about the classic question:
Do you have to go to Church to be a Christian?
After covering the usual ground on this topic we moved to a different but related consideration
Over the summer I have been interested and privileged to meet up with small groups of people who are searchers for faith - some of them consciously followers of Jesus - this is emerging church at its most organic and grass roots.
Some groups have sensed a need for some relationship with the formal church or a local minister/priest, others have a strong aversion to any relationship with the formal Church ( often post-church refugee in nature or as one person put it rather starkly " my names Paul and I am recovering evangelical") - while two ( both oddly the most obviously Churchy) had little sense of what a formal/real Church might mean.
Several questions ensued:
Are such bodies "Church" - when two or three are gathered etc etc
Is this a new church-less Church?
Are Church-less Christians new?
How common are such groups - or have the small number that have made contact via BBA all made contact
What are the connections say with the grass-roots Church movements of South America?
How do they start up - are their any common patterns - are they replicable as a missional strategy?
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