Why does our staff schedule meetings away from the church building?

Posted by on Aug 1, 2011 | Comments Off

A couple weeks ago I posted this picture to my Facebook page…

It was 6:30am and literally every person in Starbucks was from The Bridge… and our staff considered this an incredible WIN.  We have a practice within the staff that, as often as possible, we’ll schedule meetings away from the church building  It doesn’t happen very often, but every now and then someone will ask me this legitimate question…

“Why do you schedule your meetings at Starbucks when you could have meetings for free at the church building?“

Here’s why…

  • We avoid Jesus’ fear that his people would become “hidden light”.  At the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said that one of his two great fears for his kingdom people was them becoming “hidden light” - that they would become people who were content to huddle comfortably together, hidden from the world.  One small way we avoid this is by – when possible – being active out in the community, getting to know, invest in, and bless employees and regulars at local community points.  In essence, our staff will be in sin the day we start spending our lives locked up behind church doors, living anti-mission lives away from the people Jesus died to save.
  • Paul’s missional example was to bring ministry to where people were instead of waiting for people to come where ministry was. This is most clearly seen in Acts 17. As Paul traveled into the city of Athens, there was a place called the Areopagus where people gathered together to discuss politics, religion, philosophy and other issues of the day.  This is where Paul went with the gospel.  If there are places like that in Spring Hill, we want to follow Paul’s example and have a presence there.
  • This is a small way to “seek the welfare of the city”.  In the oft-quoted Jeremiah 29, God’s people had been exiled into the foreign city of Babylon.  One of God’s directives to his people was that they “seek the welfare of the city”, pray for them, and be a blessing to them as representatives of God.  As God’s covenant people today, the church should do this now.  By being in local businesses and supporting the people there, we open the door to know and “seek the welfare of” our city.
In essence, if we ever become a church staff or church body whose primary posture toward our community is to “retreat” from the people Jesus died to save, it would grieve God’s heart.  John Calvin, a 16th century pastor-theologian-church planter, had a similar practice recorded by a biographer…
“Calvin so believed in the importance of the everyday activities of Christian life and mission that he had a strange but telling practice in Geneva. He was eager to see Jesus’ church gathered on Sundays, but he was not happy for his flock to retreat from everyday life and hide within the walls of the church during the week. So to prod his congregants to be fully engaged in their city of Geneva — in their families, in their jobs, with their neighbors and coworkers — he locked the church doors during the week. It must have been hard not to get the point. He knew the place of God’s people — gathered together to worship on Sunday, but during the week not hidden away behind thick walls of separation, but on mission together in God’s world, laboring to bring the gospel to metro Geneva in their words and actions, in all their roles and relationships.”

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