I have always felt that Easter Sunday is the big day on the Christian calendar – kind of like AFL Grand final day, but knowing that every year you come from behind to snatch victory.

This year we are looking to have a local celebration for our own church community and our neighbours – probably in our backyard.

Danelle and I are pondering this at the moment – what would embrace the true essence of the ressurection – communicate something of Jesus and also capture the imaginations of local people who may have little concern for the whole Easter thing?

Yes – we could run a ‘church service’, but I’m not sure that would be a form my neighbours would feel at home in.

Currently words like informal, party, beer, laughter are running through my mind as well as truth, lens, piercing, emotive…

I’m open to ideas…

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In coming to Brighton we have always been very keen for the Christian community we are shaping to be open and inclusive.

By that, I mean everyone is welcome and everyone is accepted – wherever they are at.

Now follow me on this, because sometimes when our beliefs and values are tested we discover that we have some growing to do…

Currently we have 3 different community meetings on a 4 week cycle.

1. Focus – closed ‘missionary team’ meeting. Only those who are committed to being missionaries in Brighton and are on the journey with us are invited to that meeting.

2. Primary Communities – open ‘everyone welcome’ meeting. These are our primary church communities – the forums where we ‘do church’ together in a gathering sense.

3. Big Gigs – another open everybody welcome meeting. I am sensing these could be as a simple as a barbecue, a party, a backyard blitz.

Now here’s what I discovered last week.

We had our second ‘prim comm’ gathering and some new folks (a local Christian family) came along for the first time. I didn’t know they were coming, but another family in the group invited them along – understanding us to be an open community.

Fair enough? Absolutely…

But, what I discovered was that my first reaction was one of ‘hey I didn’t expect this’. I felt some discomfort at new people in the group. (They were great people!)

Now logically that doesn’t make sense if we are genuine about being an ‘open community’, but there was an obvious dissonance between what I said I valued and what I felt.

I took a few days to reflect on it and ask the questions of myself – why did I feel like I did and in a chat with Bruce royal scandal a divx online (no longer blogging – but on an exciting journey) some things became clearer.

What I started to realise is that while we are speaking about PC’s as our primary gathering experience (ala what we used to know as ‘church service’) I was unconsciously seeing the group as more of a ‘home group’ or a ‘small group’ in the more traditional language where there was some level of openness but only as the group allowed it.

In my previous experience all of the home groups I have been part of have been relatively closed groups. We have spoken of the need for trust to develop, of the change that occurs every time a new face appears, shared journey etc. (You probably know the drill!)

But here we are now with PC’s – not home groups – not closed groups, but my brain and emotions are still wired for these beasts. I didn’t think that was the case, but the dissonance between my words and my feelings showed that last week.

This is a new part of the journey again – new learning – how not to be a ‘home group’ but to be a ‘primary community’ where all people are welcome. While it is a new experience, I’m looking forward to learning how to function and grow in this environment.

It occurred to me the other day that in the home group setting we often see the group as the place where we can share our deepest stuff – or we try to make it that. And sometimes I have seen that happen and sometimes even had stuff to say (most often I don’t!).

But it does create some serious tension also. I have been part of groups where some have been concerned that the sharing isn’t deep enough – and asked people to open up more. Or maybe people have been kept out of the group because it will ‘upset the level of trust’. I have always felt uneasy with pushing people into ‘intimate trust relationships’. It occurs to me that maybe our PC’s can be these places, but don’t need to be.

Maybe the best place to do the ‘stuff dump’ is one to one with a trusted friend or two – either in the prim community or not. Of course we do need safe places.

But – If we allow it to develop naturally then maybe we will see lives opened and shared – if we try to give it a shove then maybe it will always feel contrived rather than normal.

I’m sitting well with this now and have enjoyed the learning experience as we have been coming to grips with the fact that we are creating something new. I sense I will need to ‘practise this’ more regularly to become more comfortable with it.

It doesn’t mean close relationships aren’t valuable – but it does say if we are going to value openness in our communities then we need to put our money where our mouth is!

Anyone else had similar experiences on the journey?…

I Stand by the Door

by Sam Shoemaker

I stand by the door.
I neither go too far in, nor stay too far out,
The door is the most important door in the world-
It is the door through which people walk when they find God.
There’s no use my going way inside, and staying there,
When so many are still outside and they, as much as I,
Crave to know where the door is.
And all that so many ever find
Is only the wall where a door ought to be.
They creep along the wall like blind people,
With outstretched, groping hands.
Feeling for a door, knowing there must be a door,
Yet they never find it …
So I stand by the door.

The most tremendous thing in the world
Is for people to find that door–the door to God.
The most important thing any person can do
Is to take hold of one of those blind, groping hands,
And put it on the latch–the latch that only clicks
And opens to the person’s own touch.
People die outside that door, as starving beggars die
On cold nights in cruel cities in the dead of winter-
Die for want of what is within their grasp.
They live, on the other side of it–live because they have not found it.
Nothing else matters compared to helping them find it,
And open it, and walk in, and find Him …
So I stand by the door.

Go in, great saints, go all the way in–
Go way down into the cavernous cellars,
And way up into the spacious attics–
It is a vast roomy house, this house where God is.
Go into the deepest of hidden casements,
Of withdrawal, of silence, of sainthood.
Some must inhabit those inner rooms.
And know the depths and heights of God,
And call outside to the rest of us how wonderful it is.
Sometimes I take a deeper look in,
Sometimes venture in a little farther;
But my place seems closer to the opening …
So I stand by the door.

There is another reason why I stand there.
Some people get part way in and become afraid
Lest God and the zeal of His house devour them
For God is so very great, and asks all of us.
And these people feel a cosmic claustrophobia,
And want to get out. “Let me out!” they cry,
And the people way inside only terrify, them more.
Somebody must be by the door to tell them that they are spoiled
For the old life, they have seen too much:
Once taste God, and nothing but God will do any more.
Somebody must be watching for the frightened
Who seek to sneak out just where they came in,
To tell them how much better it is inside.
The people too far in do not see how near these are
To leaving–preoccupied with the wonder of it all.
Somebody must watch for those who have entered the door,
But would like to run away. So for them, too,
I stand by the door.

I admire the people who go way in.
But I wish they would not forget how it was
Before they got in. Then they would be able to help
The people who have not, yet even found the door,
Or the people who want to run away again from God,
You can go in too deeply, and stay in too long,
And forget the people outside the door.

As for me, I shall take my old accustomed place,
Near enough to God to hear Him, and know He is there,
But not so far from people as not to hear them,
And remember they are there, too.
Where? Outside the door–
Thousands of them, millions of them.
But–more important for me–
One of them, two of them, ten of them,
Whose hands I am intended to put on the latch.
So I shall stand by the door and wait
For those who seek it.
“I had rather be a door-keeper …”
So I stand by the door.

Sam Shoemaker, founder of Faith At Work at Calvary Episcopal Church in New York City, in 1926, was also one of the spiritual leaders who helped draft the 12 Steps of A.A.

That poem echoes what I feel – I want to stand by the door.

“Near enough to God to hear him, and know he is there, but not so far from men as not to hear them, and remember they are there, too”

I know there will be people more ‘godly’ and more ‘spiritual’ than me – who think deeper and meditate longer, but if being that means that I don’t get to stand by the door then I’ll take the door every time.

Over the last year or so I have met a number people who when I ask about the church community they are involved with tell me ‘Oh I just attend Impressive & Funky Baptist Church. We don’t actually get involved – we just go on Sundays. Its very good’.

I’m getting close to asking someone ‘so when did just attending

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become an option you could choose?…’

These conversations have sparked me to write an article that is a critique of the way we have done church and the inherent weaknesses in the system. It is still in process but I’ll throw it up here when its done

Those of you who know me would realise that even though I am taking an ’emerging/incarnational’ approach to our own situation I am not (and never have been) hostile towards the established church. I believe we need many kinds of churches and that there is a place for different expressions of the body. I am a product of the established church and I am grateful for my experiences that have shaped me to this point.

But we are on a different journey because we believe there are some significant flaws in the system.

I have never articulated them before, but this one issue has started my motor and rather than just look at the ‘passive consumer’ problem in isolation I thought I’d take a shot at the whole system. I am not up for defining ourselves by ‘who we aren’t’ but maybe these things need to be said…

Its a little way from completion, but when it is I’ll throw it up on here and wait to be crucified!