So, here's the deal. We all head off to church on a Sunday morning, arrive in the same parking lot, get to our pew, listen to the same music, pray deeply, hear and think about the same scripture, get challenged to draw closer to who Christ is in a terrific message, have a spot of coffee in the same room with others, and then go home, sometimes saying something about how good that was today.

And some of us have a great small group during the week - or engage in serving at a soup kitchen or serving Christ somewhere along the path.

But is that community? And, is that church?

I was reflecting with a good friend this past weekend about community from a pastor's perspective. We figure if we can get everyone into the same room and cast "our" vision that it'll happen. But what will happen?

I think when most of us say community or church, we mean that people will be invested in each other and really care for one another. But many times what we actually do in church is have a leader who does most of the talking? And we're located together around a "church segment" of life. And there are "safe" subjects and "not so safe" subjects, aren't there?

And then there's the idea that I come to church to grow deeper, which means in standard church terminology, that I must need to LEARN something new. But what if it means that I need real community with Jesus in the center? 

What if we reordered the church pews into little segments called chairs (LOL), and made them into little groups and part of "church" every week was somehow really getting to know the real life of someone else in the room with us.

I actually think we don't get community ... in church ... very well.

I'm just wondering how we would ... excuse me for that slip ... let me start again. I'm just wondering how we would really follow Christ in community ... at church?

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I was humbly convicted - again. I've been reading a book called Church 3.0 where Neil Cole shares his thoughts on starting churches, errhhh ... starting and growing disciples.

He is sharing about addressing the occult in a local coffee shop. An occult group targeted this coffee shop as their recruitment range. So, Neil's church, errhhh ... disciples ... decided God desired peole to know Him at this coffee house - instead of being drawn to the occult.

 What did they do? They prayed and believed God!

They showed up at the coffee house, and approached people considering the occult. They went to Satanic recruitment parties and prayed fervently inside and outside that party. Bold, huh?

Listen to this ...

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As we've begun this journey, I've had to "unlearn" some key thoughts and bring them into the light of Christ for examination.

One thought has been: If it's about church planting, then the outcome we are going for is a group of people who occupy a building, and Sunday morning are all about producing the best God experience possible in that building.

Well, who said that?

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Will I ever be able to live on land again?

Okay, possibly I've turned part amphibian! People, who live normal lives on land, look at our boat and living quarters and shriek something similar to, "You are crazy!" I look at our boat and living quarters and think, "How cool is this?!" Ah, to each his own.

  Like today, I was pulling out my clothes to wear. We've developed a system for keeping clothes dry and non-musty smelling on the boat. Now, I know you don't have to do that on land - well, usually.

So, we bought these "Dry Bags" - which are essentially watertight bags that you can squeeze the air out of and it keeps everything nice and closed up from any weather. I've got my socks in a bag like that. It was an experiment to see if it'd work when we moved on board.

I LOVE having my socks in a Dry Bag! You can pull the whole bag out, get the pair of socks you want, close it back up, and put it on the shelf. No drawer to stuff and try to wedge open. Nice, clean, neat - and the socks smell like they just came from the laundry. Nothing better than a dry bag.

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