Ekklesia

Last night we had our second meeting for the new alt. worship service we are starting at our church. The official name is now Ekklesia, which is the Greek word for community, or assembly, depending on who you talk to. Aptly named, as I believe we need to shift from a mind set of "going to church" to "being the church." We had some great dialogue I felt, and I learned some things about people I didn't know. We had a couple of writers/poets in the room, which really fired me up. Then our resident photographer/artist suggested he put pictures to their words and everyone started getting excited as we realized that we could truly become the Body of Christ, all of us using our individual gifts to compliment one another to bring glory to God. I don't know about anyone else, but it really stirred something inside me, as I started to see things I've been dreaming about actually start to take shape. There were many good ideas thrown out, and I hope I took good enough notes to remember them all. Note to self: get someone to take notes next time, cause I suck at it. I get to talking or get engaged in what someone is saying and I forget to write things down. Alisha would be good at that.

We also decided we would meet at Daybreak Coffee Roasters periodically just to fellowship outside of our weekly worship gathering, to build relationships with each other and with others we come in contact with who might not come to a service. Because after all, if we really are trying to "be the church", that means taking Christ into every part of our lives, and not drawing a line to separate our "church life" and "world life". When those lines start to blur and we let Christ permeate every aspect of who we are and what we do, then we are truly being the church, and that's what true worship is all about- acknowledging Him in everything we do.

So things are moving along for Ekklesia, which will begin in January 2006. Our next meeting is at the end of November, and we'll start actually planning our gatherings for January.