When we meet before the service on Sundays and drink and chat together, this is a great way to fellowship together. However, why do we seem to take a relaxed approach to being in the hall ready for the start at 10.30? If we were invited to have an audience at the Palace with our present monarch King Charles, we wouldn’t dream of just turning up at our convenience but would make sure that we were there and ready to be in his presence. How much more, as we are invited into the Courts of King Jesus, shouldn’t we have prepared in the same way?
I love this question! The reason I love it so much is that I think it shows the complexity of community life. This question touches on theology, culture, expectations, organisation, and a whole host of other things. It shows that even the simplest of things, getting a bunch of people in a room for 10:30, is more complicated than we might first think! So let me dive in to this question:
Meeting the King
Jan compares the grandeur of an audience with King Charles with our weekly Sunday gatherings. In fact she says surely we would be ‘there and ready to be in his [speaking of God’s] presence’. Is this a helpful picture? Is this a helpful provocation?
Putting it bluntly, is God more in the main hall than in the coffee shop (or even car park)? I think we would all agree that this is not the case (see Matt 28:20 or Psalm 139:7-12). In fact, things have dramatically changed (John 4:19-24) from the Old Testament where there was a focal point for worship (i.e. the tabernacle and then subsequently the temple) to the New Testament understanding that people (not place) have become the temple (1 Peter 2:4-5). So we must reject any way of thinking that makes the main hall (or some other place) more special for worshipping together.
We Gather (cheek to jowl)
However, and this is a big however (!), the New Testament word which we translate church (ἐκκλησία) is more literally translated as ‘assembly’ or ‘gathering’. In this way, there is something vital about when we gather together (that’s why online church will never replace being cheek to jowl with one another in a room). The church is a gathering. The church is when God’s people assemble together. We can’t ‘do’ church at a distance. Church life is, at the very least, God’s people gathering. And to gather we need a date (Sunday), place (the main hall) and a time (yep… 10:30).
The central purpose of God
However, I want to go further and say that gathering or assembling or ‘churching’ together is not just something we need to squeeze into our already full and meaningful lives. No, as John Stott said, “the church lies at the very centre of the eternal purpose of God. It is not a divine afterthought. It is not an accident of history.” So, when we gather or assemble to ‘church-together’, we are actually participating in God’s central plan. Do you believe that?
Practising life in a country of death
If that’s not enough to excite you, then I want to suggest that when we gather we are doing even more! The ‘Church is an appointed gathering of named people in particular places who practise a life of resurrection in a world in which death gets the biggest headlines.’ (Peterson, Practice Resurrection, 12)
I believe that this quote by Peterson gives us a “way in”‘ to understanding why it is so vital that we gather as a local church. A local church is “a colony of heaven in the country of death” (see also 1 Pet 2:11; Phil 3:20). So, when the church gathers, week-in-week-out (even if it feels routine), it is in fact a prophetic way of life as this colony of heaven. By the very fact of our gathering, we are declaring (prophesying) that this world (of sin) we inhabit is a world of death and at the same time that there is a beautiful alternative — life in the kingdom of God.
It’s interesting, but when you look back through history, gatherings or assembling in groups have always been one of the things that oppressive regimes have tried to stamp out. Why? Because they know the subversive power of people gathering together with a unified purpose! How much more for us as the church. When we gather we are looking to subvert the powers of darkness and to herold (through words and assembling) that there truly is another King and Kingdom whose reign will never end!
I could write so much more on this subject, but for now let me finish by encouraging all of us to regularly gather, and gather on time, because what we do week-in-week-out is at the very centre of God’s plans and is a radically subversive act of life in a country of death. Let’s do that together… and let’s make every second count!
Maybe this has sparked another mardle question. Drop me a line at mardle@wearekingsgate.org