The Balance of Gathered AND Scattered

I’ve been thinking quite a bit about some of the implications of our last post in which I suggested that, if we were to plant Church of the Cross all over again, we would “lead” with our Community Groups instead of a Sunday Gathered Worship. At the same time, I have been reading AND: The Gathered and Scattered Church by Hugh Halter and Matt Smay.

Halter and Smay do a great job reminding us that it is not an either/or question but both/and. In suggesting that we would “lead” with Community Groups and that even now, I would rather that be our emphasis, I am in no way downplaying the importance of Gathered Worship. We naturally lack balance in life. That’s why so many of the “reality” game shows like Fear Factor and others invariably feature some challenge with a feat of balance.

As a church family, we want to find that balance of being gathered and scattered. It seems that the default “American church” position is to emphasize the gathered. We put a lot of time and energy into making sure Sunday morning goes well (for some of our thoughts on that, please read this post). Or, in other more “missional” churches, the scattered is emphasized to the point that things like preaching and corporate worship are downplayed. The answer, as is often the case, seems to be one of balance.

We are the Church, we do not “go to church” and we are called to live as such, both gathered and scattered. God expects our entire lives to be His. This means that we live daily lives as missionaries, being salt and light and we gather to be refreshed, to proclaim the God we have been joyfully serving throughout the week, to bear one anothers’ burdens, to sit under the Word, to sing, take Communion, to be refreshed and then we scatter again. There is a rhythm to the life of faith.

I’m not saying that we do this well at Church of the Cross, but that we’re trying. Community Groups are the primary context in which we live as a family of learning, serving missionaries, but Gathered Worship is no less important. It’s not a question of one or the other but of finding the balance of both and.