Gathered and Scattered Identities

Throughout the book of Psalms, David writes about how important it is to praise God "in the Great asesmbly," or "in the great congregation."

I love this impulse of David's--having experienced something transformational in his life, his heart's desire is to publish that experience as widely as possible, in the largest gathering the ancient Israelites had.

Like the people of God of old, it not only makes sense, but is highly important that we have a gathered (and I would add, institutional) identity as followers of Jesus.

Traditionally this gathered identity has been called various things, such as "corporate worship," "going to the meeting house," "Sunday services," etc. 

But this can't be our only "religious" or "spiritual" identity. Allow me to me explain.

In recent decades, evangelical and reformed people have fallen into bad habits, and limit their experience of Christian worship to that which takes place on Sundays. Which doesn't make sense if you think about it.

Imagine, for example, if you and your family only "met" as a family once a week for a couple of hours. The entire rest of the week you spent in different homes doing different things.

That's why at Mercy Hill we are making an intentional effort, and even emphasizing, what we're calling our "scattered" identity as believers. That is, how we live as "worship" before God on a daily basis.

The Christian faith wasn't meant, after all, to be lived "by appointment."

Church, we have discovered, is a noun that refers not to a building but to a people. More than that, a people of God on the move, on "mission" for God in our ordinary lives: in our homes, on our streets, in our neighborhoods, and in our towns.

This is as much "church" as any planned "event" that takes place on a Sunday. In fact, it is more "church-y" than the Sunday thing.

We believe we gather for the "assembly" out of the reality of living out the mission of Jesus on a daily, even hourly, basis.

Our gathering is for the purpose of praising Him "in the great assembly" and with the hope that we will be challenged and inspired by the means of grace (Word and Sacrament) to live more faithfully and fully for Him and His Kingdom every day.

Please pray for Mercy Hill as we launch the programmed side of our scattered identity this month. We're calling these mini-church gatherings "crowded houses" and we've written about them here on this website before.

Our hope is that these crowded houses are characterized by the following four rhythms: spiritual formation, study (or story), service, and celebration.

While activities in each of these four areas may not happen every time a crowded house meets, the life of these mini-churches will be characterized by a balance across all of them.

At the minimum, we hope that there is at least a weekly meeting of people who live near to one another. We also hope that the crowded houses of Mercy Hill will create a covenant together by the middle of November--a solemn agreement on how they will serve, how they will grow, how they will hold one another accountable, and how they hope to multiply in 12 months time.

Please pray for our new church and especially that God would use this season of church planting to enrich our lives and the lives of others around us who don't yet know, love, and follow Him.