y el fin, o parte tres

I should not pretend to know Spanish. It's insulting to everyone who does. In any case, I hope y'all are ready for round 3, the end, which is much, much shorter, and ultimately the point of all of this. Thanks for bearing with me. And, just to reiterate, I don't consider this definitive, or an either/or kind of deal. I'm just making observations. Feel free to be critical of specific points, or the whole deal. But, let's discuss those differences and figure out what's preference and what's biblical. Cool

Alternative model: Basically, read the New Testament. That’s what it would look like. To put it more practically, a group of followers of Christ spend time with each other, help each other, love each other (so that the world knows they’re His disciples – John 13:35) all week, and once a week, come together and celebrate that life and talk about what God’s doing and share their struggles and their successes. Someone teaches – teaches, which implies a lot less preparation, and a lot more interaction than preaching. They pray, and fellowship (which means an openness, an honesty, an encouragement and a sharing of burdens – not a ‘fun food and fellowship’ deal), and break bread. The pastor is respected and loved as a brother, and while he spends time dealing with the church, that time is spent equipping people, discipling people so that they can do the work, so that they can build effective relationships with those around them. The pastor is a member of the community, not some alien super-spiritual mystic, and probably has some sort of ‘normal’ job. The group meets in an area that’s visible to the community, maybe a home or an office of a community member, and it costs little, if anything to meet there, so the tithe can go to ministering to those in need. Each of the people views him/herself as vitally involved in the group, engaging in the work, and spends time building up the others’ and meeting their needs, discipling and being discipled, while also making special efforts to demonstrate love beyond what the world can explain to nonbelievers.

That’s the vision, in a nutshell. Again, I refer you to the New Testament, especially John 17, and Acts-Jude. I am so sorry that this was so long, but I don’t feel like I could have tackled this complex a subject in any shorter of a space.