Thinking outside of the walls: Let’s go beyond Church as Usual.
Many of our modern church services have a similar format: everyone meets on Sunday and the minister gets up and preaches to the faithful. Now, this is a time-proven and wonderful form of church, but we feel that we should also be open to addition expressions of church, so that the body can be strengthened, and those who may not feel welcome in this environment can be drawn in. Other types of church that we promote include house churches, a church that literally meets in a home, where personal discipleship and relationship building can take place, or a “City Church” meeting where the members of several like minded local fellowships may meet to have a night of worship, prayer or teaching. There is also Antioch-style church, a team-style ministry that has a focus on building both the local ministry and trans-local outreach, allowing some of their experienced leaders to move into their calling to ministry outside of the local body, while mentoring and training the less experienced ministers. Since the ministry is built around several ministers the church does just fine. (This is seen in Acts 13:1-4, where the church in Antioch sowed their best for a season, sending out Barnabas and Paul, and the other carried on with the local work until their return.) And why not have meetings on Friday night? Why limit our worship to just one day? And why not meet at restaurant, coffee house or some other place, like a food pantry or homeless shelter? What if a local church had a cell group that met at the nursing home? Why not have church where people need it most? Jesus spent much of his time away from traditional places of worship. Now, we understand that not every church is called to this type of ministry, nor is every believer is comfortable with this type of church, but there is a growing body of radical Christians willing to think outside the (little white) box. (with a steeple!) We believe that these people should be trained and encouraged in their ministry. Seldom does one church really take a city or region. It is a kingdom effort and is usually bigger than any one ministry. We need to remember that it is not Our church, but His church. We believe very strongly in cooperative efforts with like-minded ministries. What God is doing now is so big, and Antioch Tabernacle Ministries such a small part, we would be negligent or selfish if we did not work with others.
