Moved Mountains

Monday, June 16, 2008

Social Sundays - Alternate[Or]

We started our Social Sundays again yesterday. During the summer we were meeting every second Sunday for a BBQ at the beach, but with the change in weather and a lack of decent alternative meeting places our social get togethers fell by the wayside.

The social aspect of Alternate[Or] has been pretty important. It has proved to be a way of introducing new people to the group and in just about every case these same people have ended up joining in our spiritual gatherings.

The dynamic of the group has changed over the past 8 months too. We started with a rather large group of people, most of whom would have identified themselves as Christians - most were disgruntled with the church scene in one way or another or were looking at fresh ways of expressing their faith.

Unfortunately just about all these original people have stopped coming and have pretty much cut off communication with me altogether. This has been difficult for me. I struggle with this being a failure on my part yet I don't really know what to do about it, or what I did to make it happen in the first place. I enjoyed the company and input of all these guys and miss their involvement. The only thing I can guess about the reason for their discontinued involvement is that the community wasn't meeting their needs or expectations.

While this aspect has been discouraging, the other side of the picture is encouraging. One of the most important aspects of what we do is the determined act of creating a place of genuine belonging for those who do come along. We seemed to have achieved this, at least for those without a church or Christian background. While the numbers of Jesus followers involved with us has decreased dramatically (from around 30 down to 3) we have seen an increase in unchurched people joining in. We know have a regular group of around 6 or 7 - not including the kids.

Here are some photos from yesterday's social.