the weblog of Alan Knox

Gathering or Going?

Posted by on Feb 4, 2010 in church life, community, gathering, missional | 4 comments

If we read the narrative of Scripture as a whole (Old Testament and New Testament), we’ll see examples of God’s people gathering together and examples of God’s people going out.

I’ve been wondering lately, where should our focus be? Obviously, both gathering and going are important to the individual follower Jesus Christ and to the church. I agree with the Anabaptists that every disciple is both an ordained missionary and an ordained minister (servant).

But, should one (gathering or going) have a higher priority in our lives? Should this focus be different individually than corporately (as a group)? How would we (individually and corporately) demonstrate this priority?

Related posts:

  1. Edification and the Church Gathering 4…
  2. Edification and the Church Gathering 3…
  3. Edification and the Church Gathering 1…
  4. Gathering suggests dispersal

4 Comments

Comments are closed. If you would like to discuss this post, send an email to alan [at] alanknox [dot] net.

  1. 2-4-2010
    Arthur Sido says:

    Unfortunately we aren’t generally doing either right now. Our gathering consists of a couple of hours a week in a carefully crafted and scheduled meeting and our going consists of giving to the local church that will pass money on to other professionals so that they can go.

  2. 2-4-2010
    @jgrubbs says:

    I think this is a great blog post to encourage some health discussion on this topic! Maybe we should be gathering so we can be going. Jesus gathered the 72 so that he could send them out in pairs. If we are truly “living sent” 24/7, 168 hours a week, then our gatherings may be in different places with different sizes of groups throughout the week “as we are going” and not just a weekly gathering to “do church”.

  3. 2-5-2010
    Alan Knox says:

    Arthur,

    True. Do you think one or the other (gathering or going) should receive more focus?

    Jonathan (jgrubbs),

    So, you’re saying that “going” should be emphasized above gathering? And, if going is emphasized, then that will affect our gathering?

    -Alan

  4. 2-7-2010
    Wesley Handy says:

    Alan,

    Great question. I wonder if this isn’t something that should be held in creative tension?

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