Recovering Evangelicals #52 Back to church II – doing things differently
Last week, we talked to people considering the possibility/opportunity of going back to church. We learned about the things they missed most about not being able to go for so long … whether that was over a year because COVID kept them locked out, or whether it was much longer than that because of a personal faith crisis.
One thing that both groups agreed upon was that things would have to change: “doing church” would have to look very different moving forward.
This week, we asked many of them exactly how they saw the church experience needing to change. Once again, we talked to non-pastors and to pastors. And once again, we perceived a common refrain: it would have to be less of a spectator event, and more of an involved discussion of difficult topics trending in culture today, and that technology (like Zoom) would be needed more and more to connect those people.
So we asked ourselves: “who could we talk to about doing church differently … in a way that involves small groups, discussion of difficult and deeply personal topics, and the use of technology?”
And one name came to mind: Bruxy Cavey.
Bruxy is the senior pastor at the MeetingHouse, one of the largest churches in Canada. Their headquarters in Mississauga is connected to 19 satellite sites via live-streaming every Sunday, and to small groups all over the globe meeting throughout the week. We asked him about how they had already been doing things quite differently long before COVID — which had them fully prepared to continue when the pandemic shut most other churches down — and even how they might take lessons learned through the pandemic to do things yet differently again.
And we learned about “barnacle Sundays” and Bruxy hearing voices in his head!?
As always, tell us what you think.
To help grow this podcast, please like, share and post a rating/review at your favorite podcast catcher.
Subscribe here to get updates each time a new episode is posted, and find us on Twitter or Facebook.