How do you “stay on task” during your time together?

In the “traditional” way of doing church (everybody meeting at the same time in the same place on a Sunday), the service is pre-arranged and scripted out, down to the minute. Nearly all the reading and researching I’ve done suggests that micro-churches steer clear of trying to duplicate a “church service.” It just doesn’t work. Instead, treat your Sunday time together more as a family reunion. At a family reunion, there are usually some basic elements that are always the same—a time to hang out and talk, a time to eat, some time for games, etc. All those things take place, but they’re rarely scripted—they just tend to happen.

In your micro-church’s time together on Sunday, there will be some elements that happen each Sunday: the Lord’s Supper, teaching time, community (what the Bible calls “fellowship”—when we’re hanging out, catching up, and encouraging each other), prayer, and offering. Your group may also decide to include some other elements—music, a meal, etc. When you get together (and this will take some getting used to—some of us may go through “detox” from Sunday AM church), try not to have a set agenda ahead of time. Try to, as in a family reunion, to let them happen. The “task” of your time together is your time together connecting with God together.

Along the same lines, we’re going to try something to help in this area: each person or couple in the church will become responsible for one of those elements. Someone will be in charge of the Lord’s Supper (and they can do it however they want), someone will be in charge of prayer (and they can do whatever they want), and so forth. During the transition, we’ll spend time in our groups brainstorming for ideas on how to do these things, and we’ll model some possibilities.