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satisfy me!

‘Worship is a form of entertainment. If people are not entertained, they don’t feel they are participating.’

US pastor quoted by The Washington Post newspaper 05/01/03

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satisfy me!

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satisfy me!

Co-responsibility? Co-production ?Community?

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satisfy me!

‘Satisfy me’

‘I want what I want’

‘God loves me’

‘It’s my worship, my healing that counts’

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consumer society has much we can celebrate

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but consumer society comes with a price tag

‘It privileges the affluent & well-off and excludes the poor. It has harmed the environment and championed choice at the expense of other, sometimes more important values. It can lead to hedonistic lifestyles that downplay moral obligations and appeal to the baser instincts.’

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fresh expressions have the potential to emphasise community

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‘We’ve got a product but we’ve forgotten

the person.’

Roy Searle Northumbria Community

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community

…the sum of relationships a group of

individuals has with one another or their

common experience of sharing together

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description of the early church

•not over organised

•not too centralised

•God’s people getting on with it

•others liked what they saw!

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‘The church is to be the primary agent of mission and if it does not

exhibit evident community and transformed lives then any

amount of evangelistic events and church projects will have limited

credibility.’

Lesslie Newbigin

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real community

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being real with each other

•honesty & openness

•‘pretending is the common cold of evangelicalism’

•working at relationships

•not content with superficiality

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being joined together

•Ephesians 4.16

•a bag of bones is not a body!

•fewer prayer meetings and more meeting in prayer

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discuss

•What helps build strong relationships within the church community?

•What hinders strong relationships within the church community