{"id":6167,"date":"2012-10-30T12:12:02","date_gmt":"2012-10-30T11:12:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/archive.richardlittledale.co.uk\/?p=6167"},"modified":"2012-10-30T12:12:02","modified_gmt":"2012-10-30T11:12:02","slug":"today-i-went-to-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/2012\/10\/30\/today-i-went-to-church\/","title":{"rendered":"Today I went to church.."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>.<span style=\"color: #333399;\"><strong>..and not a hymn in sight<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Early this morning, when the\u00a0street lamps\u00a0were still on and the moon hung low over the mist, I went to church. The church in question met in a Golf Club, and went <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bni.eu\/chapter.php?chapter=237\">by another name<\/a>.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>There was a well-oiled welcome team, with a meeter and greeter ready to pass me onto a friendly person straight away so as to avoid a log jam<\/li>\n<li>There was plenty of easy and warm conversation &#8211; with each person taking a genuine interest in those things which matter to me.<\/li>\n<li>There was a liturgy, complete with a motivational response said out loud together, and a well-ordered pattern of participation.<\/li>\n<li>There was plenty of fellowship &#8211; with everyone invited to take a turn at introducing themselves and their concerns.<\/li>\n<li>There was teaching, with input from an expert to open the eyes of others.<\/li>\n<li>There was a baptism, with two new members welcomed in after pledging their allegiance to a code of ethics and practice.<\/li>\n<li>There was even communion of sorts, as cooked breakfast was shared and the business cards were passed from hand to hand.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If you didn&#8217;t click the link above, you will have gathered by now that this was a business breakfast. That said, there was an atmosphere of welcome, mutual encouragement and affirmation which would make many churches envious. Not only that, but the sheer hard facts in terms of business referrals generated by this &#8216;chapter&#8217; speak for themselves. If the aim is growth &#8211; then it is working.<\/p>\n<p>Ironically, I had spent some time the previous evening discussing growth in my own church setting. Together we watched the video below, and discussed how sometimes we excel at care but fear to translate it into growth. I wonder what my breakfast companions might have to say about that?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/bzoV2FOJaFo?list=PL2o5B72VKerNhmkTKUqtxS8Q7Nl9VHsN1&amp;hl=en_GB\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8230;and not a hymn in sight Early this morning, when the\u00a0street lamps\u00a0were still on and the moon hung low over the mist, I went to church. The church in question met in a Golf Club, and went by another name. &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/2012\/10\/30\/today-i-went-to-church\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6167"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6167\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.12\/richardlittledale.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}