BY DAN SMITH AND MARY SELLON
SPECIAL TO THE UMCONNECTION 'Another meeting? UGH! Church would be fine, if it weren't for all those blasted meetings!' How many times have you heard parishioners say something like that? How many times (say?this week alone) have you felt it? What if it were different? What if, instead of groans, meetings elicited comments like, 'You know, it's the one place I go, outside my home, where I really feel listened to and heard.' Or, 'It's a 'sandbox' where I practice what's talked about on Sunday morning, before taking it out into the bigger world.' We say that meetings can and should be like that. For us to settle for anything less in the church means we are not truly being the church ? a foretaste and embodiment of the kingdom of God. Meetings offer us the opportunity to engage in focused work while practicing right relationships. Gathered by God's call and open to the Spirit, we give ourselves to doing the work of Christ. While giving ourselves to the work, God also calls us to practice and embody the values and the being of Christ. Why are consciously and intentionally loving or 'right' relationships so important? Simple. They are a major medium for the transformation of individuals and the systems of which they are a part. One of the highest callings of a church community is to help people become aware of and experience love, and to learn, in practical ways, how to love others. Knowing and experiencing that God loves us and knowing we are of sacred worth as people interact with us changes how we see ourselves. As we are changed, the ways we want to interact with others changes. An important task of church is to facilitate that experience of loving and being loved. The practical question is 'how'? How do we experience God's love and learn to interact in loving ways? Worship focuses our hearts and minds on the call of God and opens us to the touch of the Spirit. It offers us brief moments where people can feel themselves seen and welcomed. These moments are important, but they are not the place within the church where people can best practice the art of loving and allowing themselves to be loved. No, that privilege is reserved for the setting that makes most of us groan ? meetings. Meetings give people a regular opportunity to practice both the work and the love of Christ. When meetings are looked at and designed in that light, they become venues for transformation. What if groups designed their time together so that the meeting served that goal ? of helping people learn to be Christ-like? What would that look like? A food bank team, for example, might set for themselves two goals. One would be around the ministry of the food bank. The second would be around how they would be with each other: the attitudes and behaviors of love they want to strengthen by intentionally practicing them with each other and with their clients. These might include things like patience, authenticity, commitment and playfulness. Admittedly, this is a very different way of looking at life together. It firmly plants a stake for the importance of church as a place where we are shaped for service.
In the way that we are with each other, do we embody the love of Christ? Do we actually live love in our actions? Marvelous facilities and marvelous ministries may attract people. But people finally stay in those places where they find their deepest needs met. This is an edited version of an article that first appeared on the Web site CourageousSpace.com. Reprinted by permission. | 
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