Disruptions & Dinner Church

The Well began with a group of people gathered around the dinner table, sharing a meal and exploring scripture together. We have moved, changed, grown and experienced the ups and downs of being church together during the past three years. We have experienced church as a journey, not a destination.A month ago, we learned that we would be losing the space we have been using for Sunday morning worship gatherings for the past two years. We had a month to find a new place. Although we saw it coming, it was an abrupt ending to what had become a place of comfort and welcome for The Well.We have always been clear that for us, church is not a building. Church is a community gathered to love and serve God together. Even so, as our final Sunday at the event center approached and no other space seemed the right fit, we began asking “Now what?” and “Where do we go from here?”, and even “Is this an opportunity to move in a different direction?”During a recent vision team discussion, it became evident that God was drawing us toward a similar idea. We individually shared that this disruption in space was an opportunity to reconnect with our roots as a community, mission-centered group of Jesus followers. For the month of August, we have decided to host a month of “dinner church” on Sunday evenings at 5 p.m.  We hope you will bring a dish to share and join us!We will not stop looking for space and we will re-evaluate near the end of August to see how this change in time is working for our community.Thanks to the generosity of St. John’s Lutheran, a church we have partnered with on many occasions, we will be hosting dinner church at 1950 Silver St. We will use their sanctuary to share a meal, sing, pray, listen and respond to scripture. We will eat and worship together and continue to be church in this temporary home.As disruptions often do, I pray this one will shape, challenge and awaken us to new opportunities to practice the way of Jesus together.