So what if...?

In May I posed this what if...

"What would we do if the swine flu pandemic hit and all public assemblies of more than three people were banned indefinitely until the threat of further spread was contained? How would it alter how we did Church?"

It seems a pertinent time to come back to it as anxiety begins to grip Britain as it is clear that Swine flu is spreading rapidly in the population and is tragically claiming lives. There is even some talk of schools not reopening in September if the disease continues to spread, there was advice yesterday to pregnant mums not to go on crowded trains. But what if the disease meant that all gatherings of more than three were banned? How would it affect church? What would your church leaders do?

The answer is challenging to our ideas of what church is. Instead of meeting together on mass you would meet in groups of three. Your elders and pastor would teach people house to house. It would be a busy schedule but evenings would be given to teaching 2 or 3 families by teaching the parents who would then pastor their children.

Instead of 1 big meeting there would be lots of little meetings, the teaching would be more tailored to individuals, just think of the opportunities for questioning and clearing up misunderstandings and application.

I think one of the other advantageous side-affects of this would be training of leaders. The elders would effectively be training everyone else to pastor others. It would in an instant multiply ministers.

The big question would be what would we want to do when the ban was lifted? Would we want to go back to Sunday church, or would we want to continue with intensive discipleship?

Given the advantages to this approach, is it possible now to do both? How?