Needed, A New Way to Meet #4: How Should Christians Meet? A New Experience of Church

How should Christians meet together, and what happens when church becomes more than a weekly service?

In this challenging and practical message, Gene Edwards explores a radically different approach to Christian gatherings, New Testament church life, fellowship, and experiencing Jesus Christ together. Rather than treating church as a meeting where a few people lead and everyone else listens, Edwards describes a church in which believers learn to know Christ, share Him with one another, build genuine community, and actively participate in the life of the Body of Christ.

Drawing from years of experience with churches and Christian communities, Edwards explains why preparation for a gathering may be more important than the gathering itself. He discusses meeting in homes, sharing meals, praying together, singing, giving testimonies, preparing believers to participate, celebrating the Lord’s Supper, and allowing church life to grow organically out of a daily relationship with Jesus Christ.

At the heart of the message is a simple but searching principle: Christians should not come together merely to receive. They should come prepared to give—to share something of Christ that has become real in their own lives.

Edwards also challenges traditions that can turn Christian gatherings into predictable routines. What happens when every meeting begins to look the same? Should a church continue meeting simply because that is what churches are expected to do? Could there be seasons for fellowship, meals, retreats, prayer, evangelism, testimony, singing—or even seasons when regularly scheduled meetings should stop?

This message from the series Needed: A New Way to Meet invites believers to reconsider what Christian fellowship and church life can look like when Jesus Christ Himself is the source.