What does a Plant meeting feel like?

 

When each congregation of The Plant meets together, there are a few key things that we always do – listen to teaching from the Bible, discuss what we learn, pray and eat together. There are a number of other things that we often do and these vary from meeting to meeting, as does the meeting order. Although all Plant meetings contain these same basic elements, each congregation has a slightly different feel depending on the time and location. All of our meetings are relaxed and fairly informal and at each meeting we sit around tables to make it easier to get to know each other, particularly as we eat together and discuss what we’re learning. Spending time getting to know others and encouraging them is a key part of what it means to be a church. We want our meetings to help our members form genuine friendships with each other, and to give a warm welcome to anyone visiting us.

 

Below is a brief outline of what a typical Plant main meeting looks like. If you have any questions about what we do, or about the different congregations, please get in touch with the leader of the meeting here.

 

We encourage members to arrive early for Plant meetings, as it’s a great opportunity to catch up with each other, and welcome visitors. Each of the meetings formally starts with a welcome from the person responsible for that meeting, who also introduces the Plant member leading the rest of the meeting. We give different Plant members opportunity to lead main meetings, both to use their talents and because we believe that church meetings shouldn’t be run by the staff team for everyone else’s benefit, but that all members have an important role to play as we meet together.

 

Plant meetings frequently start with an explanation of what we do or believe. This is because we don’t want to presume that everyone present comes regularly, is a Christian or is used to going to church. We also try to explain what we do at various points throughout the meeting, to make sure that everyone understands what is happening. We’re really keen to make our meetings accessible to everyone who comes, and to help everyone think about what we do and why. Hopefully you won’t find anything confusing in our meetings – if you do, please ask as it’s our fault for not making it clear!

 

The order in which things happen in our meetings will have been decided by the Plant member leading the meeting, but we frequently start by singing or praying together. Another key thing we do is eat together. Sharing a meal, either breakfast (Sunday@10), high tea (Sunday@6) or dinner (Monday@7) is a great way to get to know each other better and usually happens towards the beginning of the meeting, as we tend to be hungry when we arrive! 

 

The biggest chunk of our meetings is taken up with teaching from the Bible and discussion. We usually go through a book of the Bible, or sometimes a Bible theme, over several weeks. One of our leaders or Plant members gives a talk on the Bible passage to help us understand what it says, then we discuss what we’ve learnt in small groups around our tables. This is a really important part of the meeting, it not only allows us to become better friends as we discuss together, but also allows us to check we’ve understood what was said in the talk, and gives us a chance to ask questions. We particularly use the discussion time to think through the implications of the teaching we’ve heard and how what the Bible says applies to us and should affect our lives today. We encourage both people who are Christians and those who aren’t to join in with the discussion time - it’s a chance to ask questions about what the Bible has to say whether you’re a Christian or not – we think it’s God’s message to everyone, not just to Christians.

 

At some point in our meetings we always pray together. It’s a great privilege to talk to God to praise and thank him, and to ask for his help. We do this in a number of ways, for example, sometimes one or a number of people lead us in prayer and other times we pray in groups on our tables. We encourage Christians to get involved in praying, as it’s great to be able to talk to our Heavenly Father, but if you’re not a Christian, or you don’t feel comfortable praying out loud, then there’s no pressure to do so - you’re welcome to just listen and join in with others’ prayers.

 

Although singing is not one of the four essential things we do in every Plant meeting, we usually do sing together during our meetings. Often the person leading the meeting will explain why they’ve chosen a song, what it’s about or any Christian jargon in it. This is because we think it’s really important for us to be thinking about what we sing and why, and not just choosing songs for the sake of doing so.

 

There are a number of other things that we do in Plant meetings that don’t happen every week, but that you should see if you come along throughout the term. We share the Lord’s Supper of bread and wine together at least once a term and use video clips, music and drama to help us think about what we’re learning. We also have interviews with Plant members and our mission partners to help us get to know each other better, and find out about different things The Plant is involved in.

 

Plant meetings normally last around two hours in total, but we’re really keen that meeting together as a church doesn’t end there. We encourage people carry on spending time with each other after the meeting is formally over by either having lunch with other people from church (Sunday@10) or by going to the pub for a drink (Sunday@6 and Monday@7) This has proved to be a great way of getting to know each other better, and encouraging each other by thinking about what we’ve learnt about God. Even when we go home at the end of the afternoon or evening, church doesn’t end there – being part of a church is also about getting together outside of formal church meetings. Building friendships to help each other get to know the Lord Jesus better and honour him in the way we live is a key part of what it means to be a church.