Andrew S M Clark

During my doctoral studies I played with an illuminating metaphor for understanding the gathered church that is not found in a theological textbook but in a distinctly Scottish tradition: the ceilidh.

A traditional ceilidh (as opposed to its modern dance-centred versions) was a participatory gathering. It was not a performance put on by a few talented individuals while everyone else watches. There may be musicians, singers, storytellers, and a caller to guide the dances, but the event only becomes a ceilidh when people participate. The experienced and inexperienced alike join in. Newcomers learn the steps not by attending a class beforehand but by entering into the dance itself. They watch, imitate, stumble occasionally, receive encouragement from others, and gradually discover that participation is itself the means of learning.

For this reason, the ceilidh offers an intriguing lens through which to read Paul’s description of the gathered church in 1 Corinthians 14. Writing to a congregation struggling with divisions, misunderstandings, and the misuse of spiritual gifts, Paul nevertheless assumes a remarkable degree of participation within the life of the church. His concern is not whether people should contribute, but how their contributions should be ordered so that the whole community is strengthened.

His summary is striking:

“When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up.” (1 Cor. 14:26)

For many contemporary Christians, this verse feels unfamiliar because it describes a pattern of gathering that differs significantly from what many have experienced. In much of Western Christianity, the gathered church has gradually become centred upon the contributions of a relatively small number of people, while the majority participate primarily through attentive listening. There are good historical and theological reasons why this pattern developed, yet it can make Paul’s description seem distant or even impractical.

What is often overlooked is that Paul’s concern is not just with what happens during the gathering itself, but with the assumptions that believers bring when they gather. The phrase “each one has” implies that people arrive having already engaged with God. They come having reflected upon Scripture, having prayed, having observed God’s activity in their lives, and having considered how what they have received might serve others. The gathering becomes a place where these gifts, insights, testimonies, prayers, and acts of encouragement are offered for the common good.

This raises an important question for churches seeking to cultivate missional discipleship. If disciples are expected to contribute meaningfully to the life of the gathered community, how are they formed for such participation?

The challenge is not simply one of structure. Many churches have experimented with more participatory formats only to discover that participation does not arise automatically when opportunities are created. Silence can be as much a problem as domination by a small number of confident voices. Often this occurs because people have not been formed to prepare for participation. They have faithfully learned how to attend, how to listen, and how to receive, but they have rarely been encouraged to arrive expecting that God might use them in the strengthening of others.

The ceilidh helps to illuminate this challenge because participation is assumed rather than exceptional. Nobody attends a ceilidh expecting that a handful of people will dance while everyone else remains seated as spectators. The very nature of the gathering depends upon the involvement of those who are present. The caller provides guidance and structure, but the life of the event emerges through the participation of the community itself. Learning occurs through engagement rather than observation alone.

This does not mean that the church should become a ceilidh, nor does it suggest that Paul’s vision can be reduced to a Scottish cultural analogy. Rather, the metaphor helps us to recognise something that has often been obscured within contemporary church life. The gathered church, as Paul describes it, is not simply a context in which ministry is delivered. It is a community in which believers participate in one another’s formation through the gifts and graces that God has entrusted to them.

Seen in this light, participation is not merely a matter of giving people opportunities to speak. Participation involves the cultivation of a particular kind of discipleship. It requires believers to develop habits of attentiveness to God and responsibility towards one another. It calls for a willingness to listen prayerfully between gatherings, to reflect upon what God may be teaching, to discern how Scripture intersects with daily experience, and to consider how these insights might contribute to the building up of the body when the church gathers.

Such a vision presents a significant challenge within a post-Christendom context. For many years the wider culture reinforced aspects of Christian identity and practice, even among those whose faith was relatively nominal. Those assumptions can no longer be relied upon. Churches are increasingly discovering that discipleship cannot be sustained through attendance alone. It requires communities in which people learn to follow Christ together through shared practices, mutual encouragement, and active participation in the life and mission of God’s people.

Perhaps one of the reasons Paul’s words continue to challenge us is that they remind us that discipleship is not simply about acquiring knowledge, nor is it primarily about the development of individual spirituality. It is about becoming a people whose common life reflects the reality of Christ among them. The gifts of the Spirit are given not for private possession but for the strengthening of the body. The gathering itself becomes one of the places where disciples learn what it means to belong to Christ and to one another.

The image of the ceilidh offers a helpful reminder that communities are formed not merely by shared beliefs but by shared participation. People learn the dance by dancing. In a similar way, disciples learn the life of Christ not simply by hearing about it but by participating in communities where the life of Christ is practised, embodied, and shared. Paul’s vision of the gathered church assumes precisely this kind of communal formation, where each member contributes according to the grace they have received and where all things are done for the building up of the whole body.

If churches are to recover something of this Pauline vision, the task before us is not merely to create opportunities for greater participation within our gatherings. More fundamentally, it is to cultivate communities in which disciples are formed to arrive prepared to contribute, expecting that God may speak through them as well as to them, and recognising that the work of edification belongs not only to leaders but to the whole people of God. In such communities, the gathered church becomes more than an audience assembled around a platform; it becomes a living body in which every member has a part to play in the formation of the others, and where the grace of God is encountered through the faithful participation of ordinary disciples seeking together to follow Christ.