So I'm reading a newer, well publicized book about how we do church -- philosophies, practices, etc -- and the author has moved into the detailed accounting of how everybody should worship, and its all nauseating.
 
   At its best the book has helpful suggestions, but I don't think that is what he's shooting for. He wants to communicate how worship should be done. I'm listening to the book, but in the physical copy I'm sure there are detailed matrices of charts chronicling the way buildings should be laid out, songs sung, band members hired, styles, and a partridge in a pear tree.
 
   In fact, there seems to be this huge hang up about how people gather and encounter God -- its too commercial, its too big, the music was too ... whatever. I don't get it. It seems to me that a gathering of people for "church" is about (1) encountering God in a meaningful way, and (2) encountering others in a meaningful way. If those two things happen, I don't know what else you really need.
 
   Sure commodification, lack of professionalism, too much tech, hair gel, new-fangeledness (etc, etc) can get in the way. Scrap them. The pastor's job is to create an atmosphere in which the people of his culture encounter each other and encounter God in meaningful ways.
 
   Am I missing anything? Is the target something else? Is it really any more complicated than this?