From Pete Ward’s Liquid Church:
Liquid church will abandon congegational structures in favor of a varied and changing diet of worship, prayer, study, and activity. It will challenge the assumption that what is offered in the morning service is good for you, even though it may be boring or unpalatable. It will present a responsive, flexible pattern of church life that seeks to deliver what individuals want and also draws on the depths and variety of the Christian tradition.
Relationship and communication would follow choice. Thus community would evolve around what people find interesting, attractive, and compelling.
Connections would be based on natural affiliation rather than on a sense of obligation or monolithic gathering.
Whereas the heavy church ordains those who are safe and steady and willing and able to hold the fort, the liquid church leadership will no longer be able to rely on appointment and authority. When worshipers are free to shop, they will gravitate toward those they pervceive as being enlightened and in the know, and these people will emerge as leaders. Those who are percieved to have met with God, been in his presence, and found themselves to be changed by his spirit, will be the guides, the teachers who lead by the example of their holiness, discipline, and passion.
pgs. 89-90
Telling Stories, Asking Questions, Learning Lessons