The Table, the Upper Room, and the Church That Is Being Born
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Editor’s Note: This reflection explores the growing movement away from institutional expressions of Church towards relational, Spirit-led community. It considers how God is forming family and leadership through tables, homes, and shared life rather than programmes and platforms.
I woke up this morning with a quiet certainty in my body.
Not excitement.
Not urgency.
But recognition.
Something is being formed.
Not announced.
Not branded.
Not launched.
Formed.
At Convergence, I realised I was not hearing something new.
I was watching something I had already been shown begin to take shape through other people’s mouths.
One of the clearest threads that ran through the conference was this.
People are starving for family.
Not programmes.
Not performance.
Not polished services.
Family.
Many have never experienced it.
Some have lost it.
Others have survived its absence.
And the Church, the real Church, is being called to respond.
The Table Comes Before the Temple
One prophet spoke about home gatherings.
Not as a strategy, but as a return.
Small tables.
Real food.
Shared lives.
Prayer that happens naturally, not theatrically.
Not rows of chairs facing a stage, but faces turned towards one another.
As I listened, I felt that familiar inner recognition again.
The one that says, you have been here before.
Because long before I left my former church, I had submitted a proposal called Grace and Gather.
It was not rebellion.
It was not critique.
It was an offering.
Grace and Gather was simple.
A once-a-month dinner in a local restaurant.
A table where people could come without first having to belong.
Not a service.
Not a commitment.
Not a sign-up.
Just a table.
My former church already had small groups, but those were only accessible once you had officially joined the church structure. Once you were serving. Once you had crossed a threshold.
Grace and Gather was different.
It was designed as a threshold.
A first step for those who were curious, wounded, cautious, or spiritually homeless.
A place to be known before being organised.
It was quietly ignored.
At the time, I did not argue.
I did not push.
I simply noted it and moved on.
But sitting at Convergence, listening to prophet after prophet describe the very thing I had tried to birth, I felt the Lord gently say:
It was not rejected.
It was premature for them.
But not for Me.
The Upper Room Was Not a Building
The early Church did not begin with a structure.
It began with obedient people gathered in a room, waiting on God.
“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.”
Acts 2:42
Bread first.
Fellowship first.
Presence first.
For the first three hundred years of Christianity, there were no church buildings.
Believers gathered in homes.
In courtyards.
In workshops.
In boats.
In places where life already happened.
What we are seeing now is not rebellion against the Church.
It is the Church remembering itself.
Why This Matters Now
One thing became painfully clear during Convergence.
Many leaders are struggling to relate to the people God is now bringing in.
The broken.
The poor.
The traumatised.
Those who do not speak the language.
Those who do not fit the culture.
The Lord said clearly, “Look to the margins and the edges.”
Leadership will rise from the rough and ready.
From those who have walked through fire.
From those who know what it is to lose everything and still stand.
This shaking is uncomfortable, especially for systems built on control, containment, and predictability.
But the Lord is not asking permission.
Church Is Not a Place You Attend
It is community you belong to.
It is family you grow within.
It is presence you steward, not a product you consume.
Jesus did not say, “Where two or three are gathered in a building.”
He said:
“Where two or three gather in My name, there am I with them.”
Matthew 18:20
That can happen around a kitchen table.
In a café.
In a living room.
Over dinner.
And for many, it must.
What I See Forming
I am not rushing ahead of this.
I am watching.
Listening.
Praying.
But I can see it.
Small fires lighting up in unexpected places.
People leaving environments that can no longer hold what God is doing.
A return to simplicity.
To intimacy.
To shared life.
This is not about abandoning the Church.
It is about becoming it.
The table is being set again.
The Upper Room is opening quietly.
And the invitation is not loud.
But it is unmistakable.
Those with ears will hear it.
“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.”
Acts 2:42
With fire and grace,
This message carries fire. Pass it on. 👇🏻
Victoria Player is the founder of Daughter of Thunder, a movement awakening spiritually sensitive women to truth, purpose, and divine power in a world that’s lost its compass. After walking through her own season of fire and rebuilding, she now writes and speaks to those who sense there’s more — guiding them from confusion to clarity, from awakening to assignment.
“I don’t bow to Babylon — I walk with the Lion.” — Daughter of Thunder
