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After having conducted sociological and phenomenological research into the transformation of the processes of identification and certification, we seek to offer a theological hermeneutic of our era and of these dynamics. The question of what is to be understood by ‘gathering’ in a post-Christian situation, reinterpreted here in light of a Christianity in exodus, is reformulated first and foremost as the Church’s questioning of itself, via the pertinent choice of a symmetry of discernment between the Church and the world. Starting from this reciprocity and from mission as a hermeneutical key that is the opposite of self-preservation and the principle of ‘reform’, we seek to trace the profile of the Church ‘as a gathering in the process of becoming’: fraternal, hospitable and in diaspora, capable of combining attachment and freedom, expert in ‘engendering and letting go’. From this perspective, we try to offer a few pathways for a renewed understanding of the gathering purpose of Christian initiation, pointing to its consequences in terms of a change in style for practices and for pastoral workers.