As I have gone around to churches for Charge Conferences, I have asked the question: if something happened tomorrow to all your church buildings, would you still be ___ church? In every case, the group gathered together says yes. The importance of that is not that they say yes, but the experience of saying yes, because in that moment they are affirming something important about who they are and who they can become, that they are more than their buildings.
I have preached from Acts 2 more than any other text. That description of the early church community says something quite tangible about what it means to be the beloved community, that is not about where we meet but who we are. I have been on my own journey in trying to imagine that. Some of us are working on a project that is classified as a new church start, but it is about reaching 20 somethings, and is not defined by a place. I find that hard, as the steward of all things tangible in the district, to imagine a ministry without imagining a place, but what a great faith journey that is! My sons play Xbox live, and I am aware that there is a sense of community when they gather friends, old and new, to play whatever the game is of the moment. I can hear them as they talk, and for them, they gather with people they’ve never met, by my definition of having met face to face, and yet they meet in this video community; they get to know one another on a certain level, they experience something together, and it is community. Not the beloved community, but community, and it pushes for me on the concept “church suddenly became a place you went to instead of a people you belonged with.” My sons both have felt they belonged with the people at church, and those ties remain even as they go off to live somewhere else; I am not always so sure how they experience God in the midst of that.
The book asks us to wrestle with “what are the personal tensions you are processing as the church is transitioning from the center of culture to the margins of culture? What tensions will this cause in most churches.” I know all about the tensions it causes in most churches, and we can either circle the wagons until the last man or woman is standing, or we can open up, change the direction we are facing, reach out from the margins into the center of culture, redefine who we are as a church or the church and look for how we can be more than our buildings. We can take seriously the community of Acts and have that help shape and define who we are, what we do, and who we become. It may take us out of our comfort zone, actually it is guaranteed to, and pushes us to reexamine what we know to be true, and yet there are core beliefs that remain to give enough stability that it is really not all that strange. This last Saturday, 5 or 6 churches in the SF Valley gathered together to put together Health kits for Haiti, over 1000, and we were the beloved community in that moment together; there were people there I never exchanged names with, but we belonged. We were “defined as a people who”, and not “a place where.”
i resonated a lot with this understanding of church not being defined as "a place where" but "people who." in helping to organize this past saturday's health kits for haiti in the sfv, the biggest part i struggled with was not getting the 1,000 washcloths or bars of soap: i knew and know that the people called Methodists would do everything they could to help in provision. i believed and trusted in the Holy Spirit to provide. and over and over again, the HS did. AMEN!
ReplyDeleteno, the hardest part was getting our churched folks to understand why we would do something like this - outdoors. in a public space. the hardest thing was to respond to the frequent comment: "well, it's really just easier to go get the things myself and do a kit or two in my home and bring it in ..." well, yes, this may be true -- it may be easier. but i don't think it's church. it's indeed service in the name of Christ, but it's not building the church community and inviting others into the transformation that is taking place in that construction.
what i was able to experience on saturday was yes, a belonging in and as a church community. oh, yes. but even more, as catie articulates, there were people who we didn't know who all were participating together as the beloved community. and that we can't get in the rooms of our house, alone making kits.
i also got to witness new-to-the-church young families coming out to help. i got to witness and encourage these folks inviting their friends and families -- one of whom ended being our "toothbrush hero" in the nick of time.
this invitational spirit in the name of service in Jesus is also an intrinsic part of the beloved community and how we share such love.
i am sick as a dog right now, but filled with the HS and the love of Christ that i was a part of this past saturday.
praise God! and help me remember how it feels to be defined as "a people who" and not "a place where."
I had lunch yesterday with the pastor of Christ Community Church. It's a big church (relatively speaking). I had connected with him through a mutual friend and we three talked about how we can work together in ministry in the Imperial Valley. I'm really interested in doing ministry with as many groups and people as we can. I'm convinced that real church growth comes from just that--doing ministry. It was a good lunch. It looks like one of the possible ministries we'll be able to do together is a "job training" ministry. We've also agreed to work together to bring the whole Body of Christ together to continue this conversation and work. I'm excited!
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments, Catie. I'm particularly struck by your phrase "not a place where" but "a people who". If that's original with you, good job!
ReplyDeleteI was wandering Lowe's today and wondering about what God is doing. I thought about all the places in the OT where the scriptures repeat, "the people turned away from God and did what was right in their own eyes."
When I read it, it always sounds like something truly dreadful was happening, and, I suppose, it was. But, as I strolled the hardware warehouse I wondered what the people of the time thought was happening. Did they imagine that things were alright and that those few religious nuts were, well, nutty? Did they call themselves "spiritual but not religious"? Or, whatever their ancient equivalent was.
Maybe this has just been a bad week for this stuff. But, I met with a wedding couple, the young woman had grown up in my church and now, at 27, was marrying. She stressed that they wanted a kind of "secular" service because her fiance wasn't religious and neither were their friends. Today, I counseled with a recent widow who had asked to have her husband's memorial service at our church because "we live up the hill and it's pretty." She, too, commented that she wanted a "secular" service.
I was tempted to say, "This is God's house and I'm in the God business." Decided that wasn't going to help anything. Instead, we just chatted a moment. In both cases, it wasn't so much that they didn't want God as a part of the proceedings as they wanted to avoid some perception of narrow-minded exclusivity. In the case of the young woman who grew up in the very progressive church with me, I was especially astonished. And disappointed that, after all that, her faith doesn't seem very important to her.
I guess I'm just aware that what's going on in the church isn't just about the church. Our local Saddleback satellite is having the same 10-12% downturn in attendance since the economy collapsed that we're having. Perhaps it's not all us--it's a tough culture. And, we've made it harder by allowing ourselves to become irrelevant institutional service providers instead of equipping and deployments centers.
I'm eager to see if we can regain our evangelical fervor in a way that's authentic.