revdougnz

A Reflection 

What is the future of this City Congregation?

At what seems to be the popular level of response to this question is the underlying assumption that if only more people would come to church and be members of this City Congregation it will survive if not be rejuvenated and regain its former glory. All that is required is a program that invites and encouraged people to become members and join the congregation, but is that what is needed? Is that an effective was of rejuvenating let alone surviving?

If we take a brief look at this ‘joining’ process we might see that for some that will mean “joining,” as “joining” has traditionally been understood. They will attend a membership class, sign a document signifying membership, make a stewardship commitment, and if they are coming from a different faith tradition or from no faith tradition, they might seek baptism and/or confirmation. You will expect to see them in worship on Sunday. You probably will ask them to take a Sunday role, perhaps as a greeter, because new members make especially effective greeters.

That is a path that many church leaders recognize. We have protocols and liturgies for it. We have learned to ask people about their faith stories, rather than load them down with church history and doctrine. We have parked our concern for theology in the non-popular too hard basket and we have engaged in other ways to affiliate, and the smart church will maintain those other pathways, as well.

Primarily the issue has become, how to participate rather than join and this is because many people are simply averse to joining a congregation. They are part of a society that no longer values what is called the institutional side of faith life. Perhaps they were hurt in a previous church, or they have heard stories of people getting hurt. Recovering addicts, for example, tell harrowing stories of being abused by churches. So do victims of sexual misconduct and of church conflict. These people expect to serve and to give, but they don’t want membership.

Another interesting development is the desire to participate but not in Sunday attendance and Worship. Here we need to recognize that Sunday worship doesn’t interest everyone. Wrong time of week, or an activity they find boring. If we keep pressing them to come on Sunday, we will lose them. We can offer additional worship at a time other than Sunday, such as a midweek evening. We can encourage them to join or form a small group, perhaps a house church that worships in a non-traditional way at a home, or a study group, a discussion group, a parents group. The group will offer community, which is probably what they want anyway.

We can even sign people on to a social justice program or a social support activity as many people are drawn to faith community because they value its mission work. They want, for example, to build Habitat houses, serve food, advocate for the disadvantaged, join community dialogs across lines of division such as race. Their heart lies in social justice, community development, hands-on service.

One of the aspects of being this City Congregation and one that has very little attendees who live within its geographical setting is the form of affiliation and it can be hard to understand. It is however very real even though it draws its allegiance from people who ‘live elsewhere’. They identify with the congregation because they value its past mission or because they once attended or had a pivotal life experience there. In its ‘heyday’ thousands of people attended and participated and engaged in its life and work. The requirements of membership in this model are particular and the challenge is to welcome people’s engagement and do more than cash their checks. Invitations to join church tours overseas, to host church youth when they visit their area, to share their faith journeys via the church newsletter are but a few ways this model of congregation can survive if not grow. But these are not traditional avenues of affiliation even if they are increasingly the norm even for the more geographically oriented and motivated faith communities. The primary question being faced here is how to belong to a faith community but not to worship on Sunday.

A further complication or component is that this City Congregation does not own its future. In its past success at membership it has engendered a sense of ownership by those who no longer attend. One could suggest that it has been successful at this belonging but not attending model of being church in that now it faces losing its ability to make decisions about its own future. Nostalgia and past affiliation even by one’s family if not oneself means that one has a say in what happens to its future. Attendance no longer has rights because it has been successful at creating belonging.

One particular of this mode of evolution as a no-Sunday worship, activity based community is that it no loses the importance of the physical and its buildings become less important and more burdensome. Theologically its model of being a church challenges the need for a physical icon upon which to celebrate its identity. The unfortunate thing about this evolution is that many in this community who no longer attend or even participate still retain their sense of ownership of its presence. The icon has become an idol, the buildings have become the church for those who no longer attend yet feel a sense of connection.

The idea that the church is the people and not the buildings sort of ecclesiology appears to be challenged and talk of heritage becomes more prevalent. This City Congregation is now challenged with new questions. What is the model of membership in this sort of church? Is it possible to maintain the centrality of worship and the participation in social, political and economic development that lies at the heart of Christian Mission? Can it survive without a beautiful building that has become an idol or more importantly can the congregation survive when its buildings iconic value as a window into the community of faith is lost? What does the building’s beauty mean? Is it beautiful? What do we do with it when its beauty no longer serves the purpose for which it was built?

These are not easy questions nor are they are one’s the wider community can answer. Only those who are engaged in doing theology can even have insight into the options, not as claim to some sort of elitism for intellectualism, but rather as acknowledgement that only those who care about an intellectually honest community and who are committed to Jesus of Nazareth can wrestle with how the story of Jesus of Nazareth might unfold today. Only they can even begin to understand what church is to the community and how church might be of value to the community. Only those who participate in its daily life hold the keys to its future and thus to its heritage let alone how that heritage might be maintained and engage with the present and the future. The primary challenge is how to avoid becoming a cult owning community idols while maintaining itself as a sect. The challenge is to be of value to human society in such a way that is a beacon for a way of living as better human beings.

Doug