Church as Community
Churches serve numerous roles, an essential one of which is that of a focused community. Leaving one church for another can be a terribly disorienting experience. If one finds a new church "home," building connections to the new community will likely take years. Hard enough.
When one leaves the faith associated with the church and its community, with no spiritual reason to seek a new church community, then what?
What experiences have my shipmates had in regard to church as community? Leaving one church for another? Leaving church altogether?
When one leaves the faith associated with the church and its community, with no spiritual reason to seek a new church community, then what?
What experiences have my shipmates had in regard to church as community? Leaving one church for another? Leaving church altogether?
Tagged:
Comments
The only thing I do miss is the ritual. If there were a local Episcopal church where I could go to the 8 AM service, sit in the back, and not have anyone try to get me to join the "community," I'd go. You have to be the right kind of person to belong to a church "community," and I am not that kind of person.
I seek community here for my loss of faith.
I think that's certainly true.
I won't say a great deal on this thread I'm afraid Kendel as I probably bored three-quarters of the Old Ship to death by narrating my transition away from charismatic evangelicalism in great detail.
I think the difficulty or ease involved I'm moving on from a faith community very much depends on how much emotional investment we put into it. Another factor, of course, is the extent to which church related activity dominates our time or whether it forms a big chunk of of our social life.
From my 20s through my 40s I'd say that an unhealthily large proportion of my social life revolved around church. It became quite claustrophobic.
That said, there were very real depths of fellowship and support at times and I'm not knocking that.
It's important to have a life outside church I think. There's a balance somewhere.
I popped along to the leaving do for a curate from my old evangelical Anglican parish the other week. They had a barn dance. It took me back to similar 'do's in independent charismatic evangelical circles 40 years ago.
I enjoyed it and there was a genuine sense of community. I found the whole thing quite wholesome although I wouldn't be in a hurry to go back.
My main experience of people moving on is that we’re an area people retire into. Those who are committed seek out a place to worship. I think in some ways that makes it less difficult to start afresh because the previous church isn’t just around the corner, and people won’t randomly bump into people they know at the supermarket who may wonder why they’ve moved to a different church.
The minister had a big personality. We were one of the busiest churches in Scotland in terms of numbers of baptisms, new communicants and weddings. Prior to getting married I had lived in a small town for two years, where the parish church congregation was friendly and welcoming, but elderly. I was one of only three members under the age of 30. I was overjoyed to be part of a big, outgoing, busy city church.
And then, totally out of the blue, the minister was arrested. Obviously he was suspended till the trial, but he had many friends who carried messages that it was all a mistake, he'd be cleared, he'd return.
There was a split in opinion in the congregation between the loud defenders and the quieter "no smoke without fire" "wait and see" group.
The day before the trial he changed his plea to guilty and went to jail.
The church was in crisis. Over the next few months, numbers dropped as people who travelled in, found churches nearer home, or possibly stopped attending anywhere. Obviously as numbers fell, income fell too. The church started to implode.
We felt we were there for the long haul, but one business meeting descended into shouting, and one person was shouting at us.
We were one of three families who left after that meeting. I felt we had been forced out.
We had six months of not joining a new church, but occasionally attending the university chapel where we were anonymous. I was expecting the Quinie and we knew that we wanted to raise our children within a church, so that was the impetus to find a new church.
We were warmly welcomed into the new church. The implosion of our former church was well known, and our new minister knew it was an area of pastoral sensitivity. We were very happy there until we moved house out of the city and started attending our current church, where we are also very happy.
The implosion of our old church, and feeling forced out, was a bleak and painful time. I felt as if an abyss had opened up and I was looking down into something deeply unpleasant.
I will respectfully agree to disagree. I saw your comment a few hours back & decided to wait and see how the thread progressed before responding.
Looks as though it is going fine in Purgatory ( as did similar threads long ago when I first came aboard)
I won’t put in my (post christian) 2 bob’s worth but will continue to follow with interest
I tried to leave the OP very broad as well, removing most the questions I had originally thought to include, because I would like to see what directions shipmates will take this discussion, rather than forcing a direction myself. But, of course, I have more questions I want to ask, too!
Thinking about most all of the replies, and my own experience as well: What are we looking for, when we talk about community? What do we mean by it? Often we are more apt to find what community is not, learning to understand it apophatically by unwelcome experiences. "Whatever a church community is, this ain't it!"
What do shipmates have/seek or hope/wish for in a church community?
A few other threads and posts are on my mind behind that question:
https://forums.shipoffools.com/discussion/5251/autism-rationality-and-religious-belief/
https://forums.shipoffools.com/discussion/5302/what-would-a-disabled-friendly-world-look-like
and
starting here: https://forums.shipoffools.com/discussion/comment/624573#Comment_624573
My background (if you already know, there's nothing new here): I'm an American, a Michigander, who grew up in a blue/white collar suburb of Detroit. Most of my life I have been in Independent Baptist churches that lean Calvinistic. We have been fairly accurately identified as The Frozen Chosen by charismatic friends. All of our church moves have been related to long-distance moves for work or school until the last one. Almost two years ago my family left our healthy, good-sized, small-town in rural MI church of 21 years for doctrinal and cultural reasons. It felt like we were betraying the people we loved, including the pastors (good men), with whom we had enough disagreements we couldn't stay any more. It took me about a year to feel like my family wasn't committing adultery. We are at a PCA church in the college town nearly equidistant as the old church from our house. There is, of course, a lot more to say about all this.
I come here for that.
By that I mean that whilst US and UK evangelicalism are different in various respects, they are close enough cousins for me to relate to what you describe.
I think leaving or moving on from any faith community is tough but the intensity or depth of the community experience, for want of a better term, will vary according to the 'style' or 'churchmanship'.
I remember a Catholic convert here on Ship observing that the level of fellowship and sense of community was nowhere near as apparent as it had been in their evangelical Protestant background. They realised that the community did exist but interaction tended to take place away from church services - in various ethnic clubs or around family networks.
I've said this before aboard Ship but I believe we are all headed towards 'intentional' and 'gathered church' models of church community as Christendom crumbles.
I remember reading a piece about a visit to Greece in the church magazine of our local Methodist church. The writer complained that there didn't seem much sense of community at the Orthodox churches she visited. Well, no, that would have been because at least loose affiliation to the Orthodox Church would be seen as the norm. The community aspect would be expressed at the taverna or wherever people gather over there.
I don't get along on a Sunday very often due to caring responsibilities but do get to the midweek Liturgy when I can. I do have friends in church but these days see my community or 'tribe' in wider terms. Time was when I hardly hung out with anyone who wasn't a church friend or work colleague.
It all depends on the setting.
I remember reading about a sociological study of a Greek village in the 1960s where everything revolved around the liturgical year and calendar as it had done across all of Europe in the Middle Ages.
The village and the church were conjoined in almost every conceivable way.
That state of affairs has long gone, and probably no longer applies in that Greek village too.
I've said this before aboard Ship, that I believe all of us, irrespective of which tradition or Tradition we adhere to, are heading into 'intentional' or 'gathered church' models of community as Christendom crumbles.
Our 'plausibility structures' to apply a sociological term, are becoming 'sectarian' if they aren't already. I use 'sectarian' in a sociological rather than pejorative sense.
I don't get to church very often due to caring commitments but am gradually getting to know people there. As a minority sport, as it were, the parish draws people from a wide area so you don't tend to bump into people very often outside of services. But then, I know plenty of people from other churches and from other things I'm involved with.
I made a conscious effort when I moved here in 2007 to get involved with non-churchy things and I'm glad I did. It's not that I don't think church is important, but I tend to see 'community' in a wider sense.
Whoops!
Must.preview.posts.
Although the experience which most Catholics will have of the 'Church' will be their own parish, almost all Catholics will have some sense of the 'big tent' which is the wider Church.
This might only be the presence in some way of the local bishop and his authority as indeed most Catholics will have some sort of knowledge of the pope and the Vatican etc.
Again with the size of the Church many Catholics will have some knowledge and experience of the possible imperfections of both clergy and lay representatives of the Church, as well as the good sides of their ministry.
With the greater awareness of the 'big tent' it is easier to move, at least in a town,from one church community to another. It seems to me also that Catholic churches are more seen as 'places to pray in' and so many people will come to the church for prayer and liturgy rather than for the whole social community.
I remember many years a MW report from a (Protestant) couple who had visited a Glasgow Catholic church one Sunday morning and could not get over the fact that they had been 'ignored'. No one had taken them on or asked why they were there. I knew the particular church, which at that time would have had several Masses each Sunday morning and it would have not at all been unusual for all sorts of people to come to the church where it would simply have been assumed that they were there to attend Mass and that they would know what they were doing. This may have been wrong but it was certainly at that time a very common assumption.
For those who 'leave' it is usually a disagreement over acceptance of church teachings, but again one should certainly not assume that those who stay will agree with all Church teachings.
As Gamma Gamaliel has indicated the sense of 'community' amongst Catholics is often found in the common experiences of everyday Catholicism which people have.
I am reminded of a novel called "The Nine tailors" by Dorothy Sayers.
Well yes, that was set in a particularly remote part of rural England, the Lincolnshire Fens in the period immediately after WW1.
The parish church and village pub would have been the hub of rural life at that time. There'd generally have been a 'dissenting' chapel of some kind too, usually Methodist or Congregationalist but with Baptists strong in some areas.
There's still a kind of residual rural Anglicanism around in 'the shires', but it's nowhere near what it used to be.
On the thing about differences in how 'community' plays out in Catholic parishes as opposed to evangelical churches, a friend of mine used to work for a Christian-run charity in a large Midlands city. She was a Pentecostal at the time and was struck by how many more Catholics were involved than evangelicals. That isn't to say that evangelicals here aren't involved in social action but her conclusion was that the evangelicals were too busy attending prayer meetings and Bible studies to get behind this particular initiative.
She also felt that the RCs saw this as a way of working out their faith in practice whereas the evangelicals tended to see meeting attendance and fellowship as the big thing.
I think things have changed since that time but there's still a cosy club holy huddle feel about some evangelical churches.
I am now a long way theologically from the church I attend, but the community is what keeps me there: the fact that we run playgroup and mums'n'toddler groups and the food bank, and the relationships with the people I care about. It's hard to believe I'd find those sorts of connections in a new community but as my husband wants to move house (I don't!) I may get to find out!
We lived a long way from our parents and wider families when our children were born so our church was our support network.
We left that church when our eldest was 4 and it was a heck of a wrench. The community aspect held us into what had become a very claustrophobic and almost cultic set up by that time.
It's a tricky issue with people moving around for work more than they used to, and probably a bigger issue in the US and Australia given the distances involved.
I don't know what the answer is.
When people are working every minute of the working day, and have to move for work - often far from friends and family - it's harder to maintain any kind of community and sense of welcome. Of course 'family run' or 'village' churches can be claustrophobic and alienating, but it's also instructive that the churches I know that have a strong sense of community have either long standing ginger groups with a strong core ethos, or have a number of multi-generational families who all attend the same church.
I don't recall the welcoming of newcomers as being a thing in the RC churches I attended as a youth. The Unitarians I fellowship with do it, though I've never myself been inclined to stand up and say I'm a newcomer.
Some of those 30 have since died, some have given up on church, others have found refuge in Anglican churches in the surrounding villages.
A recent funeral held elsewhere was attended by over a dozen current and former parish church worshippers. Several of us commented on the loss of friendships and of community.
I am not aware that anyone who has left has encountered any hostility from those who remain, ( there was no split, as such, )only from the vicar who simply ignores people, but friendships and support groups are fractured.
I think the most noticeable loss which is often commented on beyond church circles is the loss of a prominent church presence in the wider community of the town. The vicar does not visit the care homes, or take part in ecumenical activities, so Churches Together is now meaningless. He did not participate in Lent groups, preferring to run his own; he did not attend the Good Friday service in the market place. He held his own church service on Remembrance Sunday at the same time as the British Legion event whereas in the past it has been a joint event. He has refused to allow the long-standing Christmas Tree festival this year because it is “ not outreach”.
The church where I and one other worship (we were four but ill health has reduced us to two) has a choir, and my fellow singers have become my friends and are my church community. We are not really involved in other aspects of church life, and as we do not live in that village it gives a feeling of not belonging to that village community.
So yes, I do feel a loss of community where I live. I feel I no longer have local Christian friends to count on whereas previously there were any number I could have called upon in time of need.
I would receive a warm welcome from the lovely people in the Methodist church in my town, but I chose my new church for its liturgy and its music. It is a welcoming place, but not my community.
Our church has had welcomers for years now. They hand out hymn books, and look out for newcomers and invite them to stay behind after Mass for coffee etc.
Ours is a pretty stable community where people tend to live their whole lives, so the sense of community identity runs deep. This can be and mostly is a very positive and supportive thing, but there is always the danger of cliques, and of people hanging on to roles for decades. New ideas can be rare beasts too.
Since our church is in a college community, I would say about 2/3 of the congregation will change every four years. We tend to get a number of graduate students more than undergraduates.
We have had formal greeters in the past, but we have moved away from that mode. There are often a number of people gathered in the narthex before services that quite easily greet new people.
After church, a number of us will greet new comers, inviting them to stay for fellowship--coffee and sweets usually, but once in a while a full meal.
Seema like it is the youth that will invite their friends to attend more than the adults. Not sure why the kids are that way. Yes, they are not as reserved, but I think it has to do with how we are accepting of kids.
We have had our share of struggles, but the core group has always held together. Usually, when there is a significant change, we take a go-slow approach. An example would be when we decided to become Open and Affirming. There had long been LBGTQA people attending, but no formal statement welcoming them. Finally, a gay man and the parents of a queer woman raised the issue. It took a process of two years to come to an agreement. During that time, we reviewed the then new ELCA statement on Human Sexuality. We also heard the counter arguments from a conservative group. In the end, the congregation passed the welcoming resolution by 2/3 vote. There were only two families that ended up leaving because of the vote. However, on the other hand, we saw even more people gay and straight attending for the first time. I think it has to do with our living out the statement in our congregation.
Before it disappears entirely, I hope to get back to some of the questions I had posed earlier. People have addressed some of those questions with examples, but I would also like to talk about "hallmarks of a church community" in a bit more abstract terms as well. Sort of like a wish list, maybe mixed in with some real aspirations. Here are some of mine, many of which were added to my list the hard way -- by their absence.
People have growing groups of friends and acquaintances, rather than cliques. This includes:
People in the church community treat each other like relational humans for the long haul, not like temporary projects. ("Thank God we're through that disaster! Now we can return to a more comfortable distance.") The Body of Christ doesn't have prosthetic limbs that can be removed at the end of the day, because they chafe.
The church community works as a community to reach out to and serve it's wider community, rather than seeking to insulate itself from "The World," correct it or control it.
The church community sees people inside and outside the church as valuable (image bearers, if you like) as humans, rather than as souls to be saved.
Church communities support each other in prayer, service, relationships, growing faith, neighborliness, etc.
What else am I missing? I'm sure I've included things some of yo would want to remove from the list.
When we had our kids, we had an array of friends bringing round meals. These days, there are multiple websites that exist specifically to help schedule meals to be brought to new parents, sick / injured people or whoever.
The majority of the people bringing meals were not from our church, but were from a local "moms and tots" group: we found out that we were expecting our eldest about 3 days after first arriving in the US, so Mrs C deliberately sought out that group...
I think this is a case of not all moves being equal. Post-War the figures are going to be driven by the numbers of people - often African American - moving northwards and to the coast for work, and presumably suburbanization is in there somewhere as well - and that's something else that has continued to steadily increase, with all the effects on community formation it brings.
Yeah, and also de-industrialisation and the associated disappearance of many regional economies. So people are less likely to bounce between these and more likely to do (fewer) moves to the one of the hotspots and then stay there.
All laudable aims, but they seem to me to posit a fairly large congregation. I suspect congregations tend to be larger where you are than they tend to be this side of the Pond.
I know I'm in a 'niche' situation as it were and for various reasons can't get to church that regularly but the situation you describe seems to assume regular attendance and a sizeable congregation.
I'm not thinking 'mega-church' but I do envisage something sizeable from your description.
A tenth of that would be more common here. Plenty of places call it a good day if they get double figures.
The idea that members don’t have friends or support systems or community-like groups outside the church, as some have described upthread, is completely foreign. Almost everyone does. But even so, I think the average member certainly expects the church to function very much as a community, along the lines that Kendal described. That’s my experience in my tribe, and it’s what I’ve observed in churches of other mainline and mainstream denominations in the Southern US.
Do they? The only one that seems to rely on a certain amount of critical mass is:
"The church community works as a community to reach out to and serve it's wider community"
The first list seems just good group dynamics that could be practised no matter what the size of the group.
There are such small churches here, but fewer and fewer, as they cannot support a pastor much less pay a light bill.
When my husband and I were first married and moved to another state for school, we visited the Southern Baptist church that was next in the Baptist column of the phone book. There were about 10 people at service, the youngest of whom was probably 50 years older than we were.
We didn't exactly blend in.
That's the experience of nearly any churchgoer under 40 in the UK, regardless of denomination.
I'm in my 50s and I'm still one of the younger people in the vast majority of churches.
I've been saying for a while that church is great if you want to feel young. Or tall.
I would say that, looking round the church, the 70 somethings do seem very sprightly, and we have 80+, 90+ and a centenarian who are still active.
Church is a developmental phase in post-Roman cultures.
Such city centre churches are well placed to run all sorts of community groups.
My village church is one of many groups in the village, ( WI, Scouts, amateur dramatics, horticultural society etc) which collectively make it a thriving community. Being an ancient building it is not well suited to holding community events, which are bettered accommodated in the village hall, school or library or the Methodist chapel. Church members are often key figures supporting or running community events. So in this context, I would say that the local church does not need to go it alone to provide for the community. Of course the vicar and members do provide support for each other as individuals , especially in time of need.
@chrisstiles - yes, @Kendel's list does contain features that would apply to any group dynamic whatever the size, but the impression it gave me at least was of the conditions she described. Namely unfeasibly large congregations by British and other Western European standards.
Even the congregations @Nick Tamen describes would be the envy of most denominations here in the UK.
I was once part of a church that quickly grew to about 300 or 400 people at its height, largely through transfer growth from other churches, some en masse. It just as quickly imploded and bumped along around the 150 mark for a good few years before eventually declining to the 40s and 50s before fizzling out.
Even at 150 or so it was seen as a large church.
What's been described as people spending almost all their non-working time in churchy activity upthread applies, I think, mainly to particular types of evangelical charismatic fellowships or groups with a particular niche emphasis or position. The former has been my own experience.
I wouldn't expect it to apply to the US Mid-West or Southern States where church attendance is still more a norm than it has become in the increasingly secularised UK.
What happens with some large-ish charismatic evangelical churches in cities with sizeable student or young professional populations is that they become a kind of one-stop shop for people away from home or family in terms of their support network.
This may be less the case now than it used to be as higher education expanded during the closing decades of the 20th century and into the early 2000s.
The result was very close-knit fellowships that could also become fairly claustrophobic.
These days, I suspect most UK churches are struggling to keep their show on the road. The only exceptions seem to be migrant or 'ethnic minority' churches.