Steve and several other people have been challenging me to think, if I believe that Christ is accessible in all places and discernable within all people, why do I limit myself to the traditional understanding of Church in seeking a worshipping community? Why can I not find faith, grace, hope, love and God in those around me?
So I thought I'd have a go, this evening. To go into a situation familiar (to me at least) and to seek to identify what of God I could find there.
Basically, a living room full of people there for camomile tea and a discussion on the meaning of guilt. An incredibly diverse collection of people, most of whom I've known, listened to, shouted at, cooked for on a regular basis for a few years. So I know the set up. Sitting there, though, thinking about what I could find of God and community there, that was new.
In some ways, it's easy. People are very accepting, tolerant of one another, warm with one another. There's not the moral pressure found in churches which can drive people to pretend they're something they're not.
In other ways, it's hard. With no shared value systems and no common frame of reference, it's hard to discuss a topic such as guilt as anything beyond the individual, beyond the interpersonal; there's no room to consider anything beyond, I cannot talk about my relationship with God as absorbing (most of) my guilt, there's no ultimate Other. In essence, it becomes merely about the group worshipping itself. But then, Durkheim says that's all that organised religion does anyway. Thinking of the many church groups I've been too which degenerated into an aren't-we-a-marvellous-fellowship mutual backslapping, I think he has a point.
I know I need to value the friends and the relationships and the community I have as a gift from God and as a place to experience Christ. However, I think I do still want a church, too...
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4 comments:
My wonderful spiritual director once gave a talk on how to communicate effectively in the postmodern world. And her conclusion was that it is all about individual story. Yes, removing our common faith language does make it very very difficult, not only does it appear to remove a common reference point, it also leaves us in the unusual position of having to think again about what we actually mean when we use our well worn Christian words.
We can then only communicate by saying, gently, in one-to-one conversations, this is a story from the Bible, and in this instance, it made sense in the story of my own life. Shall we talk about it?
And only by asking, with real interest – what is your story, what makes sense in your life? Lets talk about that!
And so you can talk about guilt in a personal and Christian context. And you can hear from others how they deal with guilt, and whether it truly works for them.
I agree that this is the only way forward, but I also agree that I still need "church", especially when a group of people together is not focused on each other but on God. Not necessarily organised worship, but certainly prayer, maybe singing. Of course, your living room group can eventually become that place, but it's a long term and risky enterprise.
In the meantime, for me, it's still back to my village church every Sunday.
wow, grace, I didnt know I was having my inner Jesus examined last night :)
Im a bit short on experience with churches (and Jesus), but my recent discovery of the warmth and acceptance I find in last nights group (among others) has been a revelation to me. So there is somthing very human about groups, be they church or other. Ant each offers a different mix of features. I have never been comfortable with ceremony and singing but if you are and they support your faith then why not ?
Hi Grace,
Serious respect to you for trying a risky experiment!
Even more respect for blogging about it afterwards.
For me, and most of the people I've met who feel called outside the institutional church, it's not that we want the institution to fail, so much as to risk engaging positively with the story that we are telling.
As we need to do with the story it tells in turn.
Anyway, you set a few thoughts flowing for me.
First, you reminded me of how much I miss by not going to church. The truth is, it hurts and pleases as much to be outside as to be inside. It's just different. Sometimes I describe the decision to stay where I am as fasting from church structures. More like celibacy than Lent, perhaps. So like celibacy, it is an active prayer for a relationship deeper than the one on the surface: something that says "you and I are consciously Church, though in all apparent details we are separate". By active, I mean incarnational.
Second, I suspect the difference between institutional and decentralised works on a very deep level, to the point that the two positions are culturally and perhaps psychologically exclusive. That works out in day to day life in the form of different coping mechanisms for common challenges. Possibly these reflect agricultural and hunter/gatherer modes of being: you find church in participation in the corporate tending of a settled tradition; I find it in the unsupported discovery of fellowship on the hoof. But, a caveat: each mode critiques and subverts the other, continually.
Third, the truth of my story gives you the space to explore your story more fully, and vice versa. If you see someone living outside permanently, you can step outside temporarily without fear of a tonnage of bricks landing on your head. And from time to time, as with my forays into big, big church, I can step inside temporarily, too.
Fourth, and finally, that God might celebrate both ways of being church really is good news. So it is evangelistic in the best sense of the word.
Does any of this make sense?
By the way, Erica's spiritual director sounds brilliant! And lampbus: my wife, Emma describes herself as a doubting atheist, and fights shy of anything religiose. I reckon if she ever caught me examining her inner Jesus she'd slap me round the face with a used kipper.
A lot, a lot to think about. I think my next ChurchSearch installment probably serves as the best response for now... though I may come back to this...
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