Grace and Beloved's ChurchSearch Week 8: Grace stays home to take stock of it all

One of the main things I've realised during the past eight weeks of churchsearching, is how most curchgoers claim a very clear and fixed idea about what church or The Church is or should be, but how different from one another these understandings can be. In academic theology, there's the discipline of ecclesiology, which deals with questions of what the church is or means or does or should do, but I'm not sure that this has much of an impact on the views or understandings or breadth of thinking of most churchgoers.

What follows, then, is a Survey of Popular Views on church observed amongst congregation members in a variety of Protestant denominations in urban Britain, June-August 2008

1. As the Body of Christ on earth (Embodied with the being, essence, substance, authority of the risen Jesus)
2. As what Jesus founded when he made Peter and/or Peter’s Confession the origin of apostolic succession (See the start of my Crowded Handbasket piece)
3. As a way the early Christians found to organise themselves as a group, which subsequent generations have continued and/or replicated (See the rest of my Crowded Handbasket piece)
4. As a club (Somewhere for people who believe what we do)
5. As a community (Somewhere for everyone to learn and share together)
6. As a personal thing (As something between the individual and God)
7. As a sacramental community (Celebrating communion/Eucharist/Lord’s Supper/Breaking of Bread together, conducting marriages, baptisms/christenings/confirmations etc)
8. As an evangelical community (Existing to spread the gospel, proselytise, covert individuals)
9. As an incarnate and or missional community (Existing to transform society, bringing the Kingdom of God to earth)
10. As a building used for praying and singing (It’s all about the singing and praying)
11. As a group of people who get together to pray and sing (it’s all about the people who sing and pray)
12. As an organisation submitted to the authority of a Man of God (it’s all about the Minister/Pastor/Vicar, who is always to be right)
13. As an organisation submitted to the authority of the Word of God (It’s all about the Bible, which needs to be interpreted (fairly) literally)
14. As a place for everyone (It’s about welcoming everyone like Jesus did)
15. As a place you need to be middle class/straight/white to be welcome (It’s about finding a place where you feel comfortable)
16. As a concept we don’t really like to talk about because we’re British and to talk about religion isn’t the British thing to do (Self-explanatory, surely)

I think it was Wittgenstein who pointed out that, unless you begin a discussion by extablishing a common meaning of your terms, the discussion will become frustrating, fraught with misunderstandings and, ultimately, meaningless. It is beginning to occur to me that the church (local) and Church (worldwide) is so divided not because of doctrine or practice on specific points, but because we cannot lack a common agreement od who we are...