Bože!

Thanks to Lyngine for forwarding this rather interesting article from Newsweek to me. Lisa Miller (the article’s author) writes that a recent Pew Forum study shows that 7 percent of Americans worship in small groups in house churches rather than attending larger gatherings/congregational settings.

The article goes on to explore some of the reasons – the era of the mega church is over, one size does not fit all when it comes to worship & spirituality, and the rigid institutionalism of “traditional” denomonations distracts and deterrs the faithful.

What was interesting to me however, from an OC/IC perspective is the analogy between mega-church and micro-church and big brand beer, and micro-breweries. A bit flimsy at first but lets think about the branding ideas, the backround imagery for a moment. When you think micro-brewery, you think small, local producer, you think quality, traditional manufacturing but quirky enough to bend a bit here, and be flexible there.

Hmmm . . . perhaps this is not such a bad analogy aferall. Perhaps this is a decent working image set for an indie community to use to draw up an outreach plan for 2010?

Here’s an interesting article about a recent study in religous trends. I’ve not actually had time yet to look at the study itself (still reminding myself that I do indeed speak English after 2 weeks of intensive French) that’ll have to wait for a few days. But I invite you to get a head start and pop your thoughts in the comment box.

Getting involved, being engaged in the wider scope of Christian action is sometimes a bit daunting – where to you begin? What issues/needs are not being given the space they deserve at the table? And more importantly in our OC/IC context – how can our tiny local community, or regional body, contribute in substantive ways to making positive changes for others, and ourselves?

For sure, I don’t have the answers to these questions, but over the past couple of years when a possible resource for this discernment process catches my eye I’ve tried to make it register on your radar too. This morning I found a site called change.org which, a first glance, appears to do just that. Have a look – maybe you’ll find something there that you and/or your community can become more engaged with.

If you know of a similar resource please post it in the comments so we can all have look. Thanks.

“Liberal” churches may be sabotaging themselves by reducing the commitment of their members – so suggests a recent report in New Scientist. The persecution of early Christians may have had a dramatic effect on the spread of Christianity because the sacrifices of martyrs and confessors instilled in others the idea of sincerity: “few would willingly give their life for an ideal they did not believe in”.

Once people believe they are more likely to undertake or endure similar displays of committment. Through a mathematical model, the study suggests that this becomes a “self-reinforcing loop” enabling the belief system to persist over time.

The suggestion is that communities that expect a higher level of committment as displayed through particular behaviour endure and grow whereas those communities which do not eventually dissipate. Comparing liberal Protestant churches and fundamentalist Protestant churches appears to prove the point.

How is this relevant to OC/IC communities?

I dare say that today there might be a few confessors out there, but not too many martyrs. So lets look at the effects of more down to earth forms of “costly sacrifices”.

The study suggests that acts of sacrifice, or self-denial/renunciation by religious leaders has a stronger overall impact on the commitment of others. So, how many of our OC/IC leaders and clergy are regularly participating in the life and community of other churches? From the stand point of a visitor/observer/participant – if my local indie bishop, priest or lay leader is heavily involved in another tradition then this indie thing must not be worth my own personal investment.

This opens the door to the next question, assume our leaders are setting the example, are we doing enough to cultivate, and encourage “membership” through the right of chrismation? That is to say – if our leaders have “sacrificed” the (false) safety net of another church, then are we also encouraging the same within the community as a whole? In short are we actively giving people a reason to give a confident “yes” to the OC/IC way of life, and be willing to whole heartedly throw in their lot with us?

Keeping in mind the above two points, how might the common practice of open communion affect committment to, identification with our OC/IC communities?

Finally, in our history can we point to as an exemplar of commitment to the OC/IC ideal? I can think of a few, such as Varlet and Ofiesh, how about you?

This morning’s rounds turned up two curious pieces of news.

Firstly, FaithLab reports that Daniel Akin, the president of the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary  wants Baptists to have more babies – in order to numerically overwhelm the growing Muslim population in the US. Europe – he suggests, will be taken over by “the Muslims” without a shot being fired because “white” people are not having babies. It’s merely a matter of simple mathematics – he argues. Ummmmm, yeah. . . . no, not so much. It is however, a matter of oversimplification, racism, and a misguided belief that quantity equals quality. There are too many impoverished children in the US as it is (check here and here), too many children and teens go unloved, and undervalued. As I understand the Gospels Jesus taught us to value one another, to invest in real relationships, and to be hospitable to the stranger because in the “space” in between those interactions is where we meet God “in the flesh”. We ought not to care about their particular faith tradition – rather we ought to “be” Christ for them and relieve their suffering. Pushing for more babies in a society that has very real problems providing safe, healthy, balanced lives for the one’s it already has is grossly irresponsible.

Secondly, the Barna Group has released a survey that has some interesting numbers – which might be useful for OC/IC communities. Here are the ones which grabbed my attention:

• 75% of Americans believe that God is “motivating” them to seek communion with him through new methods and experiences.
• 64% are completely open to pursuing faith in an environment that differs from a “typical church”.
• 50% are bored with the “typical” church experience
• 71% are likely to develop their religious beliefs on their own – rather than accepting the slate of a particular church.

These figures would appear to support a position that I’ve been promoting here for over a year now, and that is that more and more people are using the internet to explore their faith; eschewing to one degree or another “traditional” worship settings and experiences. This means that OC/IC communities MUST have a thoughtful, creative, active on-line presence if we are to bring our frequently “alternative” experiences and methods of being church, being community to those seeking to engage with their faith in new ways. I should add here that such efforts would probably be more effective if we strive to not mimic the efforts, and style of “Big Tent” churches but develop our own methods highlighting the creativity and talent of our individual communities and missions.

The survey also raises interesting questions about our methods of outreach on the ground. That is, how are we sharing our story, our way of faith, in the flesh, with the people we meet? How are we going out to meet them? Are we simply repeating the methods of the churches many of us originated in; if so what might we do differently? Maybe, we could make the whole process easier and just have babies?
Finally, I’m writing this from the UK – the home of the modern heathen – so I’m sitting here wondering – what would the numbers look like if Barna did the same survey here?

Faithlab is a great site that often offers new angles, and different lines of inspiration. Today David Adams posts the “Lay People List” – twenty points “minister types” need to know about the laity.

It’s worth a read – and indeed a giggle or two – especially in our context where small communities are the rule, and in order to be effective communities we need to cultivate an “all hands at the pump” attitude.

We’ve often talked about the ideas and images of what constitutes “church” many converts to the indie life inherit or bring with them into the community. Tim Cravens has just posted a reflection on one aspect of this – the sense of embarrassment many indie clergy feel over not having our own buildings, salaried clergy and so on. Tim makes a good point that we need to not allow ourselves and our fellow ministers to become overwhelmed by this to the point that it inhibits our ability to be ministers in the here and now.

I tink part of the solution is to cultivate within each one of us, and within our communities, a confidence in our identity as OC/IC believers – or as I’ve said here before – we are not second class or second rate christians – we “are” the real thing.

One of Tim’s commentors pointed out, and I agree with her whole heartedly, is that there is a real need for cooperation, collaboration, and through that the cultivation of mutual support (i.e. confidence) within our movement. John Plummer’s phrase “we all need friends” in relation to relations within the OC/IC community are equally applicable here.

But that “friendship” must be deeper than merely, clicking the “lets be friends” button on our Facebook profiles – never to utter “Boo!” to one another again. Friendship – true frienship is deeper, and requires openness, and cultivation – it lifts us up out of the isolation we can sometimes feel within our smaller OC/IC jurisdictions, scattered as we are in the “Diaspora”.

Through frienship we can dissolve the barriers of suspicion and mistrust from within the community as a whole. Through frienship we can collaborate, and share, without the compulsion to create “larger” artificial organisational structures (every one of which that I’m aware of over the past 20 years of active OC/IC life has failed – with a body count!). Through frienship we might see an organic improvement in the quality of our communities, and the individuals chosen to serve and lead them (both lay and ordained). If for example, my friend Bishop X won’t ordain you – why the hell should I? If I trust Bishop X, if he/she is my friend – it would be disrespectful to undermine his/her judgement because he/she is my friend, and a fellow bishop.

But lets get back to Tim’s post – and his point that indie clergy are nearly always working in the world – holding down a job, running a household, having a life, and on top of that – doing ministry. Through friendship – through real collaboration – we can build a solid netowrk of mutual support to encourage, bring relief to, and cultivate confidence for our fellow ministers in the movement. Making the vocation of a “worker priest” (or worker bishop) that much more enriching both for the minister, and those he or she serves.

Through frienship we can radically change the dynamic of the way our OC/IC movement has dys-functioned over the past 75 years. And all it takes is a bit of openness, and a willingness to collaborate.

This series of three short posts by Bp. Alan Wilson (Anglican) is well worth reading and sitting with. We talk alot both here, and amongst ourselves in other places about the longevity of OC/IC communities – what it means to be “in community” and how we can re-vision some of our ideas about being ekklesia in our context.

Using Benedictine ideas, Bp. Alan explores “obedience” and “stability” placing them at the heart of the life of a community. Have a read – then come back and share your thoughts and ideas.

I’ve stumbled across two articles this week related to Ekklesia 2.0 (a long running topic here) which are worth a read – and I hope, some discussion. The first is from Christian Today reporting on a recent meeting on “Web Church” such as St. Pixels a project of the Methodist Church in Britain, and iChurch a project of the Anglican diocese of Oxford, that actively bring people together for prayer, fellowship, discussion and study online. Meeting participants discussed familiar challenges such as difficult participants, time commitments, and community cohesiveness. They also explored issues of effectiveness of the project (which we’ve talked about here to some extent). The second article comes from Newsweek and picks up an important thread that we’ve talked about here, and that participants of the Web Church meeting raised, that is, about the “embodiment” of church – thus, touching on ideas of sacramentality.

Two years ago our community experimented with a bi-weekly evening prayer via SKYPE. It was a great experience that brought members together scattered across two continents for prayer and fellowship. Our project also empowered individual members to explore new ways of contributing to the life of the wider community by taking on roles of organising the gathering and/or the discussion afterward. Other OC/IC communities such as the ICCC have recently embarked on similar projects.

It is fair to say that the online assembly, when done well, is sacrament. I do think that there will always be an important need for a live embodied presence of the assembly. Baptism, eucharist, ordination, marriage, adelphopoeisis, these are the core rites of the church, and always serve as a reminder of the intimate, interpersonal connection we share as the “body” of Christ in the World. It seems to me that they cannot be effectively, or validly imparted on line.

Web Church does raise some interesting questions about the awareness of being sacramental, about being community, and about the incarnality of being the ekklesia. What do you think about Web Church? Is it merely an outreach tool? Can it become (as it is for some already) an exclusive experience of “being church”?

Theology is the dialogue between the tradition, and an individual’s experience of the faith.

This is a slightly altered summary of Berger, Questions of Faith. It is nothing new – but gave me a moments thought yesterday. Those following on Twitter/Facebook will know about this.

Today – however, I was struck by the idea of what happens when that dialogue is broken, or misaligned? It is very easy to become caught up in the entropy of the status quo where theology is the technical conversation, the “science” of God, the exclusive domain of “technicians” like me. One need only read through a random selection of contemporary theological books and essays to see how incomprehensible “theology” might be to the outsider – that is the inquisitive Christian!

It is sometimes observed that there is a divide, a chasm between, what is often called the religion of the elite, and popular religion. It seems to me that this is what happens when the dialogue ceases to be an activity of the community and becomes an exclusive preserve of a few.

Nestorius attempted to re-align the technicalities of theology with the devotional fervor for Mary he observed in fifth century Constantinople. He failed in part because the gap was too substantive, and he tried to impose a solution rather than participate in the dialogue. Eighteenth and Nineteenth century Roman Catholicism made this chasm a point of doctrine, proscribing free enquiry, and limiting the access of the laity to education and scholarship. A number of individuals such as Loisy and Dollinger opposed this calcification of the results of such a misalignment; giving rise to what we now celebrate as our shared OC/IC heritage.

We owe it to ourselves to become more aware of that dialogue, to participate in it, and to contribute to bringing it back into the heart of the community of believers – giving voice to our faith.