In John Alexander's book, Stop Going to Church and Become the Church (I'm not sure if that's still the title of the book, but that's what it was a dozen years ago when I first got a manuscript copy.), John lists some touch points for determining if the church you're a part of is one with a predominantly entertainment model (the congregation attends Sunday morning services and mostly just sits and watches while paid staff perform for the bulk of the event) or closer to a body model (in which members are actively involved regularly (and not just on Sundays) in each other's lives). One such touch stone that he lists is the amount that the church eats together. He says:"How much do folks eat together in your church? I suspect that frequency of eating together is one of the best indicators of the health of a biological family. And I wonder if that's not equally true of church families."
Our church has monthly potlucks in which we all stay after the Sunday morning service and eat together. We often have at least one BBQ a month in the summer. And the pastor's family often invites people over to their house for a meal. I suspect that if we tried to get together any more than that, it wouldn't work. People in our little congregation tend to be too busy for much more than that. (We do have meetings that don't involve food. So it's not like we only see each other on Sundays. I'm just saying that adding in yet another gathering time probably isn't realistic at this point.)
John spends a fair bit of time in his book talking about where people spend their time -- how much of it is spent being a church vs. other activities. I think time spent together is a problem that our church is struggling with these days. When we first joined the congregation almost 9 years ago, it seemed that people traveled less and gathered together more. I don't think anyone in the congregation would be opposed to the idea of getting together more often. But practically speaking, I'm not sure how it could come about right now without it being forced.
I think that taking a specific, eating together, and using that as a measuring stick of sorts regarding the health of a church is an interesting idea. What do you think? How often does your church eat together (either in small groups or as an entire body)? Do you feel that the time spent together helps to grow and build the church?
It strikes me that some churches measure how well they're doing based on how many people attend the Sunday morning services. I wonder how well those same churches would fare if the criteria was how often they eat together rather than how many people are sitting in the pews?
Don't forget the times when folks have others over for lunch or supper, and the picnic at the reservoir two weeks ago and the ice cream social last week and...
ReplyDeleteIt seems that our families with school-aged children are so busy fulfilling their kids' activities that it makes it very hard to find time to be together. As for this being the "travelingest" church, that certainly has been true from our perspective when compared with other churches we've been in. But, having talked with about a couple dozen other local pastors they have the same challenge and complaint: their families are always traveling or doing fun Colorado activities.
the picnic i would count as june's BBQ/potluck. there are other things that i could add to the list of food-events our church does -- the gals get-togethers come immediately to mind. we generally include food with those.
ReplyDeletei think our church does better than average in terms of having meal-type events. i think my mom's (much larger) church has a few church-wide meals a year. (and i would expect a larger church to need more meal gatherings to build the body since there's so many more people to connect with.) the bible study that i was a part of there had two meals together, one at the end of each semester. i'm not sure how many other small group meals they have, nor how often people in general get together, but i would guess that as a percentage of population, cornerstone is eating together more.
how was the ice-cream social? we would have come but the idea of eating ice cream at mcdonald's was hard to stomach. i know, i know. the importance of the body of Christ should supersede the importance of the body of flesh, but...
~*Awe*~
ReplyDeleteI think eating together is, as a general rule, something that helps people bond more. But I'm not convinced about using the "how often do you eat together" yardstick as a way of measuring the health of a church congregation. There's a whole load of factors that vary and affect how practical it would be - there's the question of how busy people's lives are, there's the practicalities of whether or not you actually have a good space for doing the eating together, there are different cultural norms to do with eating (some cultures put a lot more emphasis on food than others), there is the question of whether it's a local church or whether people travel a long distance to get there, etc etc.
ReplyDeleteAt our church we have something they call "fellowship tea" once a month on a Sunday afternoon - it's the kind of late afternoon meal the Brits tend to have, sandwiches and snacks and tea and cake, because they've had the big roast dinner at midday. I've gone a few times but I don't do this often because (a) it's an extremely inconvenient time of day for me; (b) I really don't like this type of meal and I find it really awkward to sit there surrounded by people who are saying how lovely it is and what a wonderful spread whilst I'm nibbling on the one thing I found that looked like it definitely isn't ham; (c) I hate the way we have to sit at a table with a bunch of people and do small talk, it's very hard to actually get around and mingle; (d) I forget now what else I was going to say, but I think you get the general idea - I just don't like these fellowship teas very much. Like so many things, it sounds like a good idea but it depends on how it's implemented, and I guess part of the problem for me is being in a different culture and therefore things that suit most people around me are just going to feel weird to me :(
how would it be different in Israel? have you attended a church in Israel? or didn't you start attending churches till you were in the UK?
ReplyDeletep.s. Don's comment on your other post reminded me: we also have men's breakfasts and women's breakfasts - funny but when you mentioned eating together I didn't think about that, I guess because the food is not the main event for me at the women's breakfasts, it's the great conversations we have, about really deep stuff - which is why I bother to go even though, as you know, I'm totally not a morning person and being dressed and out of the house and interacting with humans by 8am is just way off the scale for me. but it's worth it because we have really deep discussions. we get a short talk and then some prompts for stuff to do in our group (we sit in small groups) and it's really good.
ReplyDeletehmmm... trying to think what the differences are. I guess the food is different and I'm obviously more comfortable with Israeli food. And for me part of the discomfort is the ham/pork thing, which is a hugely deep and thorny issue. but the whole atmosphere would be different if we were having a meal together, a lot less stiff and formal. not that we ate together all that often - mostly I remember coffee after the main meeting and sometimes someone might have brought cake, but we still loitered around chatting, none of this hurrying home for the sacred sunday lunch that you get with british congregations. but mostly the eating together that I remember was in people's homes, someone having a whole load of people round for a meal - the Brazilian contingent seemed to be very good at that, very laid back, feeding the 5000 and making it look easy... (me, I panic if there's four guests for dinner...)
ReplyDeleteI think the main difference is that the atmosphere here is much more formal and I'm not used to it. I don't remember feeling like this back in my church in London, where the majority were West Indians. It's living amongst the English that is tricky for me. (says she, married to an Englishman...)
that's our congregation to a T. ;-) we love to loiter.
ReplyDeleteseriously, I think that is one very important indication of the health of a congregation - do we enjoy loitering together and chatting or do we rush home as soon as the service is ended? there are those who view a church service as something they attend in order to commune with God and that's it - a totally private matter, and no need to mix with all the other people who happen to be there doing the same thing...
ReplyDeleteyeah, i think you're right. we visited a local congregation recently on a saturday night. there were probably about 3 or 4 hundred people there and i was kind of taken aback when everyone split the moment the last song was done. i'd kinda forgotten people did that. even at my grandparent's church, (a little catholic mission in the heart of detroit) people hang out afterwards and nibble on donuts and sip coffee and chat for quite awhile. They even set up tables so people can park it for a good long while.
ReplyDelete:(
ReplyDelete