1. Create Spaces for Open Discussion

My initial thought when reading this first suggestion for building community by Chris Smith, in his book Growing Deeper in our Church Communities, was that our congregation does this already every time we have a fellowship meal.  But as I read more, I realized that Chris was talking about a time with a more specific purpose and topic of discussion. He gives some examples that draw this out:

Once you gather people, there are thousands of things that could be discussed: How could we be more faithful together? Are there people in our congregation who aren’t being taken care of?  Perhaps there is a book that could be read and discussed.  For us, the initial conversation went in the direction of “What is scripture and how should we read it?”

This is the kind of conversation I've longed for in our congregation for quite awhile now. We seem to march ever onward in our traditional roles, making little tweaks here or adjustments there in how we do things or when we do them or what we're doing, but we never get together as a congregation and brainstorm on any of these things as a body. I would love to hear what people appreciate in worship, group study, fellowship, etc. from the past year of our life together. I'd like to know why they liked those things or hear their ideas on how we could do better at them in the upcoming year.

I think sometimes people direct their thoughts or reactions to the pastor like he's supposed to be the repository for all of our opinions as a church, and he is to be the master coordinator and organizer regarding how those opinions will henceforth change our means and methods of interaction. It would make so much more sense for us to all share our thoughts and ideas among each other -- to hear how something that I didn't really care much for meant quite a bit to someone else or to discover that there's a need I wasn't aware of but that I can help to meet.

This would develop a greater openness among the body as we learn more about one another's needs and preferences and we also learn to honor them in these things. I may not like reading through a question and answer of the catechism each Sunday, but if that's something that's particularly meaningful to another member of the congregation, and it helps him to feel more connected to God, then I'm more likely to read that question and answer with delight, not because I find value in it, but because I know that that act is enabling my brother to draw closer to God and that has value for the entire congregation.

Growing Deeper in our Church Communities - quotes from the book

I've just started reading Growing Deeper in our Church Communities: 50 ideas for Connection in a Disconnected Age, by C. Christopher Smith. I thought I'd share some quotes:

...it might not be as readily obvious that our call to love and connect with people goes to a deeper level, namely that God is gathering a people whose life together reflects the intimate communion of the three Persons of the Trinity and embodies the love and reconciliation that God desires for all humanity and all creation.  This gathering of a people is essential to God’s mission of reconciliation in the world; it began in the Old Testament people of Israel, continued in Jesus’s gathering of a community of disciples and continues to the present in the church.  Our churches, then, are local, context-specific manifestations of the one people that God is gathering*.  Especially in the disconnectedness of the present age, our churches are the hospitable environment in which we can learn what it means to love and be loved in deeper, more holistic ways, and as we learn to do so, our love will overflow to our neighbors around us.

I like the phrase, "local, context-specific manifestions." In our gals Bible study we've been looking at Hebrews and seeing that the Old Testament is full of types of what is to come.  A type is an example or representation of something greater. (Think of it like the printed letter being a type of the letter itself.)

God gathers us in specific places, and in these places we are called to be the Body of Christ together – the physical, tangible presence of Christ in this place.  I, by myself, cannot be the Body of Christ; I can only be a part of that body, whose existence is understood only in relation to the Whole.

This is something I struggled with in high school.  Our youth group leader and the pastor often spoke in terms of the individual and it just didn't seem to jive with what I was reading in the Bible where there were a lot of plurals - you all, us, we, them.  Community was a big discussion point among our little band of college students in the InterVarsity group at the University of Michigan that I was a part of. Finally all those plural references to people started to come clear. And living in such proximity (in various dorms and apartments all within a small radius from each other on campus) helped us to start living out what we were learning. 

We embody Christ together in a place, and the shape of the life together that God has given us proclaims God’s love and reconciliation in ways that can be understood by our neighbors.   The monastics have long had a name for this connection to place: stability. We primarily need deeper connection to other people, but in our age of overwhelming transience, we need stability – connection not only to people, but to people in a specific place.

I grew up as an Air Force brat and assumed that my longing for a place to settle down was due to living in several different states growing up. But I think Smith is right, that it also related to connection as a people.  When Moses led the Israelites up out of Egypt, it wasn't just for them to be a people, freed from slavery. But it was to be a people in the promised land. The fact that the land was divvied up among the people and thanks to the concept of Jubilee was meant to remain in the hands of those specific sub-divisions is yet another sign that God doesn't just put individuals into families/tribes, but he also puts them in specific places.

These quotes are all from the introduction to the book.  The rest of the book consists of 50 practical ideas for building community.  I think I'll talk about some of those in another post.

In the meantime, if you are interested in reading through this book, you can download a pdf copy from the Englewood Review of Books website.

Christian Leadership - Adam McHugh quote

"Christian leaders give people the biblical and theological tools to see their ordinary lives in the broad horizons of the kingdom of God." - Adam McHugh, Introverts in the Church

Paul - the life of the party?

"You can measure leaders by the number and the quality of their friends. Judged by that measuring rod, Paul had a genius for friendship.  He was essentially a gregarious man." -- J. Oswald Sanders, Spiritual Leadership (Chicago, Moody Press, 1967)

Thoughts on Sanders' measurement system? Do you think of Paul as a gregarious man?

Relational vs. Sociable

Quotes from a repost of a 2007 article by Dr. Richard Beck called Introverts in the Imago Dei?

"Introverts are very, very relational. They just aren’t sociable."

"It is true that deeper relationships are needed at church, but the route isn't always best achieved by throwing strangers together into forced conversation."

I've always hated those "turn and greet the person next to you" times.  Worse yet, I've been in huge meetings where you're surrounded by strangers and we were expected to turn to our neighbor, pour our hearts out to each other and pray for each other.  I'd rather spend several hours at the dentist rather than go through that again. Talk about awkward.

Baptism -- the first five centuries

Jason of Sustainable Traditions posted a link today for a free ebook download of Growing Deeper in Our Church Communities: 50 Ideas for Connection in a Disconnected Age. by Chris Smith (which looks like it will be an interesting read).  While I was on the site, I glanced at some of the books that they've recently reviewed.  One was called Baptism in the Early Church: History, Theology, and Liturgy in the first Five Centuries, by Everett Ferguson. It looks amazing.

Ferguson has apparently done a survey of literary, artistic and architectural references to Christian baptism from before the first century (to give a little background) through to the fifth century AD. As the reviewer, Marius Nel, explains, "The primary strength of Ferguson’s excellent study is its comprehensive focus on all the available primary literature, while also surveying (chapter 1) and engaging (in numerous footnotes) the relevant secondary literature." Nel then proceeds to give a chapter by chapter description of Ferguson's findings and conclusions. 

As intriguing as the book sounds, even just the review of it brought up some interesting questions.  The following is a quote from the review that typifies the type of provocative questions that a survey such as this can raise:

Christian literary sources (backed by secular word usage and Jewish religious immersions), for instance overwhelmingly supports full immersion as the normal baptismal practice. Exceptions for a lack of water and sickbed baptism were however made (857). If this was the case the question arises when is a baptismal practice (for example sprinkling instead of full immersion) wrong and unacceptable (even heretical) instead of a practical matter to be decided by faith communities in terms of their own specific context? Put differently: what is the relationship between the sign (water) of baptism and what it signifies (redemption and regeneration for example)? To what extent can the baptismal sign be minimized (as in partial immersion, pouring or sprinkling) before it loses its theological significance? Early Christian text (like the Didache) seems to imply that the precise volume or nature of the baptismal water did not determine the validity of a baptism (204-205).

I was particularly intrigued by the bit about a sign being "minimized" to a point of losing "its theological significance." I've often felt that way about communion: It's talked about like it's a feast when really it's a minuscule piece of often tasteless bread or cracker followed by watered down reconstituted grape juice.  If anything it makes you wonder why you bother rather than being a sensual connection to the sacrifice of the Son of God.

The Brady Bunch

To what extent can the television show, The Brady Bunch, be used as a metaphor for the church? Talk amongst yourselves.