Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Only a few weeks ago, in a discussion about the future of the Church of St. Luke and St. Mary, I heard an intelligent and faithful person say, “We need to do more things and let people know what we are doing so that more people will come. We just need to get more people.” This, to me, is an expression of what Dwight Zscheile calls our “common imagination,” the one from which “we still largely assume that people are looking for a church and that they will know how to find us—that we can simply welcome them when they show up (especially if they look and act like us.) We assume that people come to us already Christian, and that we can just make them church members.” In this regard, many of us have been blind to the changes in our culture that make the church increasingly mysterious, distrusted, and alien to new generations. I like Zscheile’s insistence that we listen to the voices of those who have walked away from active church involvement and “to the stories and perspectives of neighbors who have never been part of the church in order to discern a new future” for God’s church. The Foreward and the Introduction show us that at the heart of Zscheile’s book is the deep conviction that there is a new future for the Episcopal Church. I believe, with the author, that we Episcopalians can “live more deeply into our identity as people of [Jesus’s] Way.” In Chapter 1, Zscheile gives us a brief and concise summary of the historical and cultural identity of the Episcopal Church as a privileged preserver of cultural, governmental and social structures during its first 300 years in this country. Recognizing the role of the Episcopal Church in upholding “the status quo of a stratified economic system and a rationalistic faith” helps us see within ourselves some of the ways we continue to do so. Naming the historic tendency of our mission work to fall within a “benefactor paradigm” will help us to break out of that and take what Zscheile describes as “the deeper step of identifying with and receiving from those who are persecuted or marginalized.” (p. 27) Zscheile raises our awareness of where we have come from and how we have become who we are today. This is preparation for changing perspective and growing out of those ways that inhibit our discipleship as followers of Jesus. Reflection upon the questions at the end of the chapter help us personalize the information by leading us to see where these influences and assumptions are at work and discernable in our current experience.
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One of the central themes that emerged from our discussion of this chapter was the distinction between attracting people and inviting people. One person said, "I'm not sure what I am inviting people to when I ask them to church."
ReplyDeleteAnother learning was about listening; particularly listening to people who are not in church or who have left church in order to learn what God is doing in there lives now, at this moment, "out there." Zscheile is promulgated a huge shift in our religious orientation that focuses on joining God in the neighborhood (which means coming up alongside people we don't know, people who are different from us) and partnering with people outside the walls of the church. And this activity is NOT to gain members but to BE disciples, bearing Christ's love and good news to others.
Chapter 2: A New Apostolic Era
ReplyDeleteIf we are going to think about a new “apostolic” era, let’s begin by making the distinction between “disciple” and “apostle,” since some may think the two roles synonymous. A disciple is a learner; a follower. The disciple has chosen to listen to a particular teacher with the intention of learning something new and of following in the path of a particular leader. An apostle is one who is “sent.” The word “apostle” is based upon the Greek word, “apostolos,” and means “one who is sent away;” as a messenger or ambassador. The apostle is the bearer of information to others presumably uninformed. To speak of a new apostolic era, to me, means to consider new means by which apostles—or bearers of God’s liberating love—bring the news. Or, it may mean the renewal of apostleship or a re-sending of the faithful.
Zscheile describes some religious and spiritual realities of our contemporary society that cry out for a different sort of apostleship. He observes that many people he and you and I know care deeply and live consciously. They are “constructing their own narratives of meaning and purpose and building their own expressions of community.” Here are people who seek meaningful lives and the company of others and yet, writes Zscheile, “The churches in their area have not meaningfully engaged them, and while they may be seeking God, they’re not seeking a church.” (p. 32) What a telling observation! We who live and serve in traditional church settings need to know and think about the fact that there are many people seeking a deeper spiritual life, seeking God, who are not even considering the local church as a place where God or community may be found. This condition rings true to me as the mother of four children, none of whom attend church and all of whom are actively engaged in meaningful work that contributes to the lives of children, women, the poor, and the oppressed.
Even more provocative and disturbing observations come out of the research cited on pp. 34-35 of the book, one piece of which is this: “a young adult is more likely to become more actively involved in church if she or he grows up in a nonreligious home than in a mainline Protestant home.” What does this say about how we are Christians in the mainline? It begs questions like, “Does our faith show in the way we live our lives?” “Have we loved the church more than God, so that our children have seen only faithfulness to an institution and not faithfulness to life-giving gospel imperatives?” And how do we change that?
Zscheile’s reflection on the historic secularization of western society and the “excarnation” in which “religion became disembodied,” and God “came to be seen as distant from daily life” (p. 36) helps us to see a cultural and religious progression that has significantly impacted the Episcopal Church. My own experience echoes Zscheile’s description that “many church members struggle to name God’s presence or activity in their daily lives or the world,” (p. 36) and yet I find this is changing the more we look, together, at scripture and share our stories unselfconsciously.
Finally, Zscheile declares the potential for the Episcopal Church to offer a new way toward spiritual growth, communal faith, and the work of the gospel in the world. He writes, “Anglicanism offers a richly textured Christianity with ancient roots, expansive sources, a living commitment to justice and reconciliation, and space for people to explore, question, and grow along the way….Its historical embrace of whatever cultural context it finds itself in mandates that it speak the language of the people.” (p. 41) If we can get past traditionalism, elitism, and a lack of clarity and if we could find in ourselves a sense of urgency to fuel renewal, then we might rediscover our identity as a sent people.