17 July 2006
Making connections
A busy weekend at church: a wedding on Saturday, and an 'Infant Presentation' on Sunday morning. Both events brought many people into church who wouldn't normally be there.
I always relish the opportunity to talk to such people. I've always believed that if you understand something properly you should be able to put it in non-technical language, and I've also always believed that people 'outside' the church know as much about God as people 'inside' the church. A church may sometimes be called God's house, but it isn't God's home.
I said this at the wedding and, as always, found people deeply appreciative. It is possible to speak about God in ways that respect the spirituality of non-church people, and which make sense in their terms. We don't have to drag people inside the Christian frame of reference first, we can step outside and enter theirs. And I think this is precisely what Jesus (and Paul, for that matter) did.
Unfortunately the wider Church seldom has the confidence to do this. It concentrates on getting people inside the institution, on persuading people to come and, if possible, belong, and it fails to connect to the minds and spirituality of the people around.
23:50 Posted in Comment | Permalink | Comments (3) | Email this
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I've been reading some stuff under the latest buzzword "Emergent" which is constantly talking about how belonging should come before believing.
How would you go about connecting this with what you say above about meeting people where they are, outside the c/Church?
Posted by: Demas | 18 July 2006
I think I'd agree that you shouldn't start with belief. The job of the Church is not to persuade people of its beliefs - and then they will join! Those who join do so because of people they admire, the sense that they could develop aspects of themselves, etc.
Meeting people where they are is before even this. It's certainly not about belief, and it's not yet about belonging, just about starting the conversations.
You can't go around trying to have an effect on people. Most evangelism does this. It targets certain groups - do you want to be targetted? Sometimes it seeks to persuade, other times to wheedle, trick, cajole, flatter or anything just so long as people will start coming to church.
This is as doomed as every telesales person that calls my number. I think we must forget trying to peddle the stuff we think we know, and start trying to appreciate the stuff 'they' know.
Posted by: Stuart Jenkins | 19 July 2006
Yes, I agree.
I suppose what I am reacting to is a sense that 'belonging before believing' is sometimes hijacked into meaning 'join our group because we're nice, we'll tell you the rules later' which I am seeing in some of the Emergent stuff.
Take this emergent group for example: Small Boat Big Sea (http://www.smallboatbigsea.org/). From their website I can't tell who they are; it's a request for belonging ("Come join us! We're nice!") without the conversation first. (And what conversation there is is in code - "Participants will be invited to join a community ... who listen to God’s Word"?)
And without the conversation I can't tell whether they really want me to join, and on what conditions. Will they accept me if I'm gay? A bricklayer? A grandmother? A tax collector?
Posted by: Demas | 19 July 2006
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