I similar wonderings myself...  My partner came home from a training workshop and in the materials was this quote which I found very powerful:

"Community.  Somewhere, there are people to whom we can speak with passion without having the words catch in our throats.  Somewhere a circle of hands will open to receive us, eyes will light up as we enter, voices will celebrate with us whenever we come into our own power.  Community means strength that joins our strength to do the work that needs to be done.  Arms to hold us when we falter.  A circle of healing.  A circle of friends.  Somewhere where we can be free."  Starhawk

Starhawk is a writer outside of the church and yet writes meaningfully about community and spirit and meaning.  Why aren't we having more of these conversations in our chruches?  What would it mean for our churches to be like this community she writes about?  Why are more people talking about meaningful community outside of the church than in?

I'm frustrated of starting the conversations again and again and being met with resistance or worse yet, apathy...  

This would be my dream, gaiagrrl. Thanks for the quote from Starhawk -- I haven't read her for a long time and it seems like it might be time to change that.

None of us can awaken the dead.

It is definitely time. Luckily I have this sense of community within my church.

The following post was made whilst listening to this beautiful song.
 

Ok folks, it might be too early to break out the sackcloth and ashes :3
 

Those who are worried at church congregations dissappearing, just take a moment to think on why you think this?  Is it just an opinion that is self-reinforcing (we all know what this is like; it is a good example of the phrase "When the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail"), or have you actual data, that exists independently of your own likes and dislikes, that you rely on?
 

The same questions go towards those who are worried that Christians aren't being "Christian enough" or that "the world is becoming too secular" or something along the lines of Church community not being to your liking.  Is this just a feeling of yours, or is it based on data that exists independently of you.
 

If you are feeling a certain way aboot your church or any church that you actually know (as opposed to hearsay or 'a friend of a friend of a friend says'), can you try to see how your ideas aboot this have changed over time?  And when you can do that, might I suggest that, it wasn't necessarily the church that changed, but you?  As we grow, we change and, thusly, the world changes.
 

(One of the 'problems' that we all do is that we tend to generalize from specific instances of something.  And then, over time, these generalizations become TRUE and, from these, we develop further Truths)
 

I'm not saying any of this to say that you are wrong.  Or that you are right.  But to look at what you consider true and see for yourself.  See how you are involved with your ideas -- because you have more influence over them than you may think :3
 

Myself?  I have certain shticks, things that I adore, that I pay attention to.  Spirituality/meaning, psychology, community, family, and such.  I can look at my society and see 'a general lack of community'.  There is, I think, a certain trendyness in doing what I call the pessimancer dance or being part of the 'gloom n doom' crowd.  To do something akin to this:  when someone gets injured or killed by a gun, to make the leap that all guns are dangerous and should not be allowed.
 

Ok.  Back on to point.
 

I tink that religion is THRIVING and GROWING.
 

Want some hard evidence?
 

Try out these links for some TASTY and YUMMY evidence (both done by one of my favourite 'agnostics'/'atheist', Mike Shermer--to head off any Believer angst at the buzz word here, Messr Shermer encourages the right of everyone to practice their religion and has actually studied religion and knows the absurdity of 'trying to get rid of it'.  Plus, he can laugh at himself, so...):

On Belief
  (I heartily recommend his book How We Believe -- -- he gives us the ability to fish rather than a fish, actual data, and some really nifty looks at Millenialism--there are positive effects I found out)

On Religion

Onward to freeing ourselves from the passive and gloomy worlds that we create and into the glorious, beautiful world that IS.

Just a Self-writing poem,
InannaWhimsey

One resource I would recommend to any congregation is Graham Standish's book Becoming a blessed church-  published by Alban Press.

Here is an excerpt from the book:

by N. Graham Standish

Many denominations, churches, pastors, and members have become mired in a series of worthless arguments in their attempt to diagnose why mainstream denominations and churches are in decline. Too many in the mainstream church think the problems have to do with theological positions, styles of worship, or availability of programs. So they say that the decline is the result of churches being too liberal or too conservative, or that the decline is due to our too-traditional worship. They say that we don't meet enough of people's needs, and we need to offer more programs.

What I have consistently noticed in almost all thriving congregations, however, is that what makes the difference is the extent to which the community is open to God at its core. Many churches simply aren't open to God. They let the will, ego, and purpose of the dominant voices in their congregation, whether the pastor's or that of a few strong members, drive the agenda. Instead of seeking God's call and purpose, they argue over who is right and wrong. Declining churches tend not to be open to God's presence. They worship, meet, and engage in ministry and mission, but their sense is that God is in heaven, we are on earth, and all that matters is doing good deeds. The congregants have no sense that Christ is in their midst, and that this presence of Christ can bless them and make their churches places of love. So they continue to engage in the practices of the church, but they don't expect an encounter with Christ.

These churches have no awareness that God's grace and power can work in their midst. They have no awareness of the Holy Spirit. They are unaware that when we become open to God, God's Spirit flows through the church to make miracles happen.

This lack of awareness in mainline churches today is symptomatic of a far greater problem—something I call "rational functionalism"—a disease that has afflicted all mainline denominations.

Rational functionalism is rooted in the idea that we can uncover the mysteries of life and the universe mainly through rational thought and disciplined investigation. It is the tendency of denominations, their congregations, and their leaders to subscribe to a view of faith and church rooted in a restrictive, logic-bound theology that ignores the possibility of spiritual experiences and miraculous events.

This approach to faith is a by-product of the Age of Enlightenment, whose focus was on the rational and scientific pursuit of truth. From this perspective, God is a problem to be solved through a method that mirrors the scientific method as closely as possible, and if that isn't feasible, then by restricting the inquiry to the laws of human logic and analysis. The rational functional approach can reduce a congregation's practice to the attempt to lead people into a positivistic, logical exploration of religion and faith. The idea here is that a theological, historical, sociological, psychological, anthropological, economic, and philosophical understanding of the Christian faith will enable us to discern the laws of God and human life more clearly, and we can therefore learn to live better lives.

In short, this approach reflects what a national leader in my denomination once said to me: "If we can just get people to think right theologically, then all of our problems will go away." The problem is that faith is more than just a logical, empirical inquiry into God and God's ways. It involves our minds, spirits, bodies, relationships, and beings. To address the human seeking for God from only a rational, logical, theological perspective is limiting.

One danger of rational functionalism is that it can cause pastors and leaders to become overintellectual in their approach to faith. God becomes an abstract notion, not a presence whom we can experience, form a relationship with, and love. Increasingly, these pastors and leaders endanger their faith. They don't know what to do with God. They especially don't know what to do with Jesus and the Holy Spirit. They can appreciate Jesus from a historical perspective, but what do they do with the resurrected Christ who, according to Scripture, is incarnated in the world, in relationships, and in the human heart? What do they do with the Holy Spirit, who inspires, heals, and miraculously touches life? Ultimately, they become so intellectual in their approach that they not only lose their own faith, but struggle with leading others to faith.

I am not advocating that pastors and church leaders should remain theologically and historically ignorant, or that we should blindly accept everything in the Bible as historical fact. Understanding Scripture and Christian faith from a more critical and academic point of view is a good thing because it can help us to understand the context and intent of Scripture, thus helping us hear God's voice more clearly when we read Scripture. My point is that when academic inquiry and scientific skepticism become stronger than an emphasis on forming faith and leading people to an encounter with God, the church declines because people are no longer led to form a living faith in God that can transform their lives. The church becomes little more than a social agency filled with well-meaning but spiritually dead people.

In churches caught in the grip of rational functionalism, sermons tend to become academic papers read to the people in the pews. They don't address more basic issues: How are we supposed to endure living with pain, loneliness, and turmoil? How are we supposed to find God amid life's darkness? Bible studies focus on the historical, sociological, economic, and cultural issues of the time, with the intent of uncovering what theological message the writer of a Bible passage is trying to impart. They don't address more basic issues: What is God saying to me through the Scripture about how to live my life? What is God saying to me about what God is doing in my life, especially in the face of my suffering? How is God calling me to love others and to reach out to those who are suffering, both near and throughout the world, and who are in need of God's love as well as mine?

The primary problem at the core of rational functionalism is that it fails to treat God as a tangible presence. God is treated mostly as an idea or thought, or as an entity we encounter when we die, rather than as a tangible presence in the here and now. There is no sense that God's kingdom is all around us, and that this kingdom is a spiritual reality in which we can experience God directly.

A second problem with rational functionalism is that it functionalizes the life of the church, turning everything from worship to committee meetings into routinized events with little connection to a larger purpose. In the rationally functional church, the focus is on maintaining the institution, not on creating experiences through which God can be encountered and experienced in our midst. What matters most is preaching in the prescribed manner, adhering to particular rituals in the traditional way, and singing only the traditional hymns. Guiding people to a tangible encounter, experience, and relationship with Christ isn't much of a concern. Teaching people how to discover the power of the Holy Spirit in their midst is never emphasized because the object of the church has been reduced to doing what we've always done, to function the way the church has always functioned simply for the sake of functioning. Guiding people to discover the Creator's call in their lives, calling them and us to live deeper, richer, and greater lives of love and service, is ignored in favor of guiding people simply to function as Christians have always functioned. In short, the message is reduced to (as someone once told me) "We should be Christians because Christianity is good and ethical, and we should be good and ethical people. The church's role is to teach us to follow the Golden Rule."

Ultimately, becoming a blessed church means overcoming rational functionalism. In blessed churches, people not only expect to experience God; they do experience God. Their expectations open the door to God, who stands knocking. They expect to hear the Creator's voice guiding the church to what it is called to be and do. They expect to encounter and be blessed by Christ. They expect the power of God the Holy Spirit to flow through their life and the church's, blessing them in so many ways.

Excerpted and adapted from Becoming a Blessed Church: Forming a Church of Spiritual Purpose, Presence, and Power  by N. Graham Standish (Alban Institute 2005).

This article is from http://www.alban.org/conversation.aspx?id=2878

i read this quote, and i can honestly say that i thought of my church first.

this is EXACTLY how i feel when i go to my church on sunday.

Perhaps the time has come that the walls of the church have to come down in order to reconnect ourselves to the needs of the world. (God works in mysterious ways)

Churches have been thought of as buildings far too long and we have become comfortable with cloistering ourselves within. We're creating separate communities that neglect to touch others. We place donations in the hands of another agency rather than being the agency.

EVERY  church should have a food bank. That is CHURCH!

I read 2 books by Starhawk years ago when I was involved with a woman who was into that 'wicca'  stuff.   I thought I was "in love" so in an effort to understand her I read one of her favourite authors.   At the time I was impressed with Starhawk although I couldn't relate to the chants and the names of deities. 

The Christian churches have a wide range of social attitudes and cultural traits.  They're not for everybody.   Last Christmas I went to an Anglican church in my neighbourhood and found the congregation to be very friendly and welcoming.  I like them but I have trouble with their tendencies toward bible fundamentalism.  Somebody there gave me a book to read and I found it full of non-sequiturs and logical dead-ends.  This book was a bit annoying for me because of the author's attempts to argue for or 'prove' Christianity and all he was doing was making baseless assertions.  For instance, he raised the question of whether the gospels are fiction and then dismisses it and refuses to discuss it further.  He also claims that the gospel writers were people of good character who wouldn't lie.  How would he know?

Those Anglican folks are kind, friendly, and they do lots of charitable work.  They get a full house on Sundays so they seem to be able to bring people in.

Sure people want to have a sense od community, but churches are not centres for the community - they're clubs for people who subscribe to the same improbable beliefs.  People can achieve a sense of community through many shared activities and interests.  Belief in a 1900-year-old story is only one potential shared interest.  Beekeeping is equally valid.

As for making a difference through charitable works, you don't need faith or religion to make such a difference.  Charity is not motivated by religion, it's motivated by empathy - something experienced by all people, not just religious ones.

So no, it's not surprising that people are finding fewer uses for their local churches, and that newer generations are abandoning the faith of their parents and grandparents.  That is not a shame.  The important thing is that they grow up with a sense of compassion.

Starhawk was for many years on the faculty of Matthew Fox's University of Creation Spirituality. It was his work with Starhawk which got him into trouble with Cardinal Ratzinger.

You need to be careful in generalizing all churches, Chansen.  My church would certainly not fit into your box...cms

OK, then clubs for people who subscribe to similar improbable beliefs, and are sometimes accepting of others who hold different improbable beliefs.

More importantly in the context of this thread, churches are not required for a sense of community.

Of course churches aren't required for community but they are one option of many...cms 

Exactly - they're pretty much the same as any club that has a clubhouse, like a curling club, or a flying club, or a golf club.  With the obvious exception of property tax exemptions.

I would have no problem eliminating the property tax exemption for non-rental activities...cms

The problem with eliminating the tax-exempt status has been created by governments. Since most (if not all) of our provincial governments, certainly the territorial ones and definitely the federal government, have all slashed the social safety net to ribbons, the few services that those on the margins receive often come through churches, temples, mosques, etc. Without the tax exempt status, these communities/services would no longer be able to exist and thus,the supports offered to people in our communities would be non-existent.

I believe that governments should be doing more and can get away with doing less because many of the gaps are being filled by churches and other agencies. For example, here in BC, income assistance programs count on people getting their meals from soup-kitchens and food banks so they can pay less. (There are so many problems with this but that's for another thread.) Anyway, if the non-profit sector, including the churches lost their tax-exampt status and couldn't do this, public pressure would force the government to do their job (social services is part of their responsibility, whether or not they like it) and provide adequate supports instead of legislating people into continued poverty.  However, in order to bring the latter about, a lot of people would be hurt in a myriad of ways and that's not OK...but what's happening now is not OK either.

A number of municipalities in BC have been re-examining the property tax-exempt status held by worship communities. If they do, they risk changing their communities in ways that wouldn't be easy to reverse and would probably cost more in the long-run.

chansen--how do I put this politely?--you are wrong. I disagree with you, wholeheartedly. The church here is definitely into community, serves as a pastoral caregiver to folks from near and far, is a close-knit and open-minded family kind of group, not into dogma nor rules nor clinging to tradition, but serving in love.  So please stop trying to blame us all as if you knew what you were talking about.

Interestingly enough, when the people came and settled this land, the churches were among the first to be established, and many other clubs and groups followed.  In this town we still have several active churches, but dozens of other groups have disappeared. We are far, far more than a social club.

And Rev James Murray, thank you for that quote!  I don't go along with the uber-intellectuals with their thoroughly explained, but unnamed and unmysterious god.

Thanks, RevJamesMurray -- the quote was loooong but I agree wholeheartedly.

Community cannot be the #1 focus of a church.  The #1 focus needs to be on a relationship with God as experienced in Christ.  The #2 focus is on living out mission in community, and then yes, I agree that genuine, supportive, healthy community is a huge priority.  But it needs to be centred on God first.  Churches that focus on community first and God second end up putting the highest priority on keeping people happy, which often means "certain people" and not others.   Discipleship, not membership.

Ken Munro, I'm sorry this is your experience of church -- keep looking!  They may be few and far between (and I don't know that -- I haven't done a survey), but there are vibrant, healthy congregations who support each other and serve the community for God.  I am blessed to be part of one!

shalom

RevJamesMurray and Clergychickita ... thank you and well said

Sighsnootles ....how wonderful to hear! ..... I feel that way with the church I discovered as well.

I go to church and .... I am church .... I am part of the church ... in both the small and large contexts.    I hope that you will see in me that I am now awake and I am making the effort to live out that awakening in a loving way.    Whether it is within the walls of the building, out in my community, or wherever I happen to be.   I receive a lot of inspirtation and energy from my church and I hope I put a lot back in.     Seems to me the purpose of community is to inspire and do better for and with each other as a group.   Sort of the sum of the whole is more than the sum of the parts.   From me it is a feeling of spring within and it makes me want to do things for and with others ...wherever they may be.

Chasen ...respectfully I must disagree with you.    To some extent I can understand your viewpoint but my actual living experience within the church is quite different.   I have had my disagreements with a church and I have been sanctioned for it so it would not be hard for me to adopt a jaded point of view but I choose not to.    I have found many good things there .... even amongst the bad....    People are people wherever you go.    Hospitals are full of people sick physically and it is no surprise to me that churches are full of people sick spiritually.    Actually I am somewhat glad they are so mixed up ..... makes me sort of feel at home LOL.

Anyway ... from the church trenches ... those are my thoughts to share for now!

Hugs

Rita

Instead of worrying about making your point polite, you should have made it defensible.  Look, I never said that churches weren't a part of the community - just that they are not unique as part of the community, and that lots of other clubs and associations make up the community, and make up and increasingly large part of community involvement.  As for your lack of tradition and dogma, what do you do on Sunday mornings?  Go golfing?

If you are, then you haven't explained why.  I don't even think it's a bad thing that churches are social clubs, but at the end of the day, that's basically what they are.  Lots of social clubs help out in the community and give back.

And yes, after they raised the barn, they built churches, but almost everyone was religious back then and you needed God's help to nurish the crops.  Towns are no longer uniformly religious.  Christianity does not represent 100% of the population any more.

That's great, sighs, I feel the same way about my church home.

I can honestly say that I have been to several churchs, (I'm in Toronto) pentecostal, baptist and now presbyterian, have met people I like and are very well intentioned on helping and are not stuck up, arrogant, self serving, clique-ish, socially elite to their particular popularity club! which I hated.

There are people like this in church and in my opinion they are wasting theirs and others time by being at church. There is always a loser in the back row who they need to come down off their holy high roller horse and swallow their pride , humble themselfs and go talk to.

This is what has turned me off a little with church, my wife likes going to church,she likes listening to those "feel good" worship songs,  but I don't always like it, I only go just to bring my children to sunday school, and the sermons always sound like the same regurgitated  messages just packaged and delivered differently that can get dry and boring, thats why I go on message boards in stead to read all the other point of viewz! 

Well, why subject your kids to the same regurgitated stuff?

If not taking them isn't an option, just make sure they realize to take everything they learn in Sunday School with a grain of salt. 

EdM,

i also live in toronto and if you wondermail me, i can tell you our church and our minister.  You will be amazed.  He is the most wonderful servant of God i have ever met.

Chansen,

i think you like to show that churches are just like say Rotary or the YMCA, but you have limited experience with churches if you feel that way.

Our church is a place where we meet and share a love of God.  With that love as our focus we then turn to our community to do good.  To share our energies, our compassion, our money through outreach.

We are not a social club, there is certainly socializing but that is not the focus.

It is interesting for us in Toronto.  Over the past 10 years or so, the toronto district School board, in a effort to raise money, has started charging alot to use space after school hours.  As a result, our church has seen a big increase in the number of outside groups who ask to use out space.  those that are businesses, such as exercise classes, pay a fee.  Those that are reaching out to the community such as Cubs, or afterschool basketball are our guests.  It is only one of the ways that churches give back to their communities.

We are about to have our annual Flea Market.  During this 5 hour event, we raise about $70,000.  All the items sold are for a dollar or so.  This event is a community event in so many ways.

We save things all year.

We set up for an entire week and take over the entire church for a week.

We probably get 2000 people who come through the church on the day of the sale.

Many of them are needy and they are able to buy $0.50 clothes for kids, 10 cent books, $1 toasters and the like.

then at the end, people arrive who take things to send to other charities and we send more things to other churches for their sales.  One little old lady arrives yearly at one and takes all teh extra baby clothes to send to an orphanage in South Africa.

At the end, the money raised is sent to about 30 charities that the UCW supports in Toronto as well as the M&S fund.  We support shelters, music schools, food banks, seniors centers, childrens support groups, .........

 this huge outreach event is accomplished by about 300 members of our church volunteering their time for an entire week to raise money to then give away.

That is what churches do to help.

And a curling club is a place where people meet and share a love of curling.  There is nothing unique about the place of a church in the community.  Replace "God" with "hockey", and you've got your local rink, which probably serves more people than any church in town, and serves far more people who are out-of-town.

Would the loss of a local church mean that people would lose out on a place to talk about God and Jesus?  Sure.  Just like the loss of the local book club would mean that Edna and Phyllis would lose out on a place to discuss the latest romance novel with Fabio on the cover.

There are non-religious charity sales as well.  Of course it's good that churches give back to the community, and are part of the community, but that still doesn't make them indispensable or unique in those areas.

Hi chansen, work interferes too much for me with computer talk! (do nights)

I prefer to have my kids exposed to the same teaching about the stories of the bible and Jesus as I was. I don't think it did me any harm, it can be a guiding tool for us as we reach that rebellious teen age. I didn't stay in church or follow what I learned but... I came back to it again after the life of clubs, drinking and loose morals didn't really get me very far. 

I believe the human condition can deal with something like sin and if we make positive choices and not saying thats only according to church attendance but it does help. Theres many testimonies that reveal that.

I don't want to sound crass when I describe my view point, (regurgitated)We're still human and  anger and confusion about different things get in the way.

But I sense something in your tone that you are slightly against church/cristianity in general and I can understand. Sometimes my foot is in the world in my thoughts and my other foot stays in what I believe. I don't hold it on any one else how they see it, I have family members who don't care less or are against it.

Oh! and I'm not good at being a self proclaimed christian type, many people claim they are christian... catholics, whatever.

Also my wife has a strong arm in taking our children to church! I want them to do the command of Christ to treat others equally and not like many self centered brats I hear about out there!

Hi Lastpointe.  As charitable as this practice may seem, your church should not be doing it.  One of the requirements of a charity is to offer the same benefits to all, regardless of affiliation.  So whatever you charge for one group, you must do for all others.  This treats everyone fairly and equally...cms

chansen,

the social activities might be the same as ahockey club, but, if a faith community is really a faith community (and I would think, this is rather a rare thing, as a lot revolves around tradition and fundraising and socializing in churches), then it supports the indivuduals faith-life- which is fundamental in dealing with life's issues like dealing with death, ill health, and just basicly the energy you have in your life. I doubt that a hockey club could influence an indivudual on this deeper level. Not to say that you can't have deep friendships in a hockey club. But the focus is somewhere else.

As the song goes, that's what friends are for.  Some people feel they benefit from the church community in these areas, but my point is that the emphasis in "church community" should be on the word "community", not "church".  You can achieve communities of friends through any shared interest.  Interest in a common invisible friend is only one possibility.

Well, if it is based on common beliefs, you can call it a church. I wouldn't expect my hockey team to help me with faith issues, but input from my faith group could influence me how I behave on the hockey team (the job, with my friends).

Another difference: Church community should be open to everyone and free.- While other interests groups can get quiet expensive.

(Mind you, once you you are involved in it you find yourself spending time and money to keep it running, that is, if you want to have a paid minister and a church building).

If it wasn't based on a comon faith, I would suggest you can  socialize in other clubs, same is for social work- there are enough service clubs to join in for that.

Here is another longish post. It is an article by Anthony Robinson, which appears in the current issue of The Christian Century.

God at the center

What's church about?

by Anthony B. Robinson

At a church leadership retreat, a tall man with a mustache and red suspenders stands up and says, "Several of us here find ourselves wondering if our church is still God-centered. It seems to us something's missing." At another retreat, a woman blurts out, "But what do we believe? That's what I want to know." Others in her group seem unnerved by her comment, as if an unwritten rule of discourse has been violated. But a few moments later, another woman adds, "Yes, I sometimes feel we're not sure who we are or what we believe." I lead leadership retreats, and I often hear concerns about identity and belief. Sometimes the questions are framed more broadly. "How do all the programs or activities that we do as a church fit together?" or "What's the center?" At one session, part of an exploration of one congregation's strengths and needs, a middle-aged woman ventured, "I'm not sure I quite know how to say this, but I think what we are longing for is the experience of God's presence." In a Minnesota congregation, people over 60 or 70 seemed comfortable with the church being a hub of social activities and community service. Those under 40, however, had been drawn to the church by a new pastor. They expressed a desire to talk "about God, about spiritual things." One man said he would like to be able to speak with others in the congregation about his experience of prayer but lamented that "somehow that seems off limits here." It can take courage to say "I'm not sure we know what we believe" or "I wonder if our church is God-centered." After all, these are basic issues of core beliefs as well as the basis for belonging to a particular congregation. Perhaps one way to describe what is going on is to observe that ethics—how we are to live, act and treat one another—sometimes becomes separated from theology, our beliefs about and experience of God, or that ethics trumps theology, reducing Christianity to being and doing good. A slightly different way to put it is to say that salvation has been reframed as a sociological reality, rather than a theological one. Salvation is seen as having to do with being or becoming a particular kind of community or society. There's little explicitly said about who God is, what God has done or is doing, or what difference the latter makes. How might congregations and their leaders respond to the concerns I have heard expressed? How might they put God at the center of the church? I offer some suggestions based on my own experience as a congregational leader and on my observation of lively, mainline congregations where God is at the center and informs vital ministries of service and public witness. At Plymouth Church (UCC) in Seattle a series known as "Faith Journeys" has become a popular part of the summer menu. Each Sunday, for eight or ten weeks, one person is invited to talk about his or her faith journey. These members of the congregation are invited to reflect on their experience of God's presence in their life and God's absence, the people and events who have shaped or inspired their faith most, and the faith convictions they affirm and those with which they struggle. The series began with two questions: Would members of the congregation be willing to give such talks and would anyone come to hear them? Both questions found not just an affirmative answer, but an enthusiastic one. Moreover, in discussion following a person's "testimony," the responses tended to be less on the order of "I agree/disagree" and more "What you said spoke to me" or "touched me." The tenor of discussion was less head than heart. This Seattle congregation was recovering the practice of testimony. Lillian Daniel has written about how a congregation she served decided that there would be "no more God-less announcements." If someone had something to say in worship it would need to have something, somehow, to do with God. While few mainline congregations may use the word testimony, they may still practice it when they invite people to speak about how they have experienced God's presence in their lives and in the church or in calls to action. (See Lillian Daniel, Telling It Like It Is: Reclaiming the Practice of Testimony, and Tom Long, Testimony: Talking Our selves into Being Christian.) A related suggestion is to rediscover the practice of discernment. At Wellesley Congregational Church in Massachusetts, consultants told church leaders that a capital drive was unlikely to succeed because people in the congregation were unclear about the "overarching purpose" of the church, or "what this was all about." Church leaders put the fund drive on hold while the congregation engaged in a two-year-long process of discernment. Members explored two questions: "Where do you sense God's presence in the life of our church today?" and "Where do you sense God is calling us to go in the future?" As they listened to one another and to the prompting of the Holy Spirit, a core purpose statement emerged, one that has guided the church's life since. "We seek in every way, in every setting, growth in faith." Another strategy for putting God at the center of the church's life is to learn from people who have been a part of a 12-step or recovery group. Many people find their way to churches after their experience in a 12-step group, where they have encountered the famous first steps on the journey to recovery. The first step acknowledges human limits: "We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable"; the second step opens the door to faith: "Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity"; the third walks through the opened door: "Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him." Most people who've been involved in Alcoholics Anonymous or other 12-step programs are cautious about saying much about it, perhaps to avoid the temp tations of boasting or grandiosity. Still, their depth of experience can act as leaven in the loaf of a congregation's life. People who have "worked the program" often possess a healthy degree of self-doubt as well as openness to God. "I'd be the last person to know what's right for me," said one veteran of AA. Her comment on Sunday sermons: "I don't need every week to be reminded of my responsibilities, but I do need every week to be reminded of God's grace." All of us have some brokenness to work on and need healing. With this in mind, Glide Memorial Church (United Methodist) in San Francisco and the New Creation Com munity in Seattle created recovery groups that put housed and homeless, middle-class and poor, addicted and nonaddicted people together in small groups to work on their healing and recovery. The groups utilize both testimony and discernment practices, with people speaking of God's presence in their lives and asking what God is up to and how they are to respond. A fourth way congregations can put God at the center is by seeking a healthy balance between giving and receiving. Many mainline congregations with a strong ethical bent prioritize giving. They emphasize maxims such as "It is better to give than to receive" or "God has no hands but ours," and members are encouraged to be givers, doers and leaders. Receiving is more difficult. When I arrived at a church as pastor, I was told that on communion Sundays (four a year) attendance would drop by half. I suspected that for some reason communion was uncomfortable for members of this congregation, who preferred to be doing, giving and leading. The sacrament, after all, asks us to open our hands and our mouths and be on the receiving end. I preached on John 13 in which Peter at first refuses to allow Jesus to wash his feet. "I understand Peter," I said. "He was ready and willing to wash Jesus' feet, to be a giver and a doer. He was not so comfortable being on the receiving end, having Jesus wash his feet. But perhaps Peter helps us see that giving may not only be more blessed, but also easier. Giving puts us in control. Receiving makes us vulnerable." Over time members of the congregation acknowledged their need to receive as well as give and found new joy and meaning in the sacraments. As they went about their many vital service ministries, they practiced reflecting on their work with three questions: What did you give? What did you receive? Where did you experience God in this? Some strategies for putting God at the center of congregational life pertain more to preachers and teachers. Fleming Rutledge encourages preachers to pay attention to the subject of their verbs. She notes that human beings are too often the subject of the verbs in a sermon, and she suggests that God ought to be the subject instead. We are to preach not only about what we are to do but also about what God has done, what God is doing and what God can do. This is the stock-in-trade of African-American preaching, a tradition that seems to have no difficulty bridging the gap between theology and ethics. Social justice issues are central, but so too is the presence and power of God. Preachers who wish to learn from this homiletical tradition may appreciate Power in the Pulpit: How America's Most Effective Black Preachers Prepare Their Sermons, edited by Cleophus J. LaRue (Westminster John Knox), and the second volume, More Power in the Pulpit. Paul Scott Wilson aims to renew the homiletical form of "proclamation" in Setting Words on Fire: Putting God at the Center of the Sermon (Abingdon). He writes: "People need not just information about God—they need communication from God. They need to hear God speaking. They need to experience the presence and love of God directing and shaping them as individuals and into communities of faith." Wilson argues that proclamation is communication from God. One pastor I worked with found that God moved to the center of church life when members asked her to teach a class on the creeds of the church. As a part of a noncreedal denomination, she was doubtful that people would be interested. I really didn't think anyone would show up," she said, "but we had 25 people every week for eight weeks." The pastor emphasized that in the creeds the church "is trying to get at the heart of the faith in brief, memorable ways" and, at different times in history, is trying to answer the question, "What do Christians believe?" She covered the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds, the Heidelberg Catechism, and more recent statements of faith from the United Church of Canada and the United Church of Christ. She looked at the creeds in historical context to get at the issues that people were struggling with in other times, and compared the Christian's relationship with creeds to a cave explorer's search for a secure "fixed point, a place to tie your rope, from which you can explore." She used different creeds in worship and reminded worshipers that the creeds were not tests of faith but the attempts of our forebears to answer basic questions in their own time and place. Not long ago I was scheduled to speak at Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims in Brooklyn, New York. A lay leader showed me around the building and related the church's history. During the 19th century the congregation was led by abolitionist preacher Henry Ward Beecher, who led the campaign against slavery from the pulpit. But in the latter half of the 20th century the church experienced steady decline. "Yes," said my guide, "I feared that our church would close its doors and die. We were down to about 30 people, many elderly. But in the last ten years there's been a kind of revival. There are lots of new people coming, younger people. We have reconnected with our community. There's new life. Our minister had a lot to do with it. He got us studying the Bible. In fact," he said, with a wry smile, "our minister can sum up the message of the entire Bible in six words: 'I am God and you're not.'" Apparently God was at the center of that church's life.

Anthony B. Robinson is president of Congregational Leadership Northwest. His most recent book is Changing the Conversation: A Third Way for Congregations (Eerdmans).

http://www.christiancentury.org/article.lasso