Recently, I attended a picnic thrown by another group that I belong to and I was shy. I barely spoke to a soul at the picnic. I had worn my church tee shirt and barely a soul spoke to me.
I was introduced by a person who knew me as a priest—this friend introduced me as the Vicar (that is, the religious leader of my community) “Oh dear”—the fellow said, “I’d better watch my language then.” I had a great opportunity to find some clever come back, to ask him, what can the church do in our community to be of the most help. Or even what’s your perception of the church or of faith? Anything… and I squandered the chance.
I left the picnic asking myself why is this conversation so difficult? Immediately, I began to think of Thanksgiving…
Every year, on our way to Thanksgiving Dinner with my Aunt, my mother would remind us that we were NOT to talk about Religion or Politics over turkey—such topics were not the trappings of polite conversations.
I know that I am not alone in hearing this phrase about religion and politics. Every time I mention the above little vignette, I see heads nod. I see eyes light up in recognition, I hear a chuckle or get a comment, “boy do I know that one!” I suppose its almost cliché. However, this is a part of our background—in our minds, banging up against other ideas all the time.
Now of course, the skeptic in me just has to ask—was Mom right about EVERYTHING? Well, of course not but…
Then there’s knock on the door at the most awful moments in time… and there they are —fellow Christians of some iteration pedaling their church and unfortunately, their motivation is one that makes my skin crawl.
The motivation is that everyone is damned except them and THEIR WAY. A favorite sassy writer that I follow calls folks that believe in this way, “Douchy Christians”.
Putting those two things together, add in the fact that the majority of Episcopalians are Introverts, throw in the mindset of 1950’s/1960’s culture of everyone goes to church and being church looks like a building that people go to, and you have a perfect storm for making the conversation difficult.
How do we have the conversation with those that are outside the walls—and start it incrementally—that is build momentum, build up our skill set of having the conversation slowly, creating skills and understanding so that our church, the Episcopal Church is having that conversation in NEW ways—not knocking on doors and demanding that people join us or else, but rather hearing from people what they long for and want, and telling them what we offer, and figuring out ways that we can be good news in our LARGER communities. That’s where the conversation needs to go.
Recently, two Christian writers that I follow talked about having the conversation outside the church walls through online relationships:
Tom Ehrich’s reflection of July 13 (of morning walk media) talked of faithful conversations online—not as a replacement to eye ball to eye ball conversation, but as a way to meet people where they are—online talking about faith not just with those that have faith but also those that do not.
He talked about some of the virtues of having online relationships—you aren’t judging people based on who they are—age race gender looks etc but you are talking to them, meeting people where they are online. Ehrich makes some great points, he does not mention how rude and out of hand online conversations can get—especially when you are talking about faith.
More telling than Erich’s reflection was one offered by John Shore on his blog. John did something creative. He went on Craig’s List and did the following: I’m “asking non-Christians to send me any short, personal statement they would like Christians to read.
“Specifically,” I wrote, “I’d like to hear how you feel about being on the receiving end of the efforts of Christian evangelicals to convert you. I want to be very clear that this is not a Christian-bashing book; it’s coming from a place that only means well for everyone. Thanks.”
Within days his inbox was full of well over 300 messages—messages that just break my heart—messages about how people find us to be pushy, intolerant and belligerent. To read the article, see the URL below. (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/unfundamentalistchristians/2013/07/what-non-christians-want-christians-to-hear/)
Needless to say, it is a difficult conversation that’s has so much attached to it.
I left the picnic asking myself why is this conversation so difficult? Immediately, I began to think of Thanksgiving…
Every year, on our way to Thanksgiving Dinner with my Aunt, my mother would remind us that we were NOT to talk about Religion or Politics over turkey—such topics were not the trappings of polite conversations.
I know that I am not alone in hearing this phrase about religion and politics. Every time I mention the above little vignette, I see heads nod. I see eyes light up in recognition, I hear a chuckle or get a comment, “boy do I know that one!” I suppose its almost cliché. However, this is a part of our background—in our minds, banging up against other ideas all the time.
Now of course, the skeptic in me just has to ask—was Mom right about EVERYTHING? Well, of course not but…
Then there’s knock on the door at the most awful moments in time… and there they are —fellow Christians of some iteration pedaling their church and unfortunately, their motivation is one that makes my skin crawl.
The motivation is that everyone is damned except them and THEIR WAY. A favorite sassy writer that I follow calls folks that believe in this way, “Douchy Christians”.
Putting those two things together, add in the fact that the majority of Episcopalians are Introverts, throw in the mindset of 1950’s/1960’s culture of everyone goes to church and being church looks like a building that people go to, and you have a perfect storm for making the conversation difficult.
How do we have the conversation with those that are outside the walls—and start it incrementally—that is build momentum, build up our skill set of having the conversation slowly, creating skills and understanding so that our church, the Episcopal Church is having that conversation in NEW ways—not knocking on doors and demanding that people join us or else, but rather hearing from people what they long for and want, and telling them what we offer, and figuring out ways that we can be good news in our LARGER communities. That’s where the conversation needs to go.
Recently, two Christian writers that I follow talked about having the conversation outside the church walls through online relationships:
Tom Ehrich’s reflection of July 13 (of morning walk media) talked of faithful conversations online—not as a replacement to eye ball to eye ball conversation, but as a way to meet people where they are—online talking about faith not just with those that have faith but also those that do not.
He talked about some of the virtues of having online relationships—you aren’t judging people based on who they are—age race gender looks etc but you are talking to them, meeting people where they are online. Ehrich makes some great points, he does not mention how rude and out of hand online conversations can get—especially when you are talking about faith.
More telling than Erich’s reflection was one offered by John Shore on his blog. John did something creative. He went on Craig’s List and did the following: I’m “asking non-Christians to send me any short, personal statement they would like Christians to read.
“Specifically,” I wrote, “I’d like to hear how you feel about being on the receiving end of the efforts of Christian evangelicals to convert you. I want to be very clear that this is not a Christian-bashing book; it’s coming from a place that only means well for everyone. Thanks.”
Within days his inbox was full of well over 300 messages—messages that just break my heart—messages about how people find us to be pushy, intolerant and belligerent. To read the article, see the URL below. (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/unfundamentalistchristians/2013/07/what-non-christians-want-christians-to-hear/)
Needless to say, it is a difficult conversation that’s has so much attached to it.
The question I ask of you, dear reader, is how do you have the conversation with people outside church walls? How do you tell people about your faith? What would you want them to know about your church? What is our good news that we have to share and why should we want to share it?
If you dear reader, are someone that’s stumbled here that is not church, thank you for reading this. Really.
To you, I ask how do we start the conversation with you—and make it a real conversation—not me just ramming my thoughts down your throat or you just trying to run away from me as fast you can? How do we begin to have a respectful conversation about what you think the church is? What should the church know about you? What is the one thing the church needs to do to be good news in our larger community?
Maybe this is the place to start the conversation… here online. And maybe if we get some good conversation happening here, then we might start talking in other places—like coffee houses with our friends or in each others’ yards.
And yes, it does need to happen. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want the public engagement of Christian to be boiled down to words such as bigot, intolerant and yes, douchy Christian.
I want to change the conversation on Christianity. I want the conversation to be not about intolerance, but instead about community. I want the conversation to be about justice instead of bigotry.
I know the conversation is difficult but if want to really be the church—that Christ’s body that is called out to be good news in our community then we have got to have the conversation— and I hope that that conversation starts here.
+George
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