So What Do People Think Of Church?

Our first project as a team was based around a question: how do people outside church walls view the church? And how does that differ from those who are regular church goers? The '6 Words About Church' Survey sought to answer this question. In total, we polled 1,300 people from across the diocese, state, and nation. Less than 23% of those polled classified themselves as not regularly attending church.While we would have liked to see that number closer to 50%, most unchurched people seemed to respond along similar lines.

To display our results, I've generated two Wordles. Try to guess which one is from people who are unchurched and those who are churched. (The size of each word is proportional to its frequency of being a word in people's responses.)

On the surface, they seem rather similar. The top responses in both categories include the words worship, love, peace, family, faith, prayer, jesus, god, music, and community. However, if you look at the smaller words the differences become clear.
If you haven't already guessed, the lower Wordle is from unchurched people. It's common words such as brainwashing, boring, hypocritical and others are where the contrast between the two groups is most evident.

Looking at the Wordle from regular attenders of church also has some interesting qualities. It appears that it has much less variety when it comes to responses than the unchurched. This illusion (if I can use that word?) is caused by the word 'community'. It had twice the number of occurrences than the next most popular word, love. So all the other words simply are in too small a font to see at this scale.

So to wrap this up. The majority of people, churched or not, see the church as a community, a family, a place to worship, a place to pray. Some people, slightly more unchurched than churched, see the church as a building. It was stained glass windows, some are Catholic, it has a religion, it is a place, it takes out time on Sunday morning. And a few people, more unchurched than not, have been very hurt by the church, and likely continue to be.

Each person sees the church from their perspective. A completely honest perspective, despite strong differences in opinion to others. From my perspective, I see the church as a having a mission to fulfill. The church is meant to do nothing else than incarnate the Body of Christ. Loving, Helping, Teaching, Serving, Hoping, Believing. Now that we know where we are, we can set out to where we are going.

What is "Community?"

"Community" is a word that can mean a whole lot of things.

It's a group of people that have all chosen to live near each other for whatever reason.  I think of the small town I was raised in as a great exemplar of this. There were 11,000 people there who chose to live in that particular place, about 125 miles from the nearest metro area, and that bound us all together in a particular way. Fairmont, Minnesota is a community, as is Montesano, and Battle Ground, and Ballard, and Tacoma.

But it's also a group of people bound together by a common interest, or a common unifying identity. This is how we speak of communities bound together by racial or cultural identity, as well as folks who have an interest, like the sabermetrics community, the folks who seek to analyze baseball statistics to find objective data about baseball (it comes from an acronym, SABR, or the Society for American Baseball Research (you can learn more here.)

In a way, we as Episcopalians have that, since we all chose to attend Episcopal churches, and identify ourselves as Episcopalians. But that kind of community is a double-edged sword. Often, identifying ourselves is as good a way to keep people out of a community as it is to make people a part of a community. The way we use language definitely helps make that happen. In Rite I, we pray the confession together saying "We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness." I'm not entirely sure what we mean by that, and I have a theological degree. I'm confident that this kind of language makes some people feel included, and some excluded.

But the sense of "community" I want us to think about is the shared feeling of fellowship. Community as a sense, rather than as a thing. Because it strikes me that being a community is irrelevant if we don't have the sense of ourselves as a community, then it's harder for us to live like a community. That's part of what's so tricky about being a diocese; we're a large community made up of individual communities, and it's hard to get a sense of what it means for us to be that big, diocesan community. 

What does it mean to you to be in a community as large as the Diocese of Olympia (or whatever diocese you're a part of)? Do you feel connected, and what is your experience of community on that larger scale?

R.C.

Why Should We Be A Diocese? and Semantics

In our Outside Church Walls Steering Group, we took up the question of "Why be a Diocese?" Of course, there are some obvious answers, because that is the way our church is set up and the ever present, "because it has always been that way!" But the question before us was a bit deeper. It could have been stated as "what" is a diocese?, even better, "what SHOULD a diocese be?" And, we had to keep reminding ourselves we were asking this question not to make this all work better for the "insider" but even more for those who have not found their way to our constructed realities and may never do so.

We have not totally answered that question and perhaps we never will. The answers are as varied as just about any question in the Episcopal Church, but as is usually the case we did find more questions. One that came up for me in this was, "what does it mean to be a diocese now?" The point of it all, in the end, is to be connected, one to another, in some cosmic, spiritual, way. And I find myself wondering just how much of a reality there is in that. Let's be clear, on the face of it, the usual first response I get is that a diocese is a necessary nuisance. People tend to have to spend a bit more time finding what they might consider good and helpful to them. And part of the problem with that to me, is our semantics around this discussion. After being steeped in this for nearly 6 years, I am of the opinion that most people using the word "diocese", in conversation with me, are really talking about "the Office of the Bishop" which is the administrative offices of the diocese, not "the" diocese. This is not a newly discovered problem, but I think it might be one we need to pay attention to as we try to be more who we are, and try to share that being with those who do not know us.

I have also found that those that are truly connected and working with others from across the diocese are more readily able to answer what the "good" of it is. In other words, the more connected with others, the more clarity about the need and relevance of the diocese.

We, every one of us who claims the Episcopal Church, either through baptism or choice, is part of the diocese, you could even say IS the diocese. So, when you hear someone say, "I wish the diocese would do this or that" it is like saying "I wish I would do this or that." But when you say, "I wish the Office of Bishop" would do this or that, it usually is far more honest and makes a lot more sense! And, I believe, it helps us get out of a hang up in some of our conversations which keep us at a very elementary level in it, and also leaves us talking at cross purposes. In short, it leaves us with the real question, what SHOULD a diocese be? Our group is still working on the answer to that one, but I think we have gotten closer to one truth in it, it is all of us, it needs to be all of us, and we are stronger because it is all of us.

Now, the big question, how do we use that to share the truly Good News of Jesus Christ?

Greg+

Church Living in a Diasporic Context

“I do not know what is all the fuss about driving here. This is like driving at home.” I told my wife while driving through NYC. “Of course it is like driving at home,” she responded, “there as many Puerto Ricans in NY as in the island of Puerto Rico.” Clever! As of now, 2013, there are almost 5 million Puerto Ricans living in the USA. I am one of them. I have made my home in the West Coast, which by generalization, as a Latino, I am Mexican. Yes, Mexican. Oh the many times in which I have been asked where in Mexico is Puerto Rico. Or the questions about my immigration status and citizenship. And the ever present comment about 5 de Mayo and El Día de los Muertos celebrations, both Mexican traditions, not Puerto Rican. However, by generalization as well, from my Latinos compadres and comadres, I’m label as an other - not Latino enough. Yes, someone being born with a citizenship and not having gone through the hardships of immigration issues disqualify in the West Coast as a bona fide Latino.

Why is this in the Outside Church Wall? Diasporic hermeneutics (mind you I am in seminary and once in a while I need to show that all those years of schooling are sticking). People living in the Diasporas are constantly in the need of cultural adaptation, negotiation and re-creation. Like myself, many live in the in-between space of not being from here or there. We make a new place for us. We learn to not to give ourselves to the nostalgic cultural representation of our culture’s (countries) past, neither give ourselves to full assimilation to our new context. Almost 5 million Puerto Rican’s in the USA diaspora (by then one wonder how useful that concept really is) live differently than the almost 5 million Puerto Rican’s living in the island of Puerto Rico and yet we have not fully assimilated to whatever it is to be USAmerican. Many of us expressing ourselves in Spanish, English and Spanglish. Ok, for real now, why is this in the Outside Church Wall? “Times, they are a-changing” stated Bob Dylan or as Cuban Troubadour Pablo Milanes would say “El tiempo pasa y nos vamos poniendo viejos” Things change, cultural expression change, context change. Anglicanism emerged out and propelled cultural and contextual changes. I wonder about the creative ideas that might emerge if as Episcopalians we give thought about cultural changes and imagine (if ever so briefly) as a church living in a diasporic context. Really, not the Episcopal Church of Anglophile colonial time, neither a church completely devoid of identity - not one of a hundred years ago, neither one that would be the same in 100 years, heck in 30, 20, 10 years. I wonder if we could experiment with setting nostalgia and fear of losing ourselves aside, and push strong enough the metaphor of the Via Media, the middle way, the in-between in ways in which new expressions of being can emerge and propelled into the future.

Eliacin

No Outcasts

That is how I concluded my last blog as a member of the Diocesan Steering Team going from “Do our coffee hours define us?” to “How do we reach out to others so that Christ’s message of love and inclusion brings them from outside church walls...inside?”

Since that posting, there have been many reminders to me that a lot of people have the same questions in their hearts. Kelly, in her “orientation” blog 6/10/13 asks how can the church reach out to those who need God’s love? What is God calling us to do to join with people where they are? Greg Rhodes blog 6/13/13 “Values, Norms & Habits” asks “Will there be a place for me? Is my church going to leave me?”

Saturday, 6/15/13, Forward Day by Day daily meditations from Luke 20:1-8 “then Jesus said to them, neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.” It speaks to authority being a tricky thing and using the servant ministry of Deacons the power to mobilize others to service or hoard the privilege of leadership. Jesus surrounded Himself with simple folks, not the religious leaders of His time! He healed sinners and love to ALL! Authority is one of the hardest things to give away. When it is about control, it can often end in death. When it is about invitation it leads toward life.

Greg Rhodes sent to the OCW Steering Team a copy of a daily meditation from Richard Rohr, a Franciscan priest. It speaks directly to our work, “The Sin of Exclusion.” Copied below is the text that is included.

Those at the edge of any system and those excluded from any system ironic and invariably hold the secret for the conversion and wholeness of that very group. They always hold the feared, rejected, and denied parts the group’s soul. You see, therefore, why the church was meant to be that group that constantly went to the edges to the “least of the brothers and sisters,” and even to the enemy. Jesus was not just a theological genius, but he was also a psychological genius. When any church defines itself by exclusion of anybody, it is always wrong. It is avoiding the only vocation, which is to be the Christ. The only groups that Jesus seriously critiques are those who include themselves and exclude others from the always-given grace of God.

Only as the People of God receive the stranger, the sinner, and the immigrant, those who don’t play our game our way, do we discover not only the hidden, feared, and hated parts of our own souls, but the fullness of Jesus himself. We need them for our own conversion.

The Church is always converted when the outcasts are re-invited back in the temple. You see this in Jesus’ commonly sending marginalized people that He has healed back into the village, back to their family, or back to the temple to “sho themselves to the priests.” It is not just for their re-inclusion and acceptance, but actually for the group itself to be renewed.

“If you’d like to subscribe to Richard Rohr’s daily medications, you can use this link:

https://cac.ord/sign-up. Please not that Outside Church Walls is not affiliated with Richard Rohr or the Center for Action and Contemplation.”

Again I end: “No Outcasts”

Chuck

Values, Norms and Habits

Will there still be a place for me?

Will the things that matter to me – that I love – still exist here?

Is my church going to leave me?

The prospect of change in an institution where we feel safe makes us anxious. Our sense of belonging is challenged and threatened. It’s a natural human response, made worse in our time by the rapid, often unsettling changes that surround us. We want our church to be a refuge.

I sometimes refer to the Episcopal Church and my congregation as “My Church.” In reality, however, it’s God’s church, a vehicle for the work and grace of God to reach into the world. It’s not that the church doesn’t exist for those currently in it, but it exists equally for those outside. The church isn’t a building, though it’s easy for me to default to that conception of it. The church represents action. Anywhere and anytime God’s work is happening in the world, the church is present there.

As I think and pray about the future of the Episcopal Church, I wonder how the church can hear the voice of the Holy Spirit in the midst of the chaos surrounding it, I wonder about change (who has the right to call for it and who has the right to block it?), and I wonder about how we identify what is valuable to remain and what is no longer necessary.

My thinking has begun to focus on the distinction between values, norms and habits. Values are core understandings that have been revealed or chosen over time, with care. We Episcopalians as a group value the centrality of grace and we embrace mystery, for instance. They are expressions of our core.

Norms are the rules that structure our life together. These are sometimes carefully negotiated and sometimes have simply grown over time (and no one remembers when they began). A norm at one church might be that intercessory prayers are made silently; at another church the might be spoken aloud.

Habits are behaviors we take on, often for our convenience and without prior thought. I sit in the same corner of the same pew nearly every Sunday. It is literally my “comfort zone.” Other people go to coffee hour and sit with the same friends they’ve seen each week for twenty years.

As we think about the future of God’s church, what is essential and what is not, I am thinking about values, norms and habits. It seems to me that values are enduring, carefully chosen and carefully changed. It’s not that they are immutable, but they are resilient. Norms – particularly those carefully chosen – are useful and may be effective, but they are more subject to change than values. Habits are subject to change most of all.

What values, norms and habits matter most to you, and which ones are you willing to consider changing?

Greg Rhodes

Orientation

Who is the church for?  We have been considering this fundamental question. Is it primarily for those already within the walls, those we know and feel comfortable with? Or is it also for those not yet here?  I love the Episcopal Church and all it has to offer, and know that the church could be a blessing to many who have never been inside our doors. Those folks pull on my heart as our group considers our future. As we work, study, pray, and discern, I look to them.  How could the church address the hunger in their hearts?  How could the church touch their lives in ways that matter? What is God calling us to do, as part of the body of Christ, to join with people where they are?

Kelly