Church - reduced to an 'event'

I've been thinking about how people move around churches every so often. I think about how we try to find something that both reflects our needs and also our understanding of how church should be. We then think that this is the 'right' place.

We have a number of small elderly congregations in our regional centre that have stayed the same size for the last 20 years, and probably further back if you were to track it. And then there are some 'mid-sized' churches with a good mix of ages and some larger 'mega-church' clones of various persuasions. The mega church types would seem to be skewed to the under 40's and be best represented by the under 30's.

So where are the 'oldies'?
Well they are in the small churches.

I don't think there's too much wrong with the small church reinforcing its cultural paradigm for those whose faith resonates in a time gone by. The richness of timeless hymns and the liturgical ritals steeped in tradition have been the only language and expression of faith for an aging christian demographic. If there's growth, then there's Christ.

But where is the multi-generational church? It would seem to exist only where generational differences can coexist. Indeed, where these differences are are workable, or, where one generation gives grace to the other. My observations have been that a middle-class 'middle of the road' approach can achieve a multi-generational church. But it comes with compromises.

Ultimately, the more church feels 'right' for you, the more it caters to your intrinsic communication and relational style that is inevitably imprinted through your generational conditioning. This has little to do with Truth and everything to do with who we are. This is a very unspiritual approach to 'church'. So it would seem to have more to do with who we are than who we should be.

Churches have struggled long and hard with the concept of a multi-generational church. Having a night service for youth might seem a good compromise. Yet others jetterson the idea of a multigenerational model and simply 'move with the times', increasing their younger contingent at the expense of their elders.

I have been thinking that perhaps we went wrong when church was reduced to a service...event based Christianity.

How can a Christian event attract, appeal and speak the language of several generations at once, not to mention the sub-cultures that may prevail within each? Why do we think that we can sub-contract relational essentials to 'programs'? Perhaps real church has nothing to do with 10 am Sunday morning, perhaps that's merely a Christian event tailored more specifically to certain groups of people. Perhaps Sunday morning is just a celebration, maybe its a conference that Christians attend ...for good reason.

Perhaps a multi-generational reality can occur relationally within christian communities and has little to do with song #455, an announcement and 45 mins of mediocre teaching. I think we have to move away from that mindset of 'fellowship' which doesn't seem to infer any ongoing connection but an opportunistic meeting and sharing. And that's exactly what event based Christianity delivers.

While GenX and under vanguard the emerging church are we engaging a multigenerational demographic? My curiosity now asks how real church exists outside both the traditional 'event' and the 'cultural cafes' of the EC.

Apart from the 'meeting', (and don't we ultimately crave that function whatever it looks like) can we say we have biblically experienced 'church' if we didn't plan the gathering with a specific spiritual agenda. There needs to be space where people can be people without the cultural languages that so isolate and divide, so that a great diversity people can engage with one another.

Church can be church when when a senior has a round of golf with younger blokes and at the ninth hole, over a beer, the spirits of these different men continue on a deeper journey of compagnionship. A journey where masks are thinly worn, yet are thick at 10am Sunday morning. Could it be that simple?

No time like the present

It is time…
Time to venture back and find some Christian company…
But I still don’t crave an event, a service, tradition or a system….but simply 'church'.
Not just fellowship…but community
Its got to be out there...
Well next Sunday…
Here goes…
Take a deep breath…
Venture back...
Can I do it...

Happy New Year

I'm in my 4th week off work and have another yet to go....whoopee! Had a great New Years, and although I'm hopeless with late nights I managed a 4am finish with a crowd of people most of whom I have never met, but I guess that's half the fun hey. So happy New Year!

Saw Harry Potter 4 and really enjoyed it. I particularly liked advice to Harry from Dumbeldorf, "Harry you have to choose between what is easy and what is right....and remember...you have friends here". It was a good reminder.