Not to mention, I've been having a hard time figuring out what to write about. And then tonight's event just fell into my lap (or, more appropriately, into my email inbox and onto my calendar).
Tonight I got the opportunity to attend "Innovating Tradition: A Conversation with Two Urban Pastors on the Future of the Church." The event was held at Calvary Baptist Church in the heart of Washington, DC, and it featured pastor Amy Butler (AB) and special guest Nadia Bolz-Weber (NBW). While the context of the assembly was NBW's book tour, the real centerpiece of the conversation was how church in America must evolve to be a true source of relevant spiritual nourishment in the contemporary world. At the risk of oversimplifying, I want to remark quickly on three major themes I heard:
1. Rigor. People are tired of tough questions being avoided. Everyone theologizes from the conditions of their own lives to their relationship with God, and when life hands them hard questions, pat answers don't do the trick. A rigorous faith is a healthy faith, and a rigorous faith must challenge us to meet the difficult stuff with courage and with the confidence that God enters that deep searching process with us. As NBW would say, "God wasn't looking down on the cross; God was hanging on the cross." Theology needs to be real, to acknowledge and mark human pain and suffering, and it is faithful rigor that helps us to have a robust theology that can meet such challenges with integrity, even if it doesn't meet them with clear answers.
2. Authenticity. Okay, folks, let's be real. Good marketing may get people through the doors of the church, but it's not going to keep them there. And watering things down may appeal to those who don't want to commit, but healthy communities of faith bloom from genuinely sharing in life with each other. Being a "successful" church is not about corporate measurements like numbers and money and extensive programming. It's the "moments of holy grace," in the words of AB, that mark genuine community with an honest sense of who they are, keeping each other company on this messy journey of trying to live into the life Christ calls us to. Let's stop pretending to be who we aren't.
3. Participation. People need to be able to commit to and invest in their faith, and faith communities need to offer opportunities to do that in tangible, meaningful ways. Faith is an active thing when it is real. If Jesus is calling us to a radical way of living, then when we claim Jesus, let's live it. And let's make it so the participation in our communities empowers us to participate in that life outside the church as well. NBW talks about being "anti-excellence, pro-participation." The goal is not to be the best at any of this church stuff; the goal is to be deep into it, actively discerning and engaging. That's what gives church life.
I think we make these three factors into abstract, distant ideas of what we want to the church to look like, but when we actually develop "strategies" for how we want to construct congregational life, we just hope we'll end up getting to these goals eventually if we take care of our other concerns first. We figure they'll be inevitable side effects if we get the "right people" into the pews and the "right music" into the worship service. But we can't compromise these goals for anything less. They're what we need to pursue for our life together as we collectively pursue God, and they illuminate the faithful way forward into living as the Church.
I would love to hear your reflections on this! What would you add to or change about these three key points?
No comments:
Post a Comment