Micro-church: a post-congregational expression

I grew up going to church.  My parents became Lutheran members of a congregation in Illinois and found a Lutheran congregation that shared the same name when we migrated to New York State.  I was a member of Our Saviour Lutheran in Rockford, by baptism; and of Our Saviour, Utica, by transfer and by confirmation.  I became a member of Grace Lutheran and of Zion Lutheran by letter of call as ordained pastor. I loved weekly liturgy and started assisting the pastor in the worship service as a teen.  I was weird, compared to my peers.  I was weird, compared to adult members.  My faith life was activated.   I listened and believed.  And I loved potlucks, Lenten services, and singing in the choir.  I never thought I would become critical of the Lutheran Christian culture that formed me.  I do so out of a deep, abiding love for Jesus and his church.  I do so out of a sense of obligation to serve Him and the church I love.  I have loved and benefited from congregational life.  I appreciate a sense of belonging to a people and a place, a holy dwelling place where God's promises are spoken and received.  The familiarity of a particular congregation and its sanctuary/building is emotionally comforting in the face of an ever-changing world.

But as a member of a congregation, I also experienced the community of believers, even at a young age, as something bigger than or beyond a congregational identity alone.  Whether it was through ecumenical events, youth events with other congregations, synod events, outdoor ministry experiences, or campus ministry, I experienced church in other ways.  I know that for people in my parent's generation and older, the congregation was the exclusive way they experienced church.  For some people, their entire Christian life was connected to one congregation, one parish, one church gathering space, one way of being the church in the world.  At some point, I began to question the limited scope of a single congregational experience.  What were people missing theologically and ecclesially as people of God, as a result of residing in one exclusive church "home" or "family"?  My assumption, based on my own exposure to a broader ecclesial picture, was that congregational life was too narrow and too homogeneous and too limited.  But how might that be tested? And what might be an alternative?  As the postmodern age settles in and the disillusionment of the 20th century dismantles old ways of knowing and understanding truth, God, faith, and human life on the earth, it became clear to me that Christian people were going to have to think critically about the practices and assumptions we have embraced.  Could it be that the Spirit of the living God might build another way to be church in the world? Emerging faith practitioners of this postmodern age are responding to that impulse with experimental ecclesial language, visions for alternative communities, and seeds of new expression.  Even as new ways emerge, however, the congregation continues to dominate the church's visible, corporate identity. Hundreds of years of congregation-building will not stop overnight, despite the rapid decline and deaths of congregational systems in the West.  We will have to return to the biblical narrative, to the stories of resurrection, liberation, and renewal to hear a fresh proposal from God about what it means to live as a new creation, to follow Jesus with passion and hope, and to receive inspiration for present day communal life.

For the better part of the modern age, beginning at least in the reformation era,the primary locus of church expression has been the congregation.  With the exception of the Roman Catholic parochial expression, which preceded congregationalist expression and also became fixed corporate entities for the purpose of gathering Christians together, most Christians have entered and lived out there lives of faith in and with congregations.
Congregations, by nature, are public gatherings that require architecture and space that foster said gatherings.  In the U.S. the local gathering was characterized by a specific building, symbolized by the steeple.  The steeple symbolized the centrality of Christendom in the lives of the American people.  The culture recognized the symbol as a beacon, a marker of divine presence, and a signpost for travelers.  "Here is the church, here is the steeple, open the door and see all the people!"  In the 20th century, congregations and their buildings were the center of social and cultural America.  These "sanctuaries" were full. Pews and pulpits dominated the landscape of American urban and village life.  These buildings were visible signs of God's activity in the world.    

For many Christians, the property and its symbols became the only location where God's promises, powers, and presence were made known.  The congregation was the center of one's social life, the place where one raised children with others, the place where one's anxieties over life and death matters were resolved or, at least, held in check.  Congregational life was characterized by place.  One's sense of belonging to the church and to Jesus was directly established through one particular congregation or parish.  Along with that, one's sense of knowing God or Jesus came through a congregational priest or pastor.  Both the building and the ministerial office mediated the presence of God for a particular people in a particular location.  These things, in American cultural Christianity, transcended doctrinal and tribal boundaries.  Almost every Christian tribe born out of the reformation and modernist age embodied a congregational existence. Essential to the congregation's DNA is the gathering of a people who are committed enough to its self-preservation as church that they will contribute to its ongoing maintenance and work, without a need to discern a theological purpose or mission.  A congregation's mission was and is to exist as a congregation for its own sake.  Many congregations continue to exist because of their historical or nostalgic significance to a people group or community.  Devoid of any public, evangelical mission these congregations are about self-perpetuation and self-preservation.  The nature of congregation was dominated by the abundance or scarcity of resources.  Congregations with more resources, human and financial, continued to thrive.  In order to acquire more resources, some congregations relocated from decaying, impoverished urban centers into the suburbs.  Stewardship programs, popularized in the second half of the 20th century, capitalized on the ongoing urgency of congregations to acquire the necessary resources to maintain the institution.  The annual fund-drive and the annual pledge were designed to bolster commitments to the congregation and insure its ongoing expression.      
Familiarity, sameness over time, and the comfort in knowing that one belonged to a certain group of people, who would care about you until you die are the often unspoken reasons behind congregational commitments.
I am aware that for many Christian people, their faith in God and devotion of Jesus motivate their commitments.  But there has been no need for imagination about the way we practice that faith because congregational systems were accepted, established religious institutions that retained value in and outside of the faith community itself.  Non-members esteemed these institutions with good intentions and good will that served to promote common values and cultural mores.

But now, sixty years after the post-world war two baby boom, congregational Christianity does not maintain a high cultural standing. Children raised in congregations do not guarantee future congregational contributors when they reach adulthood.  People born after 1950 seem to have lost a sense of obligation to maintain religious institutions, unless there is a sense of meaning or purpose with which they personally resonate.  One's religious allegiances are subject to change, not stationary, and consumeristic.  People choose church based on their personal needs, wants, and preferences.  
Many people are ambivalent toward the local church.  Congregations are seen as dens of judgmental and arrogant hypocrites. Church leaders are considered untrustworthy, glory hounds, enclosed in a narrow dogmatic worldview, who lack the skills to intrepret and speak the vernacular.  Congregations have been identified as exclusive, self-serving social clubs for older members.  And in a consumer, market-driven culture, "new and improved" ways take precedence over old, traditional, sameness.  This culture values diversity, variety, and personal experience over a homogeneous corporate institution.  The result has been a deep erosion in the well-worn path of American religious expression called "congregation".  Congregations are dying.  At best they are holding on to a precarious position in this culture that expects conformity and assimilation of its vales and tastes, in order to gain approval, relevance, and support.  So, congregations either "get on board" or slowly drown.  The reactive nature of congregations straining to survive this new climate is difficult to watch, like watching a hospice patient gasping for breath.  They strike out in opposition to anyone and anything threatening their traditionalist way of life.  They resolve to maintain their present position.  They refuse to move or to be moved.  They refuse to yield or submit to the forces at work among us.  They "circle the wagons."  They try to reignite old, familiar ways of institutional maintainence.  Its like trying to fix an electric car with the tools and skills to fix a combustion engine.  When the tools don't work, what can you do?              

So what does it mean when the steeple and the large nave below it are empty, have become historic landmarks or museum pieces, rather than living embodiments of God's promises?  And what of the 20th century alternatives to denominational, doctrinal, confessional, reformation churches?  What about the pentecostals, the "fundagelicals",  the vineyard movement, and independent megachurches?  How do they fit into the ecclesial landscape?  Read about the hyper-congregationalist reaction to postmodernity in my next posting...