For The Record

Submit birth, marriage and obituary records online.

Personal Ads

Meet new friends today!

Advertising

Put your message in front of 19,000 readers.

PDF documents on this site require the free Adobe Reader:

Get Adobe Reader

2007-03-06 issue:

Retrieve, rehab, recover

Read Families

by Gerald Shenk

Print Article

In conversation over a meal with several acquaintances, one woman—single in mid-life—observed: “I know why I made the choices I did to prepare and focus on a career, and I understand how that was different from choosing a path toward marriage and family, but I never realized it could be so lonely.” Her tone was not remorseful so much as profoundly bewildered over the cumulative impact of reasonable decisions shaped in response (as I understood her) to God’s call on her life.

We are slow to recognize in our congregations the new reality that half the adults in this society are not married. Whether by choice or in bereavement or by default, the people whose world is not shaped primarily in conjunction with a partner in marriage are now moving into a social majority that will change the reality of congregational life.

“If you have a new world, you need a new church,” Brian McLaren observes. He adds, “You have a new world.” Part of this new world reality is shaped prominently by its fabulous new technologies, and many of them offer more connectivity than ever. Time spent in the blogosphere or chat rooms, however, is no substitute for face-to-face interaction with fellow pilgrims on a shared spiritual journey. For a time, people may find intriguing diversions by slipping through the portals of the Internet. Will the new church be there, when refugees (some simply lonely, others wounded and possibly addicted) stumble back from cyberspace or individual pursuits, longing for real human contact?

In the wake of sudden job loss or career jolt, in the turbulence of bonds broken and discarded by an unfaithful spouse, in the social abandonment of the elderly and the young alike, true community is ever more difficult to locate and achieve.

“New church” ideas are stirring much imagination these days. It’s not as if everything we know of life in the body of Christ must be scrapped and rediscovered from scratch. But it seems many people are increasingly suspicious, resisting easy formulas and stale solutions. They are especially allergic to the old arrogance that managed to communicate both hollow perfection and thin self-righteousness.

Last month I visited a nearby start-up community church that appears to be vaguely Baptist in its tradition. In its first two years it has grown from 80 to 240 participants, including 90 children in the burgeoning youth program. Two points were emphasized at least five times in the first 10 minutes of the service: “We don’t judge you for how you’re dressed when you come for worship, and we don’t ask how many relationships you’ve had.” What does this tell us about the barriers newcomers anticipate when encountering church standards?

In another fledgling effort, a team of us have begun to live into the practice of hospitality—at the Lord’s Table, “where grace is offered and makes its claim,” and at our family tables. We regularly disperse to host homes with all who can join us after the morning worship for a hearty noon meal and extended conversation in Sabbath time.

As a single mother joined us one Sunday, she received a distressed call from her son, who discovered an alarm sounding for carbon monoxide in their home (some distance away). People around the table swarmed toward the problem, testing ideas and resources to mobilize in determining the level of actual threat. Phone calls worked the lines of advice, specialists were contacted and the puzzle was solved with some valuable learning in community.

Parenting alone and far from extended family, the challenges for coping are immense. The young son, a new driver, discovered the importance of keeping the garage door open while warming an old car’s engine on a cold morning—literally a life-saving exchange. Thank God for the alarm and for the surging strength in body life of an emerging faith community, affirmed when we allow ourselves to reach this level of engagement with ordinary reality. Worship in the express lane can’t match it.

Patterns of living alone in our culture are more and more widespread. The simple fact emerges: churches cannot assume that the priority or majority of family units in the congregation will be married-with-kids. The strengths of “new church” (and “old church” as well) will lie in our ability to reconnect people into the social fabric of interwoven homes and links for fellowship beyond the single hour reserved for Sunday worship. And who knows? Perhaps the church of Jesus Christ, whether new or old, will take a turn onto a slower lane and renew our hospitality by extending the table right into real life and sabbath rest.

Gerald Shenk teaches at Eastern Mennonite Seminary, Harrisonburg, Va.

Reader Comments

Add Comments