Building Christian Communities

Today's post will be generated almost entirely using quotes from a book I recently finished reading.

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We are actually facing the need, not simply to reorganize the institution of the church... but the need to create something that is not there now -- a community; that is, an environment that has a real unity to is, an organism. Organisms are not legislated. They grow naturally. In other words, an organic process of change is needed to form basic Christian communities... Leaders in the Church today need to understand community dynamics and not just organization dynamics.

Today's church is primarily a service institution, providing worship services and sacraments for all who come to them.

Churches instinctively look for a specific solution to the specific problem (a structural solution to a structural problem, a financial solution to a financial problem, etc.). They can accept the fact that spiritual renewal is important, but they cannot see how it has direct application to the specific problems which are clamoring for attention. And so they naturally try to deal with the pressuring problems first and do not get around to turning their attention to the problem of spiritual renewal.

This approach has to begin by the recognition that the church needs subcommunities and that these should be considered an integral part of the church life. It should involve forming the communities in an organic way -- that is, not be assigning people to form a community, but by fostering the beginnings of community among a group of people -- and encouraging and guiding their growth into a basic Christian community... Eventually, as there were a number of these communities that were successful, everyone in the church might find a place in such a community, and the church building would be a service unit at which a number of communities might gather and it could also provide some services that basic communities might find difficult to provide out of their own resources.

Although there are many factors which go into making a community vital, the most direct source of vitality is purpose and the commitment of the members to that purpose. If a community has a purpose that is clear and compelling, one that seems to be of real importance, and if its members are committed to that purpose and therefore put as many of their resources as possible into fostering that purpose, the community will be a vital community. If the community has no purpose, it will not last, no matter how well-structured it is.

...it might be possible to think that what the Church most needed was sociologists or community organizers. But this is not at all true. What the Church needs most is men of God, men who can and will function as pastors, evangelists, spiritual directors... Communities are not formed primarily by sociologists and community directors. They are formed by leaders of men who are dedicated to something.

A functional approach is work-oriented. It is oriented to getting a job done. An environmental approach is interaction-oriented or value-oriented. It is oriented to getting a group of people together who share certain values or concerns. It focuses on the growth of the relationship among people and on how people are being changed for the better... Some business executives are effective at getting production but poor in their ability to draw people together.

...From this point of view, much of what happens in the Church today is not very effective. There are many activities and many organizations. They do things which are good. But they do not build up a community of people committed to Christ and so they are ineffective in meeting the main pastoral needs of the Church today... [Even if] the Church were primarily an institution which was supposed to provide certain services (educational services, worship services, and social change services), it lacks... But if the Church is primarily supposed to be a community of people committed to Christ, there is an even more serious problem -- the lack of any community being built up through these activities.

A good term for the type of leadership that is natural to a community is "elder." An elder has a position. He is one of the recognized heads, and he has an openly accepted responsibility for the order of community life. But he is chose because he really is one of the elders, and not only in name. He is chose because he has a natural positions of respect and leadership in that community. His opinions and decisions "count" more than most people's... This would be true even if he did not have the position. In a properly functioning community, the position reflects the reality.

Watching for leaders as they emerge does not mean making the mistake of picking the people who are already in Church organizations, because they are usually there because they volunteered and are frequently ineffective in forming Christian communities. Nor does it mean electing people, because there is not enough community in the Church today where an election would be a good indication of how the community accepts a person as a leader... It means observing where real Christian communities are being formed effectively and picking the people who are responsible for that process.

The solution to the problem of climate and of coordination can be provided only by those who have positions of pastoral leadership in the Church. For instance, acceptance and understanding on the part of Church leadership is of great importance to those who belong to a movement. It can make all the difference in their loyalty to the Church and their willingness to work for it. The lack of it can lead to alienation among those who could be the strongest supports of the Church.

The process has to begin by putting the emphasis on community formation, not on programs or activities. If what is needed is forming communities which make it possible for a person to live a Christian life, the beginning is to actually have such a community. A person cannot begin by forming structures and programs and expect communities to come out of the hopper on the other end. Communities grow, they are not produced. If a process of renewal does not begin with an environmental approach, it will probably never get to one.

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The book is Building Christian Communities: Strategy for Renewing the Church, by Stephen B. Clark. The fascinating thing about this book is that it isn't some brand-new, 2008 book from Willow Creek Press. This book was published in 1972, by Ave Maria Press. Not only is it 36 years old, it was geared specifically to the Catholic church. I took the liberty of substituting the word "church" for the word "parish" in most of the quotes above.

This is a fairly short, simple book, but I've heard that it was used as a stepping stone for a number of intentional communities that were formed in the 1970s. Much of the book is geared towards Catholicism, and there are a number of issues that are specific to issues and movements of the late-60s and early-70s, but as you can tell by the quotes above, it's still quite relevant for churches today.

Many of us have been talking about this type of thing for quite some time, so while this "organic approach" is fascinating, it's not exactly a huge revelation. The book isn't exactly a step-by-step instruction manual for how to create Christian communities -- it's not intended to be. But it is intriguing to see some of these relational/holistic ideals being suggested, and then put into practice, before I was even born.

How cool that those crazy Christian hippies were so emergent!

The question remains, how do you foster this kind of attitude? How does Big Huge Megachurch encourage the formation of these Christian communities? Even if it begins as a movement within a church -- can it happen at all in a large church? Can it happen if leadership doesn't have a passion for it? And would a large enough percentage of the attendees be able to understand what it means to throw your life in with a group of people, rather than just showing up at a building for a weekly ritual?