What is church?

I have been in discussions about this question for all sorts of reasons. Most of these because I claim to have "left church".

 As a rule, I would tend to mean that church is a gathered groups of people who would self-identify as a church group. This would then include all the groups and meetings that come from this. But of course, this is a structural definition - the building or organisation as church. Many would argue - with good reason - that church is more than this. Church is people not organisation or building.

So, if church is the gathering of people in the name of God, what does this really mean? Does it mean that that those who cannot, for whatever reason, "gather" cannot be part of the church? Does this not, in fact, still focus on the centralised organisation of a church meeting?

There are those who argue that meeting and engaging and discussing matters spiritual online is also part of church. In truth, this is where I get my spiritual insight from. Is this church? If it is, then twitter is church - because there are a number of us who engage spiritually online - many of whom are members of a more traditional church. If twitter is church, and facebook, and whatever other social networking tools, then pretty much everyone goes to church.

What is more, everytime I talk to someone, this is also church. All of my engagements are part of what church is. It ends up by meaning that church is not clearly defined, because church is anything I do as a Christian. I cannot get away from church, because all I do is church.

So it is meaningless. Because, if everything is church, then church is nothing. Church is "being a Christian" - so if I were to argue that the church organisation is meaningless, then surely I am right, because I don;t need to attend an organisation to be part of church.

Then, of course, the other side comes in. The quote "let us not give up meeting together" is quoted with regularity. The argument then is that by not attending an organisation that calls itself church, I am missing out, and the rest of the church structure is also missing out. I am being disobedient by not attending a "church".

I think we are in real danger of making "church" meaningless, because the more traditional church structures are failing. Rather than really considering how to address the problems, the answer seems to be "lets extend the meaning of church, so that it is not a problem any more". But that doesn't work. The truth is that the traditional church is declining.

The answer is not to make everything we do be church - the answer is to abandon this concept of "church" as anything organisational, as something to "be a part of". The answer is to accept that, for some people, being a member of a church (however you want to define it) is not something they want to be or accept as something to define them.

Why is the idea that Christians who are not part of The Church so disturbing? Maybe because for so many people church is Christianity, and the idea that they might be different - that the church may actually be irrelevant to faith - is very disturbing, very challenging.

Lets be clear, if your faith and your Church involvement are identical, then your faith is in the Church, not in God.

A New vision for the church - what is the church for?

What is the church for? That is an interesting question, especially if I am wanting to explore whether it is worth keeping. So I googled the question, and found a list. This is probably not a complete list, but seems it serves as a good starting point. The purposes of church are:

Worship. This is not just about singing, of course, although this is a significant part of it. The whole context of worship is a difficult one, because I think that many things I do outside the church are worship, and there is a strong position that argues for worship being everything. However, in this context, I think the churches context of worship is something corporate, focused on God. Singing might be a part of it, but not necessarily - worship should be far bigger than that.

Worship is a very difficult thing to define, although it is far easier to know when you are doing it. For now, I think I will leave it at that, but it is worth bearing in mind that a clear definition of worship is extremely difficult to achieve, because we use the word in a whole lot of different ways.

Spiritual disciplines. What does this mean? I think the core is aspects like prayer, study and exploration of our faith, the drive to be a better Christian, to improve all of the time. I do have questions over whether the church does in fact do this, or whether it enables us to avoid to these. But church should be there to encourage us to improve.

Discipleship. This is the other side of the disciplines, which is about teaching others. Many churches will give opportunities to teach others, or to explore with others, but I think that discipleship is more than this - like with worship, it can cover a whole lot of aspects that are not always included. There is something important in learning to explore and explain what we believe and why with others, and helping them to also explore their beliefs.

Fellowship. In essence, this is about meeting with other people, and is a critical part of what church does. It allows us to meet with others, probably with food or coffee.

Service. This is about doing things for others outside the church group, but doing them because of ones faith. Once again, it can be a difficult thing to define clearly, because all that we do for others is a part of the outworking of our faith. This even applies when we would rather not discuss the activities and our interactions with others.

Evangelism. This is about telling other people why we are Christians, what our faith means to us. It doesn't mean ramming ideas at people, or telling people what they should believe. It means working with people, listening to people, and being open about our faith with other people. It means being open and honest about who we are in all situations.

In truth, the church is quite poor at this. It does tend to "organise" evangelistic events and stuff, but these are more the church as a body getting out - good in itself, but not necessarily helping individuals to be better evangelists themselves.

So this is what churches are for? Is there more than this? Because if this is it, there are alternatives.

What is a leader?

I do remember being told that "you can recognise a leader by how many people follow them". The definition was completely flawed anyway, in the context, but it made me think about whether this is a good definition of the sort of person who should have responsibility in a Christian group.

I believe that within these criteria, the answer is no. What is more, I believe that the same applies on a wider basis.

Now I should point out that there is a need for figurehead leaders, but this does not mean that they should be decision makers or that this is the only form of leadership expected. It is a core problem of a democratic ideal that the best people tend not to rise to the top, but the ones who can command a following.

The problem I have, in the particular context it was raised, is that I do not want people to follow me. I want people to follow Jesus, I want people to explore my ideas and thoughts if they are useful, I want people to think for themselves, and find their own way. The last thing I want is for people to hold  me up as their example, their "leader", because that is not Christianity.

That is where my problem with this form of "leadership" lies. If you define "good leadership" by "people follow you", then clearly the aim of a church leader is a large church. The thing is, Jesus scared people away from him, telling them to seriously consider what following him meant. Towards the end, while there were lots of people who enjoyed the party, there were only 12 who followed him. And in the end, there only seemed to be a few of his friends and followers around the cross. If leadership was about how many people follow you, then Jesus was a lousy leader.

Of course, I don't want to go the other way either, and argue that a good leader is someone who challenges and excludes people - that would make Fred Phelps and his ilk good leaders, and that is also not the case. I think, in contrast, we need to reconsider the nature of leadership.

The best leaders I have known show two significant features, which don't fit with popularity measures:

1. Tolerance and acceptance of dissenting views and perspectives. This means being prepared to accept that other people may come to a different answer, to support and respect that direction, and allow then to explore that further. This means helping people do things that you do not understand or value, but they do.

2. Providing challenge that is not criticism or rejection. this means working with people, and providing acceptance with challenge. This challenge is difficult to provide, and is there to prompt and help people grow, not to get them to conform.

Of course, this is not very popular, especially amongst people who want to be told what to believe (or want their own beliefs unchallenged). This is not the way to be popular, not the way to climb the career ladder.

In fact, the most likely result of this is that you will end up alone. But - and this is the critical part - there will be people who have been made to think because of what you have said. Probably after you are dead.

That is true leadership - leading people to their own fulfillment, their own independence. Don't expect to be popular. In fact, people will probably crucify you.

A new vision for the church - money

 Some of this post draws on ideas explored in "Unintended Consequences" by Andrew Brims. Worth a read if you are serious about challenging church structures, or seeking to justify them.

The thing is, we all know the teaching and material on tithing, that we should give 10% of our incomes to the church. The truth is that this doesn't happen, but as a starting principle of giving a proportion of our money to the church, it works. The proportion is not important, what is important is the principles.

The problem I have with this is that 95% of this giving goes to the church systems and structures. Even those churches which give away a proportion of their income tend to give it to systems and structures, where a good proportion of it will go to the system and supporting it - maybe including fund-raising activities.

The real question is how much money churchgoers give to other organisations. I know that this varies greatly, but I would suggest that for many, this church giving represents a significant portion of their total giving to Christian work and ministry.

There are a lot of variables involved, but I would like to suggest that something like 90% of the financial giving of churchgoers is used for the support and maintenance of the church systems and structures. That is a vary large proportion of the money, and a lot of money.

It makes me wonder what could be done if that money wasn't given to the church systems, but used for other purposes instead.

If instead of giving money to the church, 3 or 4 people were to put their money into supporting a small local business, as seed money, I wonder what difference that would make.

Or running a craft session for all who are interested, bringing in people from outside, making a real event.

Or getting a mini music festival for local bands, or for a musical style that is not often heard.

Or, or, or. That is the point. The possibilities are limitless, because a few people - even one person - can invest in their local community.

Ah, but how is this part of Christian Mission, I hear you say? A good question, which I will answer further in another post. However, if you find engagement with God works for you through embroidery, for example, then a craft fair might be an idea opportunity to share with others what you do, why you do it, what it means to you.

If you meet God through music, then working with others to bring music will help you to explore why you like music.

Supporting a local youth worker can say more to the local youth than any amount of church services. The question is, how much does supporting the local church structures contribute to Christian Mission? The money stays within the organisation, and to those outside - who might engage with these others forms of "mission" see very little of the impact often.

It has been said that, if you want to know what is important to a person, look at their cheque stubs. That might not literally work these days, but their money says a lot. It says, far too often, that the Church is important. Not people, not community, not others, but their own little club.

Maybe it is time to leave.

New vision for the church - questions

Asking question is an interesting topic, not just for the church, but for other areas in life too. I find Prime Ministers Questions an interesting example, where the process is more about scoring political points than actually asking important questions. On the other side, it is about putting the right spin on things, not providing information and answers.

In other areas of life, the focus is in getting answers, not exploring the questions. If you want to know something, the easiest answer is to Google it, and get an acceptable answer, rather than understand the question fully and work with it to find a solution. The important thing in the answer, not the question, and in this, we lose something important.

Even in spiritual exploration, the same approach is so often taken. there is a focus on "quick fix" spiritual solutions. Do a weekend course and find enlightenment. In church courses where questions are, theoretically, welcome, the focus is really on providing set answers to any question that are raised. I know this because I have run such courses, and there are manuals providing the answers to all expected questions.

The problem is that these do not give proper respect to the importance of questions for real spiritual development. It trivialises the question process, and so the spiritual search that is encompassed by these questions. I think real, deep proper questions deserve to be answered, and deserve to be asked.

The thing is, the real questions require time to explore and find what they mean. I like to compare it to my PhD studies, where I start with a question that I want to explore. I then do the exploration of this question, or rather, I start from the general area of the question, and explore around this to see what others have done on this question, to learn as much as I can on the topic, to discover more, to find the areas I can work further on.

After this, I see what I have explored and discovered, and revisit my original question, to reassess it, and redefine my original question based on what I have learned in the process. The exploration has changed the question I was originally asking, because I cannot know the questions I need to ask until I have done some of the research - it is cyclic, because I cannot research an area without a question to focus on, but I cannot know what the questions are until I do some research.

For all serious questions, this is the process. Serious questions of spiritual truth - for example, What should I do? - need to be explored and researched, need to have some serious time spent on them before you return to your original question and realise that it might not be the right question to ask.

Questions are so important. The best question take a long time to work on, and the very best ones result in you understanding that you are asking the wrong question. This doesn't mean that the questions are wrong, just that the only way to progress them is to understand why they are not the question you should be asking - there are more important ones.

If we stop asking questions, we stop being real and honest Christians, because we stop seeking the truth.

A new vision for the church - problems

This is something I have been working on for a while, and will, I am sure, prompt a number of posts over time. The problem I have is that the church system as it currently is doesn't work. I have a "vision" if you want about how the church might organise itself - not as a definitive new pattern, just as a starting point. A place for discussion, a suggestion for alternatives.

The core problem with the existing church think is, it seems, the hierarchical structure that is present in every church I have experienced. What is more, it is a patriarchal hierarchy, even when there are women in the structure. By this, I mean that the structure is one of power and control, not of support and enabling. It is about keeping people in line, rather than about making things happen, allowing people to explore and grow.

The problem is that the only response taken is for the leaders to "allow" more exploratory work and ideas to happen. This can produce some good results, but it doesn't address the core problem. I should not have to get "permission" to try things out, to explore new directions. What I want from leadership is not control, but support. I don;t want to be told what to believe or do, I want to be provided with the support and help to explore my own journey, because only I can actually find the right path for me.

This does not mean that I want anything that I happen to enjoy to be considered my "Christian" journey. I have a responsibility, if I am going to call my walk "Christian" to engage with the rest of Christianity and find my way within this. But that gives me the whole of worldwide and historical Christendom to explore, not the particular small aspect of it that the leadership of a church happen to know and support.

Just to make this clear, even when I have been in church leadership, I would include myself in this. While I might have a wider and more tolerant range of understanding and knowledge than some, I would still not wish to limit someone elses spiritual journey to something that I have met, can understand or support.

In the end, the point is that everyones spiritual journey is different. Any sense of control will tend to limit people to have a particular direction and focus to their journey, to ensure that all those under one control will have certain directions, certain emphases. Many people will accept this, because it is the cost of belonging.

This is where I differ, because I believe that an individuals spiritual journey is paramount. The church, in any form, should be there to help peoples journeys, not to define them.

Why do we need church buildings?

The church campaign about VAT on listed buildings, which was opposed by a strong campaign, made me wonder about the church's relationship buildings.

In fact, the two major campaigns from the church of late have been to endorse "traditional" marriage, and to oppose paying VAT on building alterations. I think that probably explains why I no longer feel that I can be a part of a church.

There seems to be a few reasons why church groups want a building - I may have missed a few, but I hope I have the majority of them.

1. It is cheaper in the long run than renting somewhere. Yes it is. But then there is a significant cost to running and maintaining a building. In the early years, the cost of running it is less, but there are also long-term costs involved in having a building. There is a real danger that the church group buys a building when it is growing and expanding, and then the group start to focus on the building - how to use it, what to do with it, things that need doing and how it could be improved.

 As the group focuses more on the building, within years or generations or however long, the focus on the building so often takes over. If numbers dwindle, as they often do with time, the burden of the building becomes even more significant, and the death spiral starts.

I don't remember Jesus telling people to buy buildings. I don't remember Jesus telling people to settle down and spend money on buildings. In fact, he said something about tearing a building down..... Yes it may seem to be cheaper to have your own building, but is that what Jesus' people should be doing? Rent somewhere, because a) it means you are not focusing one other people and b) it means that you meet somewhere that is public, somewhere that people are used to meeting. Meeting in the public places is surely what the early church did, and what Jesus did too.

2. It is easier to organise all sorts of activities when you have a building as a centre to do things from. Yes it is, if what you want to do is set up another organisation running their own activities. But why would you want to do that? Surely the best thing is to run events and meetings and whatever you want to do in the places that people meet anyway. Why not organise your young peoples events in the schools? Or your business meetings in the pub? Why do you actually have to have your own building to work from?

3. It represents a place of spiritual importance. This might be somewhere that people have worshiped for centuries, or a place with a particular spiritual significance. I think places are very important, having a interest in Celtic spirituality, but that doesn't mean that we should build churches on them, or revere them for ever. The proper Celtic understanding of places is about finding a thin place wherever you are, and remembering it, but not setting it in stone.

Jesus found places that were important, mainly because they were quiet, away from the crowds, but he didn't revere them. The places Jesus died and were buried were not revered for a long time, which is why there are so many different possibilities. Jesus didn't come to tell us to set up shrines to places of spiritual history - he told us to make disciples, to make the faith a modern, living faith. Places are important, but they are important NOW, not as historical monuments. When we have buildings marking places of spiritual importance, we are in danger of missing the spiritual places - the thin places - all around us now.

4. It is a place that inspires worship, and we can keep it as such a place. In some cases this is true. Having said that, there are some churches that do not inspire worship at all. I am not suggesting that places that inspire worship should be torn down, just that it is too easy to need somewhere like that to worship, and miss the reality that we should be able to meet with God anywhere. Yes it is good to meet with God in places that are inspirational, but we can forget how to meet with God in all sorts of other situations.

Don't get me wrong, I do appreciate that buildings can be useful or helpful, but the real question is whether the ownership and maintenance of buildings - something which occupies a lot of time, money and energy for congregations - is important as part of the mission that Jesus sent us on. Is spending time and energy on trying to get tax breaks for supporting buildings? Is that the most important challenge the church needs to make to the current governments policies? Really?