Building Church Communities

One thing my church has done the past couple years is to spend a whole day doing maintenance and grounds improvement work at two local high schools. It started as a senior project for a couple kids from the two schools and has turned into an annual thing. A couple hundred people from our church spend a Saturday at the schools cleaning up, repairing, and improving the buildings and grounds at the two schools (you can see pictures here).

This may not be what you're looking for, but to my mind, you create a greater connection to people in your church when you all work together towards a common goal. I've gone on two short term mission trips to Asia and Mexico over the past two years, and forged some very strong relationships with the people I went with, because we were working towards a common goal. I think this applies not only to missions teams, but also to anybody working together.

Sounds like we're in the same place. I'm amazed how many people in the church we regularly attend at the top don't notice. I hear things like "We're a friendly church" or "We do a great job of helping others" and then I hear "In order to be a part of the church you need to get involved". I've been at this church for two years and I can count on one hand the number of times I've been encouraged to go to some "men's ministry" event personally. I don't even need that hand to count the number of people who I'd feel safe sharing a struggle with, though a few are developing some connections. I have been asked to serve a role in ministry far more often than I've been asked to hang out with people. Ultimately, in order for me to be worthy of building relationships with people, I must first serve a purpose to the community. (Sounds a bit like the open source world; something we shouldn't be emulating.)

It seems like the church is a bunch of small communities that don't interact more than needed to serve the purpose of a corporate Sunday gathering. Some in leadership see the need, but many don't. Mostly the ones who do are relatively new to the church and had the same struggle getting in.

Anyway, what my wife and I have begun doing is getting to know people from different groups. Then trying to help those people get to know each other. A lot of this ends up being the like-minded people getting to know the other people with a vision to reach out and connect the groups, but others get caught into it also. My wife is naturally and spiritually gifted at this sort of thing. I struggle to do it well, but am happy to support her.

A couple weeks back we were invited to two birthday parties on the same day. They were held right down the road from each other and only about 1/2 hr apart. Both were of significant size and with strong connection to the church, but only two couples (us and another couple who had been at the church less than a year who also moved into the area) were at both parties.

Ultimately, I think this is total heart and culture change. The culture must care about people more than products (err, I mean programs) and that happens when the individuals care about others first. So the folks in the church must be catalyzed towards less selfishness and recognize that folks around them are hurting and struggling. A huge portion of the people in the church have marriage concerns, others are dealing with children that just won't give them a moments rest, then others have in-laws at their heals or perhaps creditors, another group isn't sure they really buy this Jesus thing but don't know what else to do or just want to teach morality to their kids. Each of these people with these struggles are ones not looking past their own hurt to help someone else with their hurt and losing an opportunity for the church to look more like a hospital than a shopping mall.

While I am concerned about certain mystical influences, I think Dallas Willard has a ton of good things to say on this topic. The ongoing restoration of the heart of man after salvation isn't often discussed. We recently went through a bible study of his in a Sunday School class called "Renovation of the Heart". We must learn to chase after and put on the character of Christ in all our ways or we end up serving ourselves and ultimately serving Evil especially in the context of the church.

While that study was good, I think a major part of it is that people catch this stuff a lot faster than they learn it. They need to see it in action. We've done some of this by inviting a new couple to church to a meal and having another couple who we know come along also. The church has to stop serving inward and start looking to serve outward some more also. How can the church become servants to the community and progress the communities interests? I was just thinking last night how awesome it would be if the church would equip and host a hackspace for our area and invite geeks of all kinds to come in, host drupal groups and linux groups and ruby groups and maybe even gaming groups in our facilities and encourage church members to become involved in the community. Why shouldn't the church be a community center? Why shouldn't the church website be the place where the community comes to find out what's going on?

I'm starting to get off on a rabbit trail so I'll stop... :-)

I think the best way to try to tackle this kind of thing, from my own experience... is just stop going to a Sunday oriented, or large group corporate setting altogether for a few years.

The kinds of people who will be able to partake and contribute to pervasive community aren't going to things that aren't that for the most part. Having been a part of, and seen others trying to plant churches, it's really a question of reproduction. We reproduce what we invest our time and talent in, and it tends to reproduce after its own kind.

Break out of it altogether. Go and be church simply, amongst people who don't want to gather for worship and you'll be forced to ask new, better questions about expressing faith together you can often only see as hypotheticals. Invite people to live with you, or sell things and move in with people. Share meals regularly that don't end up looking like bible studies or sunday church in a smaller setting. Adopt a local boys/girls sports team and just show up to encourage them. The list of ways to do things goes on and on, but doing has to flow out of what we're being and who we're becoming.

And honestly, be prepared to let things die over and over. We as a western culture cling to corpses out of misplaced pride and selfish comfort. Death brings new life, and healthy communities progress through seasons just like crops. When they are dying, it's best to acknowledge it, celebrate what God has done and move on instead of clinging to a corpse.

I believe that the solution to the problem may be more simple than everyone thinks. Simply put, mega churches DO NOT INSPIRE INTIMACY. I was once speaking to an evangelist that was visiting a mega church that I was attending some years back, and he began to talk with me about this very subject. He was from Uganda, so his english was broken, but his metaphor was clear. He describe a pot that was full of boiling water. He said that the idea was not to try and contain the boiling water by creating a taller pot, but to allow the water to boil over into the community... He said a church should grow outward, not upward. In other words, a church should be building leadership to go into the community and plant smaller churches, rather than trying to build one gigantic church.

In a smaller church environment, several things happen that are so significantly different than a large church.

The first thing is accountability. When you are a member in a small church, you are not just a head in a sea of faces, but you are a person, an individual.. If you miss church, you will probably get at least one phone call, and it will likely be from the pastor himself. Not calling, because you didn't show up to roll call, but calling to make sure everything is okay.

The second thing is necessity. In a small church, everyone one is needed. We need you to help setup, we need you to witness, we need you to testify, we need you to participate. People feel that need. The truth is, there is nothing more rewarding than working for the Lord. That is how we grow as christians, that is how we improve our walk with God. It's spiritual exercise.

The third thing is a sense of family. When I go to church, I feel like I am going to a family event. I feel like the members, are like brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, nieces and nephews, sons and daughters. I know everyone that goes to my church. I know what struggles they have, I know what strengths they have. I know what level to reach people at as individuals. And that is how I believe the Lord wants us to reach one another, as family, not as strangers at a party.

So many americans believe in God, but do not understand that we are here to serve, not to be served. Sitting in a mega church is more like a concert than a community. Many people can look through the forest of people at their church, and not see anyone that they know... just waiting to see a friend, when their brothers and sisters stand right in front of them, waiting to be entertained.

Unfortunately, we have a dominant culture of christians that do not understand that they are the church. Most people go into a small church, see the need, and turn right around and head straight to the closest mega church. They don't want to be bothered with the notion that they might have to work on their day off. They don't want the pastor calling them when they miss, because they don't want any accountability. They don't want other members knowing any details about their personal life. They don't like the idea of joining a family with all of its disfunction. They don't want to hear hard lessons. They believe in God, they just don't want to serve. They don't really want a community.

I know that this is hard for people to hear when they are part of a large congregation. Because the truth is that even in a large church, a mega church even, people still are able to participate and begin to feel the accountability, learn to serve, even feel that the church is family. The problem is that they tend to be the ones who are considered staff in one way or another.... And if you are one of those people, next time you are in church, look out at all the people in the audience, and ask yourself... "do I know all these people? Are all these people getting the same thing I am getting out of this?" ask, "Will they ever get what I am getting out of this if they stay here?"

The truth is that those people need more than to watch a church. They need to become the church.

Support small churches, they need you, and it will change your life!

One of the things I've noticed in that anybody who thinks they can create community, is a fool. You can create a culture that allows for and even encourages community, but you can't force community. So at that end, I'd say we need to start from a point where we say, "How can we create a culture that supports the formation of community.

With that in mind, perhaps the best stuff I've read on the subject of community is Joe Myers, "The Search to Belong" and "Organic Community". I really dig his stuff about proxemics and relational spaces. As a quick overview, he suggests that we all need an abundance of public connections (attend a church, cheer for a team, live in a town, share a hobby, etc.), a fewer but still significant number of social connections (a space we get to know a bit more about people and decided who we want to get to know even better), a few personal connections (where we reveal more about ourselves, including some of the ugly), and finally maybe one private space where we're "naked and not ashamed" (I tend to see this only being fulfilled by God, although for some a spouse could be here as well).

Now, worship services are public spaces, and with most small groups, the aim seems to be cramming people into personal space without them going through the discernment of social space. I'd say (and this has been discussed in posts above) that churches need to focus on social space with programming, and allow personal space to evolve naturally. In addition, private space before God can be a focal point of teaching in the public space of worship.

Thoughts?