If you’re part of the church, but feel a
growing discontentment at the way things are done most Sundays, why not create
a community which better reflects the insights about God which you think are
important, in a way which helps embed those insights into your daily living?
Once you have answered the following questions, you'll be almost ready to start.
In 2005 and 2008 I started two experimental
faith communities, exploring the connections between the ecos, or earth, and
our faith. Eco-faith. We learned a lot, through mistakes and
successes, which I’m trying to capture in this short blog. A small group in Adelaide continues to gather
regularly 10 years later, and Bellingen does so sporadically when I put energy
into it.
I''l try to distill some ideas to
encourage you to start your own series of gatherings, to see whether there are
enough people like you to form a community to explore your faith together.
If you want more information, I’m compiling
some links at http://ecofaith.org/startingcommunity including a book and short video telling the
story of the Adelaide community’s first years, which are good sources of
inspiration if you’re still sitting on the fence. There are the websites of both groups, and a more comprehensive review of the Bellingen community is coming. I’m also happy to talk more.
Identify and channel the discontent
I was doing a PhD in cosmology, evolution
and ecology, and finding increasingly that what the church said about God, and
humanity each Sunday made little sense.
I didn’t care so much about the style of the songs, it was that their
words were, well, wrong. They were
mostly embedded in a literalist view of Genesis, and a thoroughly human centred
world-view. But I was seeing God as the
God of all life: which was itself ancient and constantly evolving. A God who was no more male than female, who
was here in Australia loving creation, and humanity, long before Jesus or even
Moses was ever born.
It doesn’t matter if you agree with that,
the point is that the faith communities came out of discontent, which I had to
identify and refine. When I was briefly
involved with Forge, people seemed dissatisfied with the form of worship, and
so set off for pubs and coffee shops to tell the same message in a new format. I thought the form and message needed review.
So take time to acknowledge, identify and
refine your discontent with regular worship.
If there isn’t any, stay put!
What
is your discontent with the message, the style, and the way things are done?
Create something which addresses the discontent
So, what would worship look like if it
acknowledged God as the ancient God of all life and so on. How would it be crafted to help the
participants engage with those insights about God?
There are a few issues: the space you
use. The content. The style.
The underpinning “vibe”
The Space
So- the God of all life is everywhere- in
God all things live and move and have our being. God was amongst all life, so we needed to
gather there.
Hence, ecopilly met in the yard outside
church, ecofaith Adelaide met in the Botanic Gardens, and then Botanic Park,
and ecofaith Bellingen met alongside a creek in a park on the edge of town.
This was still a compromise: all of these
were still human modified environments.
But to meet on Sunday morning in a truly wild place means a lot of
travel (wasting fuel) and a lot more difficulty telling people where you are.
What
space do you need to meet in to convey some of the key insights about
God/church/community/humanity/earth/whatever?
Content
In Adelaide, I was just finishing my PhD,
so I had a heap of content. One of my questions was, “Can this academic
work actually resource the worship life of a community?”
But this is the age of google. Whatever it is you’re wanting to say about
God, the church etc, someone has probably already said something close. We took an ipad with a little speaker to the
park to watch other people’s reflections sometimes. Another advantage is that then people feel
really comfortable disagreeing with it, if that’s the vibe you’re after…
Where
will you get your content, and do you want people to accept it, or engage with
it?
Vibe
As time went by, I saw it increasingly
important to hold the space for people to engage with issues, to share their
own insights without being corrected by others, and to work out for themselves
how their faith was going to interact with their relationship with God and
Earth.
Most of my formative and most supportive
moments as a Christian have been through bible study groups, not on Sunday
morning gatherings, so ecofaith had a blend of both.
I also kept reflections brief, and made
sure that even if people agreed with none of it, there was plenty else to
engage with.
Both the Adelaide and Bellingen communities
were very diverse theologically, and in terms of “green” behaviour, and
maintaining that diversity was part of the vibe. Not everyone likes that of course, some want
right doctrine, and some want right behaviour (in our case, around sustainable
living). There are other places for
them.
That’s another thing: even if your identity
is to maintain diversity, that means some people won’t want a bar of what
you’re doing. We never had to put it to
someone that they might want to go elsewhere, but one person did leave because
we didn’t enforce strict sustainable living standards.
That was another part of the vibe:
graciously receiving gifts. When I
bought food for the group I did my best to get local organic produce, but if
someone showed up with a packet of Tim Tams they were graciously received. I did think from time to time of starting
some guidelines for our morning tea, so that as a group we strove for ethical
sustainable food, but it never felt right.
What
vibe are you after? Are you ready to
defend it? How much are you willing to
let newcomers shape it in the future?
Format
All of that was folded into a format of
short contemplative opportunities, readings, a short reflection, sometimes a
chant (Adelaide) or song (Bellingen).
Chants because they are easy. I’m talking Taize kind of chanting, not
Om. And songs because a
singer/songwriter couple joined us in Bellingen.
We met in a circle, because the idea was to
hold a space, to be able to see each other, and to make it easy for people to
share their insights.
What
format will best suit your location, content and vibe?
Flexibility
So, so much flexibility! What do you do when only two people show up
because it’s raining, and they are both newcomers? Or when someone breaks down when sharing
because of some tragedy that week? Or
when the rugby switches match weeks and is playing 50m away. Or you lose one of the visiting kids because
you’ve moved to the afternoon and it’s got dark already (true story)?
I don’t like flexibility. I like planning. I learned to suck it up. You probably will to. You will probably miss the regular
predictability of regular Sunday worship from time to time.
Do you cry if you have a party and only one
person comes, or do you love the deep conversation you get to have because it’s
just the two of you? I do both, the
former on the inside.
If you’ve started with a small team, you
could brainstorm how to do things differently depending on numbers. If you’re along, play make believe.
Are
you ready(ish) to deal with unpredictable numbers, and unpredictable people? What’s your plan if you have a really “out
there” visitor?
Flexibility 2
Is
this a Christian community you’re making, or a community where Christians and
others have the chance to articulate their faith to each other? Are “spiritual” people welcome? Are you going to engage with the teachings
and life of Jesus, or insist that people believe certain things about his
divine nature?
Or
will you decide when you see who comes?
How will you word your publicity?
Just do it! Experiment
If you’re in a small group, you know that
at least a couple of other people are on the same page. If you’re alone, you don’t even know
that. But will anyone else come? Or will you be left crying, alone, at your
own party?
You won’t know until you put it out there.
And by now you’ve already done some great
thinking and planning, so even if nobody shows up, you’ve grown, and got some
resources together for later.
If there’s a group of you, you’re about to
gather for the kind of worship/discussion/reflection that you really want to
participate in, so that’s going to be great anyway.
On that, I really don’t think you should start a faith community trying to
guess the needs of the local community, and putting something on “for
them.” It’s kind of fake, and if nobody
comes, you’re left going through the motions as a small group. But if you start with something meaningful to
you and invite others to join you, then even if nobody does, you’re still going
to grow through it.
In Adelaide, I decided on a six week
experiment (from November to Christmas), every week (so that people would know
it was on, and get to know each other faster).
I chose Sunday because culturally I think if people are going to do
something “religious” Sunday feels like the day for it. Though every day has its problems.
And I was aiming for new people mostly, to
start a new community, not to create an event which church people would pop in
to as well. Though I think the latter is
a totally legitimate strategy too.
When
are the people you want to invite most likely to be able to come. What best suits you? Is there overlap?
Six weeks gave me enough time for the
content I wanted, and to see whether anyone would come without locking me into
months of disappointment if they didn’t.
Others suggested that 6 weeks was about the right time to ask people to
commit to something without them feeling locked in.
It also gave people a few weeks to get used
to the content, vibe, and structure, but not so long that it felt too
fixed. Then in week six people could
decide whether to keep meeting next year, and those who wanted to help plan or
revise the structure could.
How
long are you willing to commit if nobody comes, and how long do you need to
give people a sense of what you’re on about?
Making sure somebody comes.
You can’t.
But it’s good if they don’t come because they don’t want to, not because
they don’t know about it:
Newspapers.
Free little notices are great, but they
have a very limited audience. In
Bellingen’s small local paper I paid for an advertisement the same week I
submitted a story about the group. I
probably didn’t need to pay: every now and then we did something interesting
enough to put a story in the paper, baptising kids at the river, or in the high
school community garden for example.
TAKE PICTURES!!!
Whatever you are about to do, it’s
interesting! We were lucky enough in
Adelaide that I was being interviewed about something else, and was then able
to interest the reporter in another story about the new upcoming community. The challenge was, I still wasn’t sure
exactly what it was. Maybe it would end
up being a multi faith community which included Christians. Hence Eco-faith, not eco-church. It was more important to me to make sure
people new we would have an evolutionary worldview than to get creationists
there, but I did want them to be welcome.
It’s always shard to communicate in few
words, so the advertising evolved constantly.
Signs
The single most important tool for letting
people know about the communities were big signs. I put one up as Scots Church Adelaide since I
was a deacon there and this was part of their ministry. Once we had photos, I added photos so people
can see the vibe of the group. I was the
minister at Bellingen Uniting as well as the ecofaith community, even though
they weren’t linked, and had a big sign there pointing down to the park, also
with pictures. Only one sign was ever
vandalized. At Scots I had a metal sign
fixed to a fence, at Bellingen a handmade one, and then a printed one on canvas. I’m not artistic but can lay out something
decent to be printed. See the resources
page for templates if you want them.
The signs lasted far longer than newspaper
advertising.
Permission for signs? At Scots I never asked local council, and in
two years they never pulled me up on it.
In Bellingen, I didn’t enquire, and they didn’t want to know about it as
long as it was “temporary.” So I tied it
to star pickets. For two years.
I also took some old bottleshop A-frames
(with permission) and printed signs onto the back of their corflute gin
advertisements. I could pop these up
near the park. We also used long yellow
banners that just said “ecofaith” to hang near us in the park.
We had an extrovert in Bellingen who was
happy to go into shops asking if they could put up and A4 sign about the
group. Thank God for diversity.
I didn’t want to persuade people to come, I
just wanted to make sure that if someone out there would be into ecofaith, they
knew about it.
Radio
A local Christian radio station in Adelaide
asked me in for an interview. They
ambushed me about evolution and abortion (something I’d worked on for the Synod
bioethics committee in Qld). The work
experience student was so horrified about the interview he came along to offer
his support, and stayed. Worth it!
Tip: If you have any kind of online
presence, assume radio people have read it, and looked for the most
controversial thing they can find to talk about.
Social Media
This didn’t really exist in Adelaide, but
by the time of Bellingen, people wanted to know where our facebook page
was. These days you’ve probably already
created one, haven’t you!
We ended up in quite a mess of some people
who needed to be texted, some emailed, and some facebooked to tell them of
changes to events, send reminders etc.
You can buy cross platform stuff for that now. Probably worth it. OR, do what I never did and set up one of
those old prayer chain kind of things, where you contact 2 people, who contact
2 people etc. If those people are
reliable!
Does someone in your posse get into social
media? Use them to publicise things, BUT
make sure you all agree before hand what sort of things should be
publicized? Strictly community specific
things, for example, or campaigns of possible interest? Make sure you don’t end up with someone who
rants about their favourite hobby horse in your name. People can join other FB groups, twitter
streams etc for that.
Are
you confident that you’ve given yourselves enough time to tell people about
your start date, but not so much time that they forget again?
What
is your business card size invitation, your A4 size invitation, and your most
interesting story for the media (if they won’t do something beforehand, they
might at least do a story about your first day).
Some hurdles
Of course, I’m a minister, which means I
have various accountability mechanisms, and insurance safety, built in when I
do something as part of my ministry. If
you aren’t, you will either have to take a risk, or find a body (I’d suggest a
presbytery) willing to provide some cover.
Others go for congregations, but I’d suggest not…
There are pros and cons, but the
disadvantage of a congregation covering you, is that it will need to make sense
to them, and not be seen as a threat to their numbers. Unless you’re lucky, in which case you are
probably planning this as a congregation, in which case, press on!
Presbyteries might be less engaged, but in
the current context pretty much everyone is open to supporting something which
looks like a possible future form of church, so there should be someone who
will support it.
Neither community ever became a formal
faith community. Bellingen got close
then the core leadership moved away all around the same time, and my ministry
went on to focus on other things, although we still meet occasionally. In Adelaide the group still meets but as
something much more like a fellowship group in the park, and has no ministerial
or leadership ties to the Uniting Church.
In both cases, people weren’t particularly
interested in belonging to the UCA specifically, or participating in presbytery
meetings, though I think there would have been advantages in it.
Resources
The r word.
The Adelaide and Bellingen communities had funding, in that I made from
½ to 1 day of my time available (probably 2 days at Scots initially). But they were both parts of my ministry, not
the whole of it (and in Bellingen I was only .6 in the first place). Participants provided resources in terms of
common food, and taking turns in leadership as time went on, but we were very
light on for resources. Most people were
single parents, unemployed, or retired.
We had no building to maintain at least.
How many resources do you have?
Talking to others, and on my own
experience, I reckon 2 days a week of dedicate time is a good minimum. Initially that will go into the thinking
outlined above, then planning the gatherings for the experiment and
advertising, then in running the experiment and being in contact with people as
it goes. Then, if you continue, in
working out the ongoing nature of the group and all the stuff that goes into
maintaining a faith community. Actually,
if you want to build it into a sizeable community, I reckon 3 days (not
necessarily all the same person).
People have short attention spans, and you need to keep reminding the
broader community that you are there.
Ok, so you know what you’re doing, and how
you’re doing it, and so does everyone else.
Great! God bless and let me know how it goes.
