Looking Ahead by Looking Back
I mostly agree with this interesting post by Bishop Martins—one of the few substantive blogging bishops out there, by the way [and it helps that he believes the Gospel, unlike most of our Episcopal church’s bishops]. I think that people—at least the pagan people who are and have been unchurched—enter the Church through a different gate, initially, then Sunday morning worship. I think the challenge for bunches of Christians is . . . they’re not friends with unchurched pagan people, and if they are, they don’t know how to engage with them about Christianity other than to say “how about coming to my church on Sunday morning” which invitation is often received with indifference.
Anyone who’s heard me give my standard post-liturgical coffee hour stump speech in parish halls across the Diocese of Springfield for about that past year could be forgiven for thinking Matt Marino and I are intentionally singing off the same song sheet. We’re not. But it is affirming to see that I’m not the only crazy person who thinks that the post-Christian culture we are presently careening into invites us to look a lot more closely at the practices of our Christian forebears in the pre-Christian Roman Empire. In my moments of immodest self-assurance, I’m tempted to exclaim, “Somebody else gets it!” Of course, I’m fairly certain that I myself have not “gotten” it yet. But ... still.
As I’ve been pondering the whole challenge of the church’s response to secularization (which, with a particular focus, Fr Marino’s blog post also ponders), I’m now just about confident enough to say it outright: the Sunday Eucharist is not for visitors or guests in general, and certainly not for “seekers.” We need to stop thinking of the Sunday Eucharist as a potential new member’s first point of contact with the Christian community. That is a huge horse pill for us to swallow, because it contradicts all of our instincts; it is completely counter-intuitive. But if we look at that horse pill askance, that’s a sign that we’re still mentally in Christendom, and have not downloaded the new post-Christendom mental map. Making our buildings and services more “welcoming” to visitors made perfect sense in the old order, when not everybody went to church, but most everybody at least had a particular church that they didn’t go to. It is close to completely incoherent in the post-Christian world.
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Hmm. On the one hand the “welcoming, inclusive” ideology of the semi-Pelagians seems closer to that of the TEC revisionists than I would have thought. On the other hand I suspect that logistical simplicity may be a kind of post-hoc justification for “user-friendly” church - less effort and planning to make outsiders comfortable in church than to go out to meet them where they are and then (heaven forfend!) have to *teach* them how to understand the liturgy.
[1] Posted by Rich Gabrielson on 10-3-2012 at 12:12 PM · [top]
Thanks for this, Sarah. I totally agree when +Martin writes “We need to stop thinking of the Sunday Eucharist as a potential new member’s first point of contact with the Christian community.” But what do we replace the Sunday Eucharist with? Do we simply have some kind of liturgy of the Word or Morning Prayer? I hope not. I think post-Christendom presents us with an opportunity to be both hospitable and missional while retaining the centrality of the Eucharist. Maybe instead of just asking visitors and seekers to leave the building before communion we might provide places for them to go in the building where they could learn about the Christian faith while the baptized communicant members participate in the Eucharist. Better yet, some of the baptized communicant members can actually go with the people they may have invited in order to walk with them as they go through the learning process. Hmmmm, I do believe this may have been done before.
[2] Posted by Ross Gill on 10-3-2012 at 12:19 PM · [top]
Doing things right is not necessarily “seeker INsensitive”. The example given of non-members of the ancient Church being asked to step outside while Holy Communion was taking place was the right thing then just as Communion after Baptism (and Confirmation IMHO) is the right thing now. The “come as you are and leave as you were” approach is not in keeping with tradition or “mission.”
[3] Posted by Undergroundpewster on 10-3-2012 at 12:47 PM · [top]
It’s a good question, Ross.
When I’m working with the unchurched/pagan, I invite them to other parts of the Church—studies, fellowship groups, lectures, small groups, Alpha, anytime there’s good food, etc.
That’s generally how I introduce people to the Gospel.
Eventually people get curious about what goes on in the “big church” on a Sunday morning. If you tell them it’s probably not for them, they become even more curious!
; > )
[4] Posted by Sarah on 10-3-2012 at 12:49 PM · [top]
I agree completely with +Dan. We need to get away from the idea tha our Sunday worship service is our primary, or even secondary, vehicle for evangelism. It is for the parishioners; believing, Baptised, Christians. As Sarah says, the unchurched should be invited to all other functions, while we maintain our corporate worship services in all of their beauty and formality. +Dan gets it that in the post-Christendom world, trying to make ourselves look more and more like the world makes us invisible as something worth embracing.
[5] Posted by evan miller on 10-3-2012 at 02:49 PM · [top]
Absolutely agree. The guests who come to church on Sunday should feel as if they are witnessing an inviting and welcoming family feast that they would very much like to be a part of.
[6] Posted by Matt Kennedy on 10-3-2012 at 02:54 PM · [top]
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