Ship of Fools: Tribes

Thread: Tribes Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Prester John (# 5502) on :

The thread about St. Thomas’ new rector started me thinking about the boundaries and identity markers that are commonly used to delineate a congregation’s affiliation/churchmanship.

What are the determining factors for deciding a particular church is in or out of a tribe and how important do each of these play a part in making that determination?

• Worship practices?
• The mental ascent to certain doctrines by most or all?
• The fealty of the minister to a particular viewpoint?
• The same for the laity or at least the lay leadership?
• Anything else?

In my experience it has tended to be a bit of all of the above but what really drives identity is a core group of the congregation who tend to be the most engaged in the daily life of a church and who exert the most influence in the choosing of a minister. In contrast to that there always seems to be a subset of the population for whom the “issues”, whatever they may be, are not important and could be comfortable somewhere else with the rest falling somewhere between those extremes.

Thoughts?

Posted by The Silent Acolyte (# 1158) on :

Rectors come and go. While they impress their image on a community, in the end, they are short-timers. It is the core community, the ones with multigenerational participation who define the tribe.

Even when a short string of rectors, say twenty years' worth, summon a wave of new members devoted to fighting for this or that dead horse or some doctrinal battle line, even then, with a core of the community remaining uncowed, it is possible for the barque to right itself.

I've seen this happen twice in my life. Different congregations.

This is why I despair when folk here write of feeling compelled to change parishes over some minor dispute over doctrine or worship practice.

Posted by Vaticanchic (# 13869) on :

Not quite taking off here, is it?! I've never worked in the Anglican Communion abroad & I suspect the story is very different. In the UK, I've only ever found a handful in a church verbally articulate about their faith. Another handful will be practically articulate - in other words, it's clearly the faith which motivates what they do. The vast majority aren't particularly religious - some will have been there for ages & others newer.

Posted by Zappa (# 8433) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Vaticanchic:
Not quite taking off here, is it?! I've never worked in the Anglican Communion abroad & I suspect the story is very different.

Possibly, though increasingly less so, and the differences are driven by social constructs, not theology. We "abroad" (always love the UK-centricity of that term ... from an Island realm cut off from the world [Biased]

) have never been established churches, though in some places Anglicans have behaved as if we are. So we're out in a marketplace of belonging or not belonging (mainly the latter). Identity emerges as the faith community goes on, as TSA says, guided, influenced but not definitively shaped by vicars and rectors and priests in charge - (and bishops who make or influence to various degrees clerical appointments).

It's humbling to those of us who are clergy that we only influence, for a season, the narrative of a geographical people of God. The people of God and the Spirit of God are far bigger than us or our egos. If we remember that we won't do nothing but we will remember that all we do is only ever always in the service of God's "Something Bigger"™ .

Posted by Olaf (# 11804) on :

To throw another wrench into the situation, a community's wider political leanings can skew the direction of a church one way or the other. I know of a church in a very conservative (just to be blunt, very Republican) town in the exurban confines of a city that skews heavily liberal. Being part of a denomination whose recent identity also skews liberal, the church was an anomaly. Most of the members would have belonged perfectly in a Southern Baptist church, and they governed their congregation as such. With the early ordained leadership of the church being tolerant of this, they were comfortable. Then, later pastors brought the liberal leanings of the denomination into the congregation, and the membership began to hemorrhage--first as a trickling, then gushing.

These political leanings do sometimes affect the churchmanship of a congregation. Think of a Republican-majority Episcopal church trooping the colors and marching forward the collection to the Dog's Holiday.

Posted by womanspeak (# 15394) on :

A parish I reluctantly left a year ago was being decimated by a bullying, overdominant, priest who had previously destroyed at least two other parishes. Most people just quietly attended less and less often until they no longer attended. A few of us tried to revive attendance but were met with negativity.

While a few of us have found a safe place with another denomination, most no longer attend a church.Those of us who have found our way to other protestant churches miss the Anglican liturgy and particularly regular Holy Eucharist.

One of the older former members, who attends a non-denominational bible study group with me summed up well the reasons for the failure of our former parish ( which is no longer financially viable). The problem was the requirement to worship the Priest rather than worshipping God.

Posted by Olaf (# 11804) on :

[Votive]

womanspeak, your situation almost exactly describes one which I experienced. After over two years of searching, and some excellent interim pastoral care and healing, we found a good replacement.

Posted by Zappa (# 8433) on :

One sad thing about the situation you describe, womanspeak is the abject failure of the bishop to sorts matters out ... epic fail as my kids would say :-(

Posted by Evangeline (# 7002) on :

Oh womanspeak, that's sad. I had a similar experience many years ago and whilst I agree with The Silent Acolyte that a certain culture can be sustained by the multigenerational parishioners, for many of us the pain of being bullied/made to feel inadequate is too great and for our own spiritual and mental health we have to move on. The pain of staying is greater than the pain of leaving.

This problem is particularly acute IMO in places like Australia where people are relatively mobile and we just don't have multigenerational connections in our churches, it's pretty rare to live in the same suburb as your parents. If everyone in the church holds strong there is hope but all it takes is the pain to push even 1 or 2 of your friendship group/supporters within the church to move on and it starts to become very difficult to stay.

In the case of which I know, something did happen and I think it was the involvement of the Bishop that got rid of the problem but it really was too late by then. I suspect that more of us would have stayed if we'd know that intervention was likely but the divide & rule etc leads you to believe that others are advocating what's going on even when they're not. Over 10 years on, that church remains struggling when prior to that it was quite vibrant.

Posted by womanspeak (# 15394) on :

We had a great Bishop who encouraged and enabled but I fear found some with 'tenure' unresponsive. He had great success in bringing into the Diocese some wonderful pastoral and creative clergy. But when he left the Diocese, my rector took over interim leadership and created further damage in his and adjoining parishes. He has since moved himself on to a third parish leaving ours unfinancial. The Diocese remains split into two camps.

We hope and pray that the new Bishop when he is installed in the next few months may be able to view the diocese with fresh eyes.

Posted by Prester John (# 5502) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Olaf:
To throw another wrench into the situation, a community's wider political leanings can skew the direction of a church one way or the other. I know of a church in a very conservative (just to be blunt, very Republican) town in the exurban confines of a city that skews heavily liberal. Being part of a denomination whose recent identity also skews liberal, the church was an anomaly. Most of the members would have belonged perfectly in a Southern Baptist church, and they governed their congregation as such. With the early ordained leadership of the church being tolerant of this, they were comfortable. Then, later pastors brought the liberal leanings of the denomination into the congregation, and the membership began to hemorrhage--first as a trickling, then gushing.

These political leanings do sometimes affect the churchmanship of a congregation. Think of a Republican-majority Episcopal church trooping the colors and marching forward the collection to the Dog's Holiday.

I see what you are saying here about the influence of politics. From my own observation this is sometimes tempered by how that church views itself. If it is viewed as the local manifestation of the One True Church and attendance elsewhere is seen as wrong/sinful/misguided then you'll more likely see folks rubbing shoulders on Sunday morning who happen to disagree on politics. I'm not trying to single out any one group with that statement. Just making a general observation.

I don't see a correlation with conservative politics and churchmanship. I think there are enough counter-examples to prove otherwise.

Posted by Belle Ringer (# 13379) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Evangeline:
This problem is particularly acute IMO in places like Australia where people are relatively mobile and we just don't have multigenerational connections in our churches, it's pretty rare to live in the same suburb as your parents.

The church I attend has a mixture of people who grew up there (and so did their parents and grandparents) and people who moved into town as adults, even as retirees, and have no historical connection to that church, or even to it's denomination.

When things go badly wrong, if you have deep long multiple ties to that particular church a lot is holding you there impelling you to jump into the fight or wait out the problems. When it's just a church you chose by little more than flipping a coin - they had nice music, or the greeter was friendly, or you liked the sermon - why would you stay when the atmosphere becomes stressful because of changes that affect you in your concept of Christianity (women kicked off all leadership positions, pastor cannot be disagreed with, music program killed all worship will be spoken - I'm not talking about cookies instead of donuts at coffee); what's the glue?

If you've been there just a few years, it's not your church in the same way it's "my" church for those whose family names are on the stained glass windows or whose memories there go back half a dozen decades. There's less holding you there when things go very bad.

Friendships can be a glue. But in a mobile society the friends you made the first year there have already moved on.

Posted by Evangeline (# 7002) on :

Absolutely true Belle Ringer. Although as somebody who doesn't come from a family who attends church, I don't believe most people are so casual about where they go and it's not so easy to leave as you might imagine. To carve out a sense of belonging is difficult and it's difficult to do so all over again-and many don't bother, that's why they stop going to church.

I think another thing that exacerbates the problem of leaving church is the mania for "church growth" in which there is a focus on the new people walking in the door and not on the existing members who are walking out. Often the Minister will attract Parishioners from previous churches/friends etc who support their position on, eg women in leadership or the view that illness is caused by Satanic oppression etc and say isn't it great that the church is growing and if it ever comes up, those leaving are just a reflection of God purifying His Church. [Roll Eyes]

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