My friend Deborah Coble posted a picture of a recently-completed knitting project last week. It was colorful and intriguing, but what grabbed me was her reflection about it.
She described her Facebook post with this picture in a knitters’ group, which generated hundreds of clicks (“likes” and “hearts” and nearly 100 comments, all with affirmations. This even though, as she described it, “My project is a beginner level compared to the work of most in the group.” (I must say, it doesn’t look very beginner-ish to me!)
Where I saw Deborah’s post was in a clergy group that she observed has roughly as many members as the knitters’ group. She did not say, but could have, that the conversations in that group are–sadly–often quite argumentative and challenging of one another’s perspectives. I can’t remember a post there that has generated hundreds of “likes” and “hearts” nor even fifty affirming comments. Without canvassing that truth, Deborah did comment:
“Truth be told I often feel a stronger sense of community in a knitting group…than in many faith based groups.”
Deborah went on to reflect on this contrast as a reason “why many are ‘done.’” She meant done with church. She concluded, “We should/could/gotta be much better than this.”
I hear these words as a person who, most of my life, would have named my church as the social group in which I felt most supported, most affirmed, and most encouraged. For me, that has been part of the church’s work of “loving one another.” That experience is behind my words in Foolish Church:
The first and best thing we do as a church is enter into real relationships with real human beings.
Foolish Church (2019), p. 27.
Real relationships. Real community. Trustworthy community. I believe in the church as a primary setting where those things will be found. It can happen alongside other groups like AA, and longstanding book groups, and quilting friends, or some volunteer groups. I hope we find meaningful community in any number of relationships.
But when those other groups offer community that’s more real and more supportive than the church, then it’s time to reexamine what we’re doing in church.
Actually, I’m pretty sure it’s time. Stay tuned–starting next week–for the #FourFoolishRules that will guide us along the way.
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