I attended a funeral of a lovely Christian lady in a non-conformist chapel in North Wales this last week.
It was all in Welsh (they provided sheets with English translations) and as anticipated they sang 'Gwahoddiad.'
This hymn is intriguing as it was originally American but has got adopted by the Welsh. It's used to end this: https://wno.org.uk/whats-on/blaze - the whole Cardiff audience joined in when we saw it last year!
Yes. For me consumerism suggests fickleness for it's own sake, shallowness and a throw-away culture. That's not an implication I would be comfortable with in this context.
I wonder if older churches only get creative when business-as-usual is no longer an option and often. by the time enough of the congregation realise, it's too late and whatever funds might have gone into that have long since disappeared into the boiler (in repairs or as fuel) and the people who might have driven it are dead, gone, or exhausted. It is rare to find a church that will make a hard decision unless driven by necessity or outside force.
My current church has poured a couple of hundred thousand over the last decade into a building 10 times too large for the congregation and still has an underused, shabby, expensive building, a Kirk Session dwindling and exhausted, and shuffling ever closer to insolvency. The time to fix things was a decade ago.
My current church has poured a couple of hundred thousand over the last decade into a building 10 times too large for the congregation and still has an underused, shabby, expensive building, a Kirk Session dwindling and exhausted, and shuffling ever closer to insolvency. The time to fix things was a decade ago.
Is it a listed building? - in which case you had little choice, alas. Did you apply for or receive any grants?
Conversely, I was going to say that one of the more unpleasant aspects of consumerism the whole "you must give people what they want" business. Tap-dancing ducks just don't exist, even if it would attract a large crowd. Congregations have to develop with integrity - some are excessively rigid about this until too late, but forcing the dog onto its hind legs will be a real solution, because it isn't sustainable. in that sense, it may even be better to let the current version of things come to its natural end and allow something totally different to develop, rather than grafting two utterly incompatible things together.
@Gamma Gamaliel I promise you that I have read and inwardly digested what you have written. Disagreement doesn't mean that I haven't read what you've written - a different reading of your words doesn't mean that people haven't read those words properly.
To me, "consumerism" suggests not just shopping around but shopping around unnecessarily. To be honest, given the title I was expecting a post on more literal Christian consumerism - Christian knick-knacks (tchotchkes as I think Americans call them), endless Christian books, conferences, travel mugs etc etc etc.
Ok. Fair do's, although I'm not the only one here to get the impression you haven't always got the right end of the stick when reading posts ...
But there we are.
I don’t want to fall out with you and you make some very valid points.
FWIW, I do think there is a certain amount of shopping around unnecessarily - at all ends of the spectrum. Hence my reference to Tolstoy's observation about people traipsing from one monastery to the next seeking yet another 'word' from a staretz or some kind of spiritual 'hit'.
I think there can be a tendency for affluent Christians of all types to flit from one conference or retreat or pilgrimage to the next - according to whatever is de rigeur in their tradition.
As for new and creative groups setting up in their local leisure centre or community hall ... yes, but very often they crash and burn. This is true of denominational initiatives too, of course. Two out of every five Baptist church plants fail.
These groups often emphasise tithing so they often aren't as poorly resourced as might appear.
To be fair, I admire their oomph and enterprise and feel the rest of us could take a leaf out of their book.
The Orthodox strategy, such as it is, involves simply being 'there' and serving the Liturgy and if people come along, that's fine. If not ...
I do think we need to do 'better' than that and would readily concede that some groups and traditions are a lot lighter on their feet and able to launch new initiatives more readily.
So then invest in programmes the local community actually needs. Have competant musicians (surely this should just be the default?). It's not rocket science. <snip>
It might as well be. Many small town/ large village churches have very sparse resources for investing, and are dependent for music on volunteers of varying competence. I’d have given my eye teeth any time in the last twenty plus years for competent musicians who could do a bit more than just support the singing of a range of familiar music.
And as custodians of a listed building that needs something in the order of £1M work done on it, and an annual turnover of under £100K, more than half of which goes towards the cost of local ministry, resources are a continual challenge.
And yet charismatic evangelicals (even independent local ones not backed by rich founders) can use a school gym or community centre on a new-build estate and do incredible things, apparently out of sheer willpower. How are they able to apparently do more with sparse resources? I'm genuinely wondering what causes such a difference.
I think you are talking about multiple things here; Firstly factor in that very few are going canonically independent in the sense of 'single unaffiliated pastor/family rocks up and starts church'. Even some of the independents are going to be - ultimately - plants from other movements/independents, or the product of splits somewhere, or a group of people (centred on one or two couples) deciding to start a church
Secondly, building availability *is* a huge constrain on the activities churches at this scale can offer - best case you are able to rent out some smaller facility in a more permanent basis or share a church building when the existing congregation is not using it. Thirdly, the groups that succeed are ones that manage to gain a critical mass (see the first point) early on around the demographics that can support activities (like a core of young mums that are willing to commit to a mum+toddlers group). Lastly factor in survivor bias, a lot of these groups are starting up all the time, and the successful ones are the ones you hear about.
@Gamma Gamaliel being in the terminally self-conscious Church of England, I have long rather admired the Roman Catholic and eastern Orthodox churches. They do their thing, because what they do is what they are. This is what I about tap-dancing ducks.
[Firstly factor in that very few are going canonically independent in the sense of 'single unaffiliated pastor/family rocks up and starts church'. Even some of the independents are going to be - ultimately - plants from other movements/independents, or the product of splits somewhere, or a group of people (centred on one or two couples) deciding to start a church.
We have had a naughty case here of an Anglican being brought across Offa's Dyke, with several others, to head up a new Resource Church in Cardiff. That has grown but several questions have been raised about him, one relating to starting a new independent church while still leading the CinW one! He has been ticked off (CinW procedures are different to CofE ones) and resigned.
Conversely, I was going to say that one of the more unpleasant aspects of consumerism the whole "you must give people what they want" business. Tap-dancing ducks just don't exist, even if it would attract a large crowd. Congregations have to develop with integrity - some are excessively rigid about this until too late, but forcing the dog onto its hind legs will be a real solution, because it isn't sustainable. in that sense, it may even be better to let the current version of things come to its natural end and allow something totally different to develop, rather than grafting two utterly incompatible things together.
I think there's a difference between tap-dancing ducks and having local needs which churches could address, but don't (rather than can't).
@Gamma Gamaliel being in the terminally self-conscious Church of England, I have long rather admired the Roman Catholic and eastern Orthodox churches. They do their thing, because what they do is what they are. This is what I about tap-dancing ducks.
I don't see them as being necessarily the same in terms of outreach - at least where I live, the RC churches are very involved with the local community and help run food banks and toddler groups etc. In my experience, EO churches tend to be a lot more insular - I think part of that is down to being more closely linked with overseas diaspora communities and language barriers being more of an issue, but Catholics manage to both do their thing and also involve themselves with the wider community.
Coming back to the UK, the US and other Western capitalist countries, I know that people choose churches and other voluntary groups for a whole range of reasons - many of them very personal and highly complex.
...
I'm interested in exploring these issues, that's all. I'm not out to criticise anyone who prefers worship bands and choruses to the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom (an acquired taste!) or who worships with the URC rather than an FiF Anglo-Catholic parish or whatever else.
I agree these are worthwhile issues to explore.
There are other factors at play rather than preferences of style. There are theological, sociological, personal and all sorts of other elements in the mix.
On the basis of your experiences, what do you think these other factors are?
A few reflections. Yes, I know people who strongly believe in supporting their local parish church come-what-may. I've done that myself until I found it became personally unsustainable for various reasons.
I also know people who take a principled stand in supporting whatever their nearest evangelical expression of church happens to be, irrespective of label.
I respect those positions.
I think they are becoming less common though.
On the freedom of religion thing. Yes, it's a fundamental human right in liberal terms.
Whether we choose to 'waive' that right and all do the same thing churchwise is another issue and it's hard to envisage how that would be the case. Who decides?
How would such a scenario be 'enforced' or regulated?
Thanks Gamma Gamaliel.
I'm afraid I don't really understand how those two questions are relevant to choosing or not choosing a church. In what scenario would anything need to be enforced or regulated?
On the "freedom of religion" thing, I'm struggling to understand what choosing or not choosing a church according to personal preference has to do with fundamental human rights. In what way is not choosing a church according to personal preference equivalent to being subject to discrimination or persecution for practising your faith?
It doesn't seem hard to envisage how people might deny themselves the choice of which church to attend, given that it's what some people continue to do up to this day.
In the circumstances, I think it makes sense to explore the factors that distinguish the churchgoers who believe that they should keep attending their local church, from the churchgoers who believe they can or should make a personal choice about where to go.
In itself, an appeal to consumerism sounds like a bit like an appeal to the spirit of the age, as though Christians have no choice about going down this road, or that the Church itself has nothing to say on the issue, and that the only option for individual churches is to join the marketplace and tailor their offers.
My current church has poured a couple of hundred thousand over the last decade into a building 10 times too large for the congregation and still has an underused, shabby, expensive building, a Kirk Session dwindling and exhausted, and shuffling ever closer to insolvency. The time to fix things was a decade ago.
Is it a listed building? - in which case you had little choice, alas. Did you apply for or receive any grants?
Grants covered ~5-10% of spend. Not listed but the last remaining church building in use with the other closing in 2014, and a wider community that can rapidly become hostile (even the partial removal of pews brought a threatening letter with, I kid you not, letters cut from newspapers). Even had Kirk Session wanted to be brave they'd have faced revolt from the congregation.
In the interests of balance, here, it occurs to me that I know of one town where there are two Serbian Orthodox parishes in very close proximity.
I have no idea why there are two and why people would choose one over the other as both use Serbian in their liturgies as far as I'm aware.
Politics. There was a schism between those who wanted the Serbian monarchy restored and those who did not. Officially this schism has been healed, but the parallel communities still remain in many places.
Thanks @ThunderBunk for the memorable 'What they do is what they are ...' quote. I'll add it to the quotes file. It's rather like lex orandi, lex
In terms of outreach @Pomona, historically Orthodox parishes have tended to be insular and serve the needs of particular 'diaspora' communities. That's beginning to change and many Orthodox parishes these days are multicultural irrespective of jurisdiction.
Jurisdictional issues are a mess though.
The so-called 'convert parishes' have had all-on to get themselves established and learn the ropes as it were but are getting beyond that phase. Catechesis is a big issue and a challenge both for nominal 'cradle Orthodox' and newcomers. We are getting people from non-churched backgrounds to some extent now.
As far as the RCs go, I've long been impressed by the work of the St Vincent de Paul' societies that many parishes run.
When it comes to initiatives like 'Christians Against Poverty' and debt counselling and such, many evangelical groups are indeed very prominent.
That said, an old friend who used to work for a Christian charity in the Midlands told me that RCs were disproportionately represented among the volunteers and evangelicals were thin on the ground. She put this down to the more 'participatory' nature of evangelical churches. With the best will in the world, people were involved with running house-groups, Bible studies, worship bands and prayer meetings and so on and had little time left for social action of whatever kind.
That isn't to say there aren't very valuable and impressive evangelical initiatives of that kind.
I know individual Orthodox who are involved with such things and some parishes are involved with this sort of activity but generally there isn't the 'critical mass' that large Protestant churches of various stripes are able to draw on.
@pease, I think you and I are 'talking past each other' on the religious freedom thing and I didn't express myself very well.
In terms of the other factors that might be involved in choice of church ... I think those have been covered by a number of posters.
Things like a sense of community, of belonging, whether people feel welcomed, involved, listened to ... etc etc etc.
I think it was @Lamb Chopped who alluded to perceived pastoral failure in times of crisis and I've known that happen in a number of settings and certainly in my own experience when my wife died, but I was already on the periphery of my local Anglican parish when that happened. It wasn't the reason I stopped going but it contributed to it.
The title strongly implies that contemporary Christianity is consumerist.
Well, the Amazon description says:
The challenge facing Christianity today is not a lack of motivation or resources, but a failure of imagination.
A growing number of people are disturbed by the values exhibited by the contemporary church. Worship has become entertainment, the church has become a shopping mall, and God has become a consumable product. Many sense that something is wrong, but they cannot imagine an alternative way. The Divine Commodity finally articulates what so many have been feeling and offers hope for the future of a post-consumer Christianity.
Through Scripture, history, engaging narrative, and the inspiring art of Vincent van Gogh, The Divine Commodity explores spiritual practices that liberate our imaginations to live as Christ's people in a consumer culture opposed to the values of his kingdom. Each chapter shows how our formation as consumers has distorted an element of our faith. For example, the way churches have become corporations and how branding makes us more focused on image than reality. It then energizes an alternative vision for those seeking a more meaningful faith. Before we can hope to live differently, we must have our minds released from consumerism's grip and captivated once again by Christ.
A lot of this might be US-specific, but I genuinely don’t know. I don’t know what the megachurch situation is in the UK, for instance.
We don’t have megachurches on the same scale but there are parallels.
I've been criticised for using the term 'consumerism' here and now there's this author claiming to provide an antidote to what they see as inveterate consumerism in US megachurch culture - worship as 'entertainment' and so on.
I don't think worship as entertainment is restricted to the megachurch scene, although it is perhaps more obvious there.
But we have to be careful. One person's 'entertainment' might be another person's way of connecting with God.
I think there are lines to be drawn between worship and entertainment and each tradition will have their own way of defining or dealing with that.
Interesting to see in the blurb that the book draws on Van Gogh's paintings. I'm wondering what the connection is between those and developing a less consumerist approach.
The title strongly implies that contemporary Christianity is consumerist.
Or that the author is of the opinion that it is.
As I read through this thread, I share the concern expressed by some others that “consumerism” may not quite be the right lens for considering what we’re trying to talk about. I wonder if a better lens might be “Western individualism.”
When folks talk about supporting their parish church, even if it’s not always the exact flavor of what they’d choose, there is an implicit connection to community involved. Support of the local community, and the church’s role (or potential role) in the community outweighs individual preferences.
Even if it’s not a choice between a geographical parish* or some other option, a sense of community in the place where one is, perhaps where one has roots, can be seen as more important than a place that “checks all of my boxes.”
Meanwhile, influence of Western individualism can lead to “what I’m looking for” or “what meets my needs” (or we/our, in the case of couples or families) being seen as the higher need.
Just pondering.
* FWIW, here in the U.S., geographical parishes are generally not much of a thing. Many denominations use “parish” to describe local congregations, but such parishes often are not geographical. I think geographical parishes are still officially a thing among US Catholics, but at least where I am, geographical boundaries are regularly ignored.
My current church has poured a couple of hundred thousand over the last decade into a building 10 times too large for the congregation and still has an underused, shabby, expensive building, a Kirk Session dwindling and exhausted, and shuffling ever closer to insolvency. The time to fix things was a decade ago.
Is it a listed building? - in which case you had little choice, alas. Did you apply for or receive any grants?
Grants covered ~5-10% of spend. Not listed but the last remaining church building in use with the other closing in 2014, and a wider community that can rapidly become hostile (even the partial removal of pews brought a threatening letter with, I kid you not, letters cut from newspapers). Even had Kirk Session wanted to be brave they'd have faced revolt from the congregation.
Good grief! "Don't touch our church" - from the folk who never darken its doors (and whose grandparents are buried in the churchyard).
@ChastMastr megachurches are defined as any Protestant Christian church in which at least 2,000 attend religious services in a weekend - no, I don't know why the term was coined to only refer to Protestant churches, but the term (rather than the concept iyswim) was created by the Hartford Institute for Religion Research for academic purposes. Wrt the UK, I don't think we actually have any - I don't think Hillsong in the UK gets those numbers. If we do have any that meet the criteria, it's maybe 2 or 3 in London and I would guess that at least one would be primarily non-English-speaking. The kind of non-denom megachurches the US gets are pretty much non-existent here, we just literally do not have enough religious people in the UK for that.
Edited to add that churches that gather more than 10,000 people every Sunday have been dubbed "gigachurches". In 2015, there were about 100 gigachurches in the United States 😱
My current church has poured a couple of hundred thousand over the last decade into a building 10 times too large for the congregation and still has an underused, shabby, expensive building, a Kirk Session dwindling and exhausted, and shuffling ever closer to insolvency. The time to fix things was a decade ago.
Is it a listed building? - in which case you had little choice, alas. Did you apply for or receive any grants?
Grants covered ~5-10% of spend. Not listed but the last remaining church building in use with the other closing in 2014, and a wider community that can rapidly become hostile (even the partial removal of pews brought a threatening letter with, I kid you not, letters cut from newspapers). Even had Kirk Session wanted to be brave they'd have faced revolt from the congregation.
Good grief! "Don't touch our church" - from the folk who never darken its doors (and whose grandparents are buried in the churchyard).
That can’t be a surprise though surely?
Multiple CofE churches I’ve worshipped in have been largely kept solvent by the giving of people who never go (there or anywhere else) on the basis of either family burials or wanting to protect the building.
It creates a challenging dynamic but it is what it is,
@ChastMastr megachurches are defined as any Protestant Christian church in which at least 2,000 attend religious services in a weekend - no, I don't know why the term was coined to only refer to Protestant churches, but the term (rather than the concept iyswim) was created by the Hartford Institute for Religion Research for academic purposes. Wrt the UK, I don't think we actually have any - I don't think Hillsong in the UK gets those numbers. If we do have any that meet the criteria, it's maybe 2 or 3 in London and I would guess that at least one would be primarily non-English-speaking. The kind of non-denom megachurches the US gets are pretty much non-existent here, we just literally do not have enough religious people in the UK for that.
Edited to add that churches that gather more than 10,000 people every Sunday have been dubbed "gigachurches". In 2015, there were about 100 gigachurches in the United States 😱
March 27, 2005; -- Americans are known for their love of "super-sizing" -- from French fries to cars to houses -- and on this Easter Sunday, many Americans are celebrating on a much larger scale, in huge congregations known as "mega-churches," where people can do much more than just worship.
These mega-churches are places where members can not only pray, but work out in a gym, eat at a food court or browse in a bookstore. And they are becoming more popular across the country.
For the Ellis family of Plano, Texas, church is not some chore to attend to on Easter Sunday. It's not even just a Sunday outing. The Ellises spend as much time at Prestonwood Baptist Church as they do at their home.
. . .
Prestonwood is not a simple church -- its sprawling campus covers 140 acres.
Dad works out at Prestonwood, and mom, Beth, teaches religion. The kids, Graham and Sheridan, hang out in the children's section, and their older sister, Landen, goes to school at Prestonwood and sings in the choir.
Prestonwood has sports fields, an arcade, small bible-study groups and a bookstore on what is called Main Street. There is even a food court where the Ellises frequently eat, complete with a Starbucks.
. . .
@Nick Tamen the reality on the ground here is that the Anglican parish system is largely breaking down with boundaries increasingly ignored.
There is a 'parish movement' which aims to reverse this trend but I have no idea how successful it's being.
What tends to happen though in towns where 2 or 3 Anglican parishes have merged to form a single parish is that each of them tend to retain their identity.
In the example of the town I cited in the OP, those members of the town centre parish church who didn't like the changes wrought - with little or no consultation apparently from those behind the 'resource church' initiative - decamped to one that offered more traditional or recognisably Anglican-style worship.
More positively, perhaps if we are taking a non-consumerist view, others went to another church in the parish which is located on a needy housing estate. The congregation there is made up largely of older people or families with older kids whereas the younger families remain at the town centre one.
So there are effectively separate 'parishes' within a single over-arching parish..
The medieval church on the edge of town offers a monthly 'Prayer Book' service. The one on the housing estate is more family-centric and something of a halfway-house stylistically between traditional Anglicanism and the contemporary 'it-could-be-non-denominational' style.
The town centre church has a 9am traditional service and a mid-morning one which 'looks' Anglican in name only. That's the service the former Community Church members attend.
Which us what prompted my question in the first place. Why would they do that when the service style is pretty much identical to the style in the church they've left?
Is it consumerism or something else? Probably a whole range of factors as I think we've agreed.
Prestonwood's worship center seats 7,000, but even that isn't big enough to hold all of the members.
Every weekend, there are three services to accommodate Prestonwood's membership of 24,000 people.
Again, 20 years ago in 2005…
That sounds so alien to us here in the UK, and I daresay people in other parts of the US.
As I said upthread, a Lutheran pastor and some US Episcopalian clergy I met recently all told me that they were receiving transfers from megachurches or less super-sized 'community churches'.
One opined that this was in itself an indication of American individualism, 'rebellion' and yes, consumerism.
His words, not mine.
@Pomona is right, there are probably no more than 2 or 3 megachurches in the UK, all in London and I would say at least one largely African in demographics - Nigerian, Ghanaian etc. The others, I imagine, would be very ethnically mixed.
Birmingham may have some congregations that aren't far behind in terms of numbers but I can't think of any 'indigenous' attempts to create megachurch style congregations that haven't imploded.
My current church has poured a couple of hundred thousand over the last decade into a building 10 times too large for the congregation and still has an underused, shabby, expensive building, a Kirk Session dwindling and exhausted, and shuffling ever closer to insolvency. The time to fix things was a decade ago.
Is it a listed building? - in which case you had little choice, alas. Did you apply for or receive any grants?
Grants covered ~5-10% of spend. Not listed but the last remaining church building in use with the other closing in 2014, and a wider community that can rapidly become hostile (even the partial removal of pews brought a threatening letter with, I kid you not, letters cut from newspapers). Even had Kirk Session wanted to be brave they'd have faced revolt from the congregation.
Good grief! "Don't touch our church" - from the folk who never darken its doors (and whose grandparents are buried in the churchyard).
Ironically the local cemeteries are both alongside mediaeval churchyards with the chapels long since ruined.
@betjemaniac if they coughed up the money there would be less of an issue!
Wrt the UK, I don't think we actually have any - I don't think Hillsong in the UK gets those numbers. If we do have any that meet the criteria, it's maybe 2 or 3 in London and I would guess that at least one would be primarily non-English-speaking.
Offline source, but the last set of figures I saw claimed there were around 15.
My current church has poured a couple of hundred thousand over the last decade into a building 10 times too large for the congregation and still has an underused, shabby, expensive building, a Kirk Session dwindling and exhausted, and shuffling ever closer to insolvency. The time to fix things was a decade ago.
Is it a listed building? - in which case you had little choice, alas. Did you apply for or receive any grants?
Grants covered ~5-10% of spend. Not listed but the last remaining church building in use with the other closing in 2014, and a wider community that can rapidly become hostile (even the partial removal of pews brought a threatening letter with, I kid you not, letters cut from newspapers). Even had Kirk Session wanted to be brave they'd have faced revolt from the congregation.
Good grief! "Don't touch our church" - from the folk who never darken its doors (and whose grandparents are buried in the churchyard).
Ironically the local cemeteries are both alongside mediaeval churchyards with the chapels long since ruined.
@betjemaniac if they coughed up the money there would be less of an issue!
Fair - I should have said ‘kept anywhere near solvent’ rather than ‘kept solvent’ as well…
@Nick Tamen the reality on the ground here is that the Anglican parish system is largely breaking down with boundaries increasingly ignored.
There is a 'parish movement' which aims to reverse this trend but I have no idea how successful it's being.
What tends to happen though in towns where 2 or 3 Anglican parishes have merged to form a single parish is that each of them tend to retain their identity.
In practice, it is much more common for two (or more) parishes to be combined in a single benefice (in which they largely retain their legal status as separate parishes). There is usually some intention that they combine their efforts, but it is common for parishes to retain their individual identities.
The situation regarding cooperation across parish boundaries varies significantly from diocese to diocese. Some dioceses have been operating team ministries for over 50 years. Others are still coming to terms with benefices.
I would bear in mind that the Church of England is the state church of England, and the parish system is enshrined in law. And thinking about betjemaniac's point about buildings and burials, the concept of parishes, particularly the parish church (graveyard and all) has had a particular place in English cultural identity.
Yes, the instance I'm thinking of isn't a 'benefice' but a joint parish covering the whole town but with separate churches within that.
I'm not sure what I think of that as a model but as I'm not an Anglican my interest is purely academic, whilst, of course wishing the best for each of them.
It does seem that separate congregations and 'styles' are the norm now in many Anglican settings but perhaps it's been like that for a lo-o-o-oo-ng time. The 8am eucharist people were rarely seen at later services or other occasions from what I can gather.
Whether this holds parishes together, I don't know, but to return to the consumerist thing again, I can understand why Anglican churches may lay on more 'contemporary' styles of service is they want to retain people or stop them drifting off to non-Anglican churches which offer that style.
But in this particular instance the net effect seems to have been to attract people from non-Anglican churches that offer that style already. I'm not saying that waa a deliberate intention, 'Mwa ha ha ha ha! Let's have guitars and screens and choruses and we'll filch a load of people from the Community Church! That'll show them who's boss!'
No, I'm sure that wasn't the intention at all. But it's what's happened.
I'll start another thread about the 'parish movement.' I'd be interested to hear more about that.
Thanks - I think I now understand what you mean by "[parish] boundaries increasingly ignored", which is almost the opposite of what I first thought you meant.
To summarise my current thoughts on the topic: I think the ideology of the Church Growth Movement has been disastrous for parochial Anglicanism.
To me there is a fundamental mismatch between Church Growth's "like attracts like" Homogeneous Unit Principle, and the New Testament ideal of a church congregation incorporating people of all kinds and modelling God's "new society".
How does one realise the latter in a culture where people do gravitate to "their own kind", whether that be age, social class, musical tastes, personality type, race, sexuality/gender, politics or whatever?
To me there is a fundamental mismatch between Church Growth's "like attracts like" Homogeneous Unit Principle, and the New Testament ideal of a church congregation incorporating people of all kinds and modelling God's "new society".
How does one realise the latter in a culture where people do gravitate to "their own kind", whether that be age, social class, musical tastes, personality type, race, sexuality/gender, politics or whatever?
Speaking as someone who's been used to plant a church (once only, so no expert)--
I think the best thing you can do, if you're in a position of leadership, is to do some serious searching of your own heart with God's help, trying to figure out if this is something God wants you to be focusing on "here and now" where you are situated in life--or if there might be something else he'd prefer you to focus on. Because there are people and churches that simply don't have the wherewithal to make this a major focus--either because there's something even more important occupying them at the moment, or because they are (for example) buried in the countryside, with only a few people around them, and all of those pretty much homogeneous.
But if you come out of your examination convinced God does want you to make that a major focus, the first step IMHO is to cultivate a personal attitude that is open and welcoming to people/new attenders who are not like you--and that's not easy, there's always a "difference" I'd not thought of that freaks me out a bit when someone who is that "different" shows up in my life! and takes some getting used to.
And then you pray, and ask God to send you whoever he wants. And keep praying.
In my experience, God "drops" people in your lap to be cared for, and possibly then enjoys the comedy of watching your mouth fall open as you try to figure out what the heck to do with this new person--how to connect, how to care, what they themselves want of you and your congregation, etc. etc. etc. And so you focus on that, until the person is either embedded in your church community (has friends, knows people, needs no more special care or has regular sources for whatever ongoing care they need) or has moved on (died, moved to a new geographical location, or just said "No, this place and these people are not for me").
You may have several people going through this process of dropping in and being embedded (or not) at one time. And it helps if you're not doing all the work yourself, but rather involving as many church members as you can in the process.
Over the years, this kind of thing results in a congregation that is notably odd heterogeneous, though it's likely to have some characteristics that are shared by everybody as well (for instance, the language spoken). And since happy people tend to bring others like themselves along with them, your church may end up with a contingent of African immigrants, people fighting addictions, or what-have-you. It will probably be something you didn't expect.
NOTE: You have doubtless noticed that this model presupposes that the people who come to you are in need--often in serious need, in several different directions at once. That may not apply to the world you live in, and so this model might not work (Or it might, who knows? There are more kinds of need than just the obvious). But we're in a city, and generally speaking, anybody who "drops in" to our lives and ministry is almost certainly doing it through some need-based avenue--like the lady one of our old friends brought to us a couple weeks ago, because she is dying and (in our friend's understanding) not receiving proper care during her last few weeks. We were welcomed by the lady, looked into her situation, and discovered that for once, this is actually a case where there AREN'T serious care deficiencies--it was a misunderstanding, thank God--but still, the woman wants us to visit, is happy when we come, and so we do. Why not? And it's nice for once to be sitting with someone who only wants your company, instead of needing legal help, food, a family fight to be disentangled, etc. etc. etc. But when they do need and ask for the other kinds of care, we do what we can--and maybe one in ten "stick" long term with the congregation. (We make it clear from the outset that there are no strings attached to our help.)
Now you've got me trying to imagine what Jesus' ministry would have looked like if he had never healed a single person, and ay yi yi! I suspect it would have taken a lot longer to "take off," and that would have been a problem for a man who knew he had only a couple/three years to get the word out before dying.
Well, his ministry may have lasted more than 3 years if it hadn't drew so much attention through the miraculous healings and so on.
But this is all speculation...
Orthodox parishes in the 'West' tend to be either highly monocultural due to language and ethnicity, or else highly multicultural.
Ours is the latter and yes, it's a challenge.
What we don't get are white working-class people, and that's a deficit most churches have, irrespective of tradition. We do have some on the periphery but like some of the 'Orthobro' young male converts and enquirers, I do worry about their motivation as they've come across some highly right-wing Orthodox 'influencers' online.
Back in my charismatic 'restorationist' days, we did make some progress in working-class areas but for various reasons that wasn't sustained - largely, I think, because of a misguided 'centralising' strategy rather than allowing regional groupings to develop into churches in their own right.
It's a tricky one. I know of a Baptist church-plant that ended up as a 'people-like-us' church full of liberal young professionals and Guardian readers. Ok, that reflected the area's demographic to some extent but the catchment area was more mixed than that.
Coming back to the parish thing, for a time our local evangelical Anglican parish was attracting people from outside of the area, from other towns. People who liked the vibe.
That seems to have died off to some extent now.
I really don't know what the answer is. People seem to attend or not attend church for a whole range of reasons. Without being flippant or critical I think it's a fact that some of our less regular attenders turn up for purely cultural or even superstitious reasons.
They want a magic candle or some mojo.
In any Orthodox parish you'll find the highly devout, the well-informed, those who haven't the first idea about the Faith and all points in between.
We've got people who come along because they are lonely or want some of the food we distribute from supermarkets that are getting rid of it because it's close to the use-by date.
That's all fine. If it helps them then we're doing something at least.
Eastern Europeans are white and by and large working-class, although some of the earlier migrants are professionals.
This caused problems in a part of West London in which I ministered (late-90s), where the long-standing Polish community very much resented the influx of new migrants who, they felt, were somewhat "uncouth".
I tell a lie, there are actually a number of well-established white British working-class people in our parish, a group of former Pentecostals who baled out when their church went too whacky.
They found their way to Orthodoxy when one of the better educated of them - and I don't mean that in a patronising way - did some research and concluded that it was the True FaithTM ...
There are still a few indigenous working class folk who followed the priest into Orthodoxy from Anglicanism some 30 years ago.
What I meant was that we aren't getting many working class British people now, but we have seen a number coming through as catechumens.
@Baptist Trainfan I didn't mean to imply their are tensions between more professional Eastern Europeans and newer, more working class migrants. Far from it. They all get on well.
The point I was making was that these communities are not homogenous or monolithic and vary considerably in terms of educational level, employment and social class.
They also vary considerably in their understanding of their faith, everything from folk-religion and superstition to a fair level of theological nous..
It makes for some interesting Bible study sessions with the language barrier a factor too of course!
A few thoughts, if I may:
In the not too distant past we had reason to change church. To attempt to discern where we should end up we had to have a kind of shopping list to help us work out what would be a "suitable" community for us to be part of at this stage of life and place in our journey. Tbh this was pretty open ended and we visited various options (some numerous times) before settling. Whilst this process could be seen as consumerist FWIW I'd rather think of it as doing due diligence for an important decision (and hopefully attempting to hear christ in it all).
As @chrisstiles pointed out many churchplants are part of existing networks (with varying degrees of formality) and often resourced in part from these. Our previous church had various times of being supported financially from "central office".
Resource churches/minsters - in a way isn't this what a cathedral should be? It's certainly how various flagship churches of different denominations and networks I've come across have seen themselves.
Regarding the OP there may be an element of things looking similar from the outside but feeling different on the inside?
We have had a naughty case here of an Anglican being brought across Offa's Dyke, with several others, to head up a new Resource Church in Cardiff. That has grown but several questions have been raised about him, one relating to starting a new independent church while still leading the CinW one! He has been ticked off (CinW procedures are different to CofE ones) and resigned.
The news coverage of this picks up on some other issues (dodgy accounting and lax safeguarding) as well
Yes, the instance I'm thinking of isn't a 'benefice' but a joint parish covering the whole town but with separate churches within that.
I'm not sure what I think of that as a model but as I'm not an Anglican my interest is purely academic, whilst, of course wishing the best for each of them.
It does seem that separate congregations and 'styles' are the norm now in many Anglican settings but perhaps it's been like that for a lo-o-o-oo-ng time. The 8am eucharist people were rarely seen at later services or other occasions ....
IIRC a family member used to work for a c of e church where this was the situation. The whole large town was the parish but there were various churches in the regions of the town which were of whatever flavour (new wine, fif, aff cath etc).
As soon as a church has more than one service they will have different congregations and the challenge of creating links between them.
Yes. Much to think about from your post, @Twangist. I get the 'due diligence' thing and wouldn't consider that as 'consumerism' in the OP sense - and I'd accept the caveat that things that look pretty much the same from the outside may feel very different from the inside.
On the issue of churches having more than one service a day, time was when many Anglican churches and non-conformist chapels had two or three services a day. Not everyone went to them all, of course, but in non-conformist churches it wasn't uncommon for people to attend up to 3 services every Sunday.
Those days are long gone and generally if a church has 2 Sunday services they are generally catering for different people at each.
There was a thread recently about how appropriate it is or isn't to have more than one communion service a day - a big 'no-no' from an Orthodox perspective.
Whatever the case with that, 2 services effectively means 2 separate congregations under the same roof to all intents and purposes, although some churches arrange a coffee time in between so that people from each can mingle.
That seems to work well I'm some places from what I've observed.
I s'pose having two different styles of service within the same church does prevent a chunk of the congregation from hiving off to find whatever floats their boat elsewhere - be it more traditional or more contemporary or whatever else the flavour happens to be.
I got the impression that a previous vicar at our local evangelical Anglican parish would not have been displeased if the more traditional 9am service had fizzled out, but to his surprise numbers actually increased as people decamped to it from the 11am service to escape the videos and the silly jokes. But them the videos and silly jokes followed them to the earlier service.
There’s always the rural approach when it comes to churchmanship - distances and parish loyalty can make it tempting to offer a bit of everything from one week to the next. So you might get 1662 mattins one week, common worship Eucharist the next, cafe church another, and so on. Some lay led, some lay reader led, some priest led.
The same congregation across all of it, bouncing up and down the candle (from worship songs to hymns A&M, etc) according to the service on the basis that if they support the stuff they don’t like, others will support the services they do.
It’s a mindset I’ve not experienced in urban areas, but it’s common in the more remote bits of the sticks.
That’s a little bit like my set up, across five village churches in the benefice. But in general, people tend to only attend their own village church, for whatever service is on offer. Even when there is a only one, the group service on a fifth Sunday, there will be perhaps only one person, or maybe four at most from any of the other churches. They don’t seem to want to shop around.
I'm always uncomfortable with threads judging people for where they go to church. I think that's because I think it's hard to tell why people go where they go.
When we moved here, we looked for the local Episcopal Church, and found it.
Fortunately, it was a vibrant and welcoming place, with lots of families with young children. If we had walked in and were the youngest people there by 40 years, I'm not sure that we would have stayed. If the priest had started preaching intolerance, we wouldn't have stayed. I'm not sure what we'd have done if the church had had young families, preached love and inclusion, but had gone all drums-n-praise-band.
That’s a little bit like my set up, across five village churches in the benefice. But in general, people tend to only attend their own village church, for whatever service is on offer. Even when there is a only one, the group service on a fifth Sunday, there will be perhaps only one person, or maybe four at most from any of the other churches. They don’t seem to want to shop around.
Exactly the same here. I do think ‘the rural church’ is a very different animal to urban areas or those within striking distance of a town so that both the villagers have a choice and the church is itself a potential choice for the town.
That’s a little bit like my set up, across five village churches in the benefice. But in general, people tend to only attend their own village church, for whatever service is on offer. Even when there is a only one, the group service on a fifth Sunday, there will be perhaps only one person, or maybe four at most from any of the other churches. They don’t seem to want to shop around.
True too of my late mother's benefice in rural Norfolk.
As soon as a church has more than one service, they will have different congregations and the challenge of creating links between them.
Nope. Not here. Maybe sometime in the future, but we do not need to create links at present, as they have always existed to date.
The evening service was set up for those who could not make mass in the morning. On any given week, about 5% of the morning congregation and 15% of the evening service attend the other service than their usual Sunday service. The evening service is approximately one-third the size of the morning service. Actually, a good portion of those are floaters who regularly switch. Thus, there have been links since the beginning which continue to this day. However, the actual links are stronger; both services depend on those who usually attend the other service to function smoothly. The team that runs the evening Mass is sparse; when specific members are away, we have to rely on a member of the morning Mass to take their place. Equally, the Sacristy team largely worships at the evening Mass, so the preparation for the morning Mass every week is largely done by those from the evening Mass. Thus, there is a symbiotic relationship between the two services, and long may it continue. The result is that for high days and holy days, we all muck in together, and there is no them and us attitude.
Oh, and our capacity for growth and regular worship attendance depends on us having at least two masses. We do not have a large building, and with modern patterns of sitting in church*, when we reach around the size of the combined congregations, then people are sitting in pews with a poor view in significant numbers.
*Our pews may officially sit five or six, but rarely more than three people sit in a pew, even when we are very full.
Comments
My current church has poured a couple of hundred thousand over the last decade into a building 10 times too large for the congregation and still has an underused, shabby, expensive building, a Kirk Session dwindling and exhausted, and shuffling ever closer to insolvency. The time to fix things was a decade ago.
Ok. Fair do's, although I'm not the only one here to get the impression you haven't always got the right end of the stick when reading posts ...
But there we are.
I don’t want to fall out with you and you make some very valid points.
FWIW, I do think there is a certain amount of shopping around unnecessarily - at all ends of the spectrum. Hence my reference to Tolstoy's observation about people traipsing from one monastery to the next seeking yet another 'word' from a staretz or some kind of spiritual 'hit'.
I think there can be a tendency for affluent Christians of all types to flit from one conference or retreat or pilgrimage to the next - according to whatever is de rigeur in their tradition.
As for new and creative groups setting up in their local leisure centre or community hall ... yes, but very often they crash and burn. This is true of denominational initiatives too, of course. Two out of every five Baptist church plants fail.
These groups often emphasise tithing so they often aren't as poorly resourced as might appear.
To be fair, I admire their oomph and enterprise and feel the rest of us could take a leaf out of their book.
The Orthodox strategy, such as it is, involves simply being 'there' and serving the Liturgy and if people come along, that's fine. If not ...
I do think we need to do 'better' than that and would readily concede that some groups and traditions are a lot lighter on their feet and able to launch new initiatives more readily.
I think you are talking about multiple things here; Firstly factor in that very few are going canonically independent in the sense of 'single unaffiliated pastor/family rocks up and starts church'. Even some of the independents are going to be - ultimately - plants from other movements/independents, or the product of splits somewhere, or a group of people (centred on one or two couples) deciding to start a church
Secondly, building availability *is* a huge constrain on the activities churches at this scale can offer - best case you are able to rent out some smaller facility in a more permanent basis or share a church building when the existing congregation is not using it. Thirdly, the groups that succeed are ones that manage to gain a critical mass (see the first point) early on around the demographics that can support activities (like a core of young mums that are willing to commit to a mum+toddlers group). Lastly factor in survivor bias, a lot of these groups are starting up all the time, and the successful ones are the ones you hear about.
I think there's a difference between tap-dancing ducks and having local needs which churches could address, but don't (rather than can't).
I don't see them as being necessarily the same in terms of outreach - at least where I live, the RC churches are very involved with the local community and help run food banks and toddler groups etc. In my experience, EO churches tend to be a lot more insular - I think part of that is down to being more closely linked with overseas diaspora communities and language barriers being more of an issue, but Catholics manage to both do their thing and also involve themselves with the wider community.
On the basis of your experiences, what do you think these other factors are?
Thanks Gamma Gamaliel.
I'm afraid I don't really understand how those two questions are relevant to choosing or not choosing a church. In what scenario would anything need to be enforced or regulated?
On the "freedom of religion" thing, I'm struggling to understand what choosing or not choosing a church according to personal preference has to do with fundamental human rights. In what way is not choosing a church according to personal preference equivalent to being subject to discrimination or persecution for practising your faith?
It doesn't seem hard to envisage how people might deny themselves the choice of which church to attend, given that it's what some people continue to do up to this day.
In the circumstances, I think it makes sense to explore the factors that distinguish the churchgoers who believe that they should keep attending their local church, from the churchgoers who believe they can or should make a personal choice about where to go.
In itself, an appeal to consumerism sounds like a bit like an appeal to the spirit of the age, as though Christians have no choice about going down this road, or that the Church itself has nothing to say on the issue, and that the only option for individual churches is to join the marketplace and tailor their offers.
Grants covered ~5-10% of spend. Not listed but the last remaining church building in use with the other closing in 2014, and a wider community that can rapidly become hostile (even the partial removal of pews brought a threatening letter with, I kid you not, letters cut from newspapers). Even had Kirk Session wanted to be brave they'd have faced revolt from the congregation.
Politics. There was a schism between those who wanted the Serbian monarchy restored and those who did not. Officially this schism has been healed, but the parallel communities still remain in many places.
In terms of outreach @Pomona, historically Orthodox parishes have tended to be insular and serve the needs of particular 'diaspora' communities. That's beginning to change and many Orthodox parishes these days are multicultural irrespective of jurisdiction.
Jurisdictional issues are a mess though.
The so-called 'convert parishes' have had all-on to get themselves established and learn the ropes as it were but are getting beyond that phase. Catechesis is a big issue and a challenge both for nominal 'cradle Orthodox' and newcomers. We are getting people from non-churched backgrounds to some extent now.
As far as the RCs go, I've long been impressed by the work of the St Vincent de Paul' societies that many parishes run.
When it comes to initiatives like 'Christians Against Poverty' and debt counselling and such, many evangelical groups are indeed very prominent.
That said, an old friend who used to work for a Christian charity in the Midlands told me that RCs were disproportionately represented among the volunteers and evangelicals were thin on the ground. She put this down to the more 'participatory' nature of evangelical churches. With the best will in the world, people were involved with running house-groups, Bible studies, worship bands and prayer meetings and so on and had little time left for social action of whatever kind.
That isn't to say there aren't very valuable and impressive evangelical initiatives of that kind.
I know individual Orthodox who are involved with such things and some parishes are involved with this sort of activity but generally there isn't the 'critical mass' that large Protestant churches of various stripes are able to draw on.
In terms of the other factors that might be involved in choice of church ... I think those have been covered by a number of posters.
Things like a sense of community, of belonging, whether people feel welcomed, involved, listened to ... etc etc etc.
I think it was @Lamb Chopped who alluded to perceived pastoral failure in times of crisis and I've known that happen in a number of settings and certainly in my own experience when my wife died, but I was already on the periphery of my local Anglican parish when that happened. It wasn't the reason I stopped going but it contributed to it.
Well, the Amazon description says:
A lot of this might be US-specific, but I genuinely don’t know. I don’t know what the megachurch situation is in the UK, for instance.
US: https://www.amazon.com/Divine-Commodity-Discovering-Consumer-Christianity/dp/0310515920
UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Divine-Commodity-Discovering-Consumer-Christianity/dp/0310515920/ref=mp_s_a_1_9?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.02lFnGTlKS3iRrsu_edO-JjPleU3x357P6RMRxwENkFPzyVInU3O59gvbVDNILvY0xmWfGGpxkQ_FnEM8x3kcA017HDoJHQCXY6zu2qJsTHdBkjpLwNVykN5FTtWo9RcjM_OOO5hK--mJY1Ps6i00PnvE5fCSuCq-c-uy7v06GWyg-2dod1kZuOQoO-oNJC5bgXba1XrpAxW2nNmPuF3mg.odllMvRpVEDXJeh0X7NV-nDZ07Lp34sVj2d9rusFJXY&dib_tag=se&keywords=skye+jethani&qid=1756667728&sr=8-9
I've been criticised for using the term 'consumerism' here and now there's this author claiming to provide an antidote to what they see as inveterate consumerism in US megachurch culture - worship as 'entertainment' and so on.
I don't think worship as entertainment is restricted to the megachurch scene, although it is perhaps more obvious there.
But we have to be careful. One person's 'entertainment' might be another person's way of connecting with God.
I think there are lines to be drawn between worship and entertainment and each tradition will have their own way of defining or dealing with that.
Interesting to see in the blurb that the book draws on Van Gogh's paintings. I'm wondering what the connection is between those and developing a less consumerist approach.
Why Van Gogh?
As I read through this thread, I share the concern expressed by some others that “consumerism” may not quite be the right lens for considering what we’re trying to talk about. I wonder if a better lens might be “Western individualism.”
When folks talk about supporting their parish church, even if it’s not always the exact flavor of what they’d choose, there is an implicit connection to community involved. Support of the local community, and the church’s role (or potential role) in the community outweighs individual preferences.
Even if it’s not a choice between a geographical parish* or some other option, a sense of community in the place where one is, perhaps where one has roots, can be seen as more important than a place that “checks all of my boxes.”
Meanwhile, influence of Western individualism can lead to “what I’m looking for” or “what meets my needs” (or we/our, in the case of couples or families) being seen as the higher need.
Just pondering.
* FWIW, here in the U.S., geographical parishes are generally not much of a thing. Many denominations use “parish” to describe local congregations, but such parishes often are not geographical. I think geographical parishes are still officially a thing among US Catholics, but at least where I am, geographical boundaries are regularly ignored.
Good grief! "Don't touch our church" - from the folk who never darken its doors (and whose grandparents are buried in the churchyard).
Edited to add that churches that gather more than 10,000 people every Sunday have been dubbed "gigachurches". In 2015, there were about 100 gigachurches in the United States 😱
That can’t be a surprise though surely?
Multiple CofE churches I’ve worshipped in have been largely kept solvent by the giving of people who never go (there or anywhere else) on the basis of either family burials or wanting to protect the building.
It creates a challenging dynamic but it is what it is,
And this was 20 years ago:
https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Business/story?id=617341&page=1
Again, 20 years ago in 2005…
There is a 'parish movement' which aims to reverse this trend but I have no idea how successful it's being.
What tends to happen though in towns where 2 or 3 Anglican parishes have merged to form a single parish is that each of them tend to retain their identity.
In the example of the town I cited in the OP, those members of the town centre parish church who didn't like the changes wrought - with little or no consultation apparently from those behind the 'resource church' initiative - decamped to one that offered more traditional or recognisably Anglican-style worship.
More positively, perhaps if we are taking a non-consumerist view, others went to another church in the parish which is located on a needy housing estate. The congregation there is made up largely of older people or families with older kids whereas the younger families remain at the town centre one.
So there are effectively separate 'parishes' within a single over-arching parish..
The medieval church on the edge of town offers a monthly 'Prayer Book' service. The one on the housing estate is more family-centric and something of a halfway-house stylistically between traditional Anglicanism and the contemporary 'it-could-be-non-denominational' style.
The town centre church has a 9am traditional service and a mid-morning one which 'looks' Anglican in name only. That's the service the former Community Church members attend.
Which us what prompted my question in the first place. Why would they do that when the service style is pretty much identical to the style in the church they've left?
Is it consumerism or something else? Probably a whole range of factors as I think we've agreed.
That sounds so alien to us here in the UK, and I daresay people in other parts of the US.
As I said upthread, a Lutheran pastor and some US Episcopalian clergy I met recently all told me that they were receiving transfers from megachurches or less super-sized 'community churches'.
One opined that this was in itself an indication of American individualism, 'rebellion' and yes, consumerism.
His words, not mine.
@Pomona is right, there are probably no more than 2 or 3 megachurches in the UK, all in London and I would say at least one largely African in demographics - Nigerian, Ghanaian etc. The others, I imagine, would be very ethnically mixed.
Birmingham may have some congregations that aren't far behind in terms of numbers but I can't think of any 'indigenous' attempts to create megachurch style congregations that haven't imploded.
Ironically the local cemeteries are both alongside mediaeval churchyards with the chapels long since ruined.
@betjemaniac if they coughed up the money there would be less of an issue!
Offline source, but the last set of figures I saw claimed there were around 15.
In practice, it is much more common for two (or more) parishes to be combined in a single benefice (in which they largely retain their legal status as separate parishes). There is usually some intention that they combine their efforts, but it is common for parishes to retain their individual identities.
The situation regarding cooperation across parish boundaries varies significantly from diocese to diocese. Some dioceses have been operating team ministries for over 50 years. Others are still coming to terms with benefices.
I would bear in mind that the Church of England is the state church of England, and the parish system is enshrined in law. And thinking about betjemaniac's point about buildings and burials, the concept of parishes, particularly the parish church (graveyard and all) has had a particular place in English cultural identity.
I'm not sure what I think of that as a model but as I'm not an Anglican my interest is purely academic, whilst, of course wishing the best for each of them.
It does seem that separate congregations and 'styles' are the norm now in many Anglican settings but perhaps it's been like that for a lo-o-o-oo-ng time. The 8am eucharist people were rarely seen at later services or other occasions from what I can gather.
Whether this holds parishes together, I don't know, but to return to the consumerist thing again, I can understand why Anglican churches may lay on more 'contemporary' styles of service is they want to retain people or stop them drifting off to non-Anglican churches which offer that style.
But in this particular instance the net effect seems to have been to attract people from non-Anglican churches that offer that style already. I'm not saying that waa a deliberate intention, 'Mwa ha ha ha ha! Let's have guitars and screens and choruses and we'll filch a load of people from the Community Church! That'll show them who's boss!'
No, I'm sure that wasn't the intention at all. But it's what's happened.
I'll start another thread about the 'parish movement.' I'd be interested to hear more about that.
To summarise my current thoughts on the topic: I think the ideology of the Church Growth Movement has been disastrous for parochial Anglicanism.
How does one realise the latter in a culture where people do gravitate to "their own kind", whether that be age, social class, musical tastes, personality type, race, sexuality/gender, politics or whatever?
Speaking as someone who's been used to plant a church (once only, so no expert)--
I think the best thing you can do, if you're in a position of leadership, is to do some serious searching of your own heart with God's help, trying to figure out if this is something God wants you to be focusing on "here and now" where you are situated in life--or if there might be something else he'd prefer you to focus on. Because there are people and churches that simply don't have the wherewithal to make this a major focus--either because there's something even more important occupying them at the moment, or because they are (for example) buried in the countryside, with only a few people around them, and all of those pretty much homogeneous.
But if you come out of your examination convinced God does want you to make that a major focus, the first step IMHO is to cultivate a personal attitude that is open and welcoming to people/new attenders who are not like you--and that's not easy, there's always a "difference" I'd not thought of that freaks me out a bit when someone who is that "different" shows up in my life! and takes some getting used to.
And then you pray, and ask God to send you whoever he wants. And keep praying.
In my experience, God "drops" people in your lap to be cared for, and possibly then enjoys the comedy of watching your mouth fall open as you try to figure out what the heck to do with this new person--how to connect, how to care, what they themselves want of you and your congregation, etc. etc. etc. And so you focus on that, until the person is either embedded in your church community (has friends, knows people, needs no more special care or has regular sources for whatever ongoing care they need) or has moved on (died, moved to a new geographical location, or just said "No, this place and these people are not for me").
You may have several people going through this process of dropping in and being embedded (or not) at one time. And it helps if you're not doing all the work yourself, but rather involving as many church members as you can in the process.
Over the years, this kind of thing results in a congregation that is notably odd heterogeneous, though it's likely to have some characteristics that are shared by everybody as well (for instance, the language spoken). And since happy people tend to bring others like themselves along with them, your church may end up with a contingent of African immigrants, people fighting addictions, or what-have-you. It will probably be something you didn't expect.
NOTE: You have doubtless noticed that this model presupposes that the people who come to you are in need--often in serious need, in several different directions at once. That may not apply to the world you live in, and so this model might not work (Or it might, who knows? There are more kinds of need than just the obvious). But we're in a city, and generally speaking, anybody who "drops in" to our lives and ministry is almost certainly doing it through some need-based avenue--like the lady one of our old friends brought to us a couple weeks ago, because she is dying and (in our friend's understanding) not receiving proper care during her last few weeks. We were welcomed by the lady, looked into her situation, and discovered that for once, this is actually a case where there AREN'T serious care deficiencies--it was a misunderstanding, thank God--but still, the woman wants us to visit, is happy when we come, and so we do. Why not? And it's nice for once to be sitting with someone who only wants your company, instead of needing legal help, food, a family fight to be disentangled, etc. etc. etc. But when they do need and ask for the other kinds of care, we do what we can--and maybe one in ten "stick" long term with the congregation. (We make it clear from the outset that there are no strings attached to our help.)
And didn't a lot of people come to Jesus (and perhaps became disciples) because they were needy?
But this is all speculation...
Orthodox parishes in the 'West' tend to be either highly monocultural due to language and ethnicity, or else highly multicultural.
Ours is the latter and yes, it's a challenge.
What we don't get are white working-class people, and that's a deficit most churches have, irrespective of tradition. We do have some on the periphery but like some of the 'Orthobro' young male converts and enquirers, I do worry about their motivation as they've come across some highly right-wing Orthodox 'influencers' online.
Back in my charismatic 'restorationist' days, we did make some progress in working-class areas but for various reasons that wasn't sustained - largely, I think, because of a misguided 'centralising' strategy rather than allowing regional groupings to develop into churches in their own right.
It's a tricky one. I know of a Baptist church-plant that ended up as a 'people-like-us' church full of liberal young professionals and Guardian readers. Ok, that reflected the area's demographic to some extent but the catchment area was more mixed than that.
Coming back to the parish thing, for a time our local evangelical Anglican parish was attracting people from outside of the area, from other towns. People who liked the vibe.
That seems to have died off to some extent now.
I really don't know what the answer is. People seem to attend or not attend church for a whole range of reasons. Without being flippant or critical I think it's a fact that some of our less regular attenders turn up for purely cultural or even superstitious reasons.
They want a magic candle or some mojo.
In any Orthodox parish you'll find the highly devout, the well-informed, those who haven't the first idea about the Faith and all points in between.
We've got people who come along because they are lonely or want some of the food we distribute from supermarkets that are getting rid of it because it's close to the use-by date.
That's all fine. If it helps them then we're doing something at least.
Eastern Europeans are white and by and large working-class, although some of the earlier migrants are professionals.
None of these groups are monolithic or homogeneous.
They found their way to Orthodoxy when one of the better educated of them - and I don't mean that in a patronising way - did some research and concluded that it was the True FaithTM ...
There are still a few indigenous working class folk who followed the priest into Orthodoxy from Anglicanism some 30 years ago.
What I meant was that we aren't getting many working class British people now, but we have seen a number coming through as catechumens.
@Baptist Trainfan I didn't mean to imply their are tensions between more professional Eastern Europeans and newer, more working class migrants. Far from it. They all get on well.
The point I was making was that these communities are not homogenous or monolithic and vary considerably in terms of educational level, employment and social class.
They also vary considerably in their understanding of their faith, everything from folk-religion and superstition to a fair level of theological nous..
It makes for some interesting Bible study sessions with the language barrier a factor too of course!
In the not too distant past we had reason to change church. To attempt to discern where we should end up we had to have a kind of shopping list to help us work out what would be a "suitable" community for us to be part of at this stage of life and place in our journey. Tbh this was pretty open ended and we visited various options (some numerous times) before settling. Whilst this process could be seen as consumerist FWIW I'd rather think of it as doing due diligence for an important decision (and hopefully attempting to hear christ in it all).
As @chrisstiles pointed out many churchplants are part of existing networks (with varying degrees of formality) and often resourced in part from these. Our previous church had various times of being supported financially from "central office".
Resource churches/minsters - in a way isn't this what a cathedral should be? It's certainly how various flagship churches of different denominations and networks I've come across have seen themselves.
Regarding the OP there may be an element of things looking similar from the outside but feeling different on the inside?
The news coverage of this picks up on some other issues (dodgy accounting and lax safeguarding) as well
IIRC a family member used to work for a c of e church where this was the situation. The whole large town was the parish but there were various churches in the regions of the town which were of whatever flavour (new wine, fif, aff cath etc).
As soon as a church has more than one service they will have different congregations and the challenge of creating links between them.
On the issue of churches having more than one service a day, time was when many Anglican churches and non-conformist chapels had two or three services a day. Not everyone went to them all, of course, but in non-conformist churches it wasn't uncommon for people to attend up to 3 services every Sunday.
Those days are long gone and generally if a church has 2 Sunday services they are generally catering for different people at each.
There was a thread recently about how appropriate it is or isn't to have more than one communion service a day - a big 'no-no' from an Orthodox perspective.
Whatever the case with that, 2 services effectively means 2 separate congregations under the same roof to all intents and purposes, although some churches arrange a coffee time in between so that people from each can mingle.
That seems to work well I'm some places from what I've observed.
I s'pose having two different styles of service within the same church does prevent a chunk of the congregation from hiving off to find whatever floats their boat elsewhere - be it more traditional or more contemporary or whatever else the flavour happens to be.
I got the impression that a previous vicar at our local evangelical Anglican parish would not have been displeased if the more traditional 9am service had fizzled out, but to his surprise numbers actually increased as people decamped to it from the 11am service to escape the videos and the silly jokes. But them the videos and silly jokes followed them to the earlier service.
Nowhere was safe ...
The same congregation across all of it, bouncing up and down the candle (from worship songs to hymns A&M, etc) according to the service on the basis that if they support the stuff they don’t like, others will support the services they do.
It’s a mindset I’ve not experienced in urban areas, but it’s common in the more remote bits of the sticks.
When we moved here, we looked for the local Episcopal Church, and found it.
Fortunately, it was a vibrant and welcoming place, with lots of families with young children. If we had walked in and were the youngest people there by 40 years, I'm not sure that we would have stayed. If the priest had started preaching intolerance, we wouldn't have stayed. I'm not sure what we'd have done if the church had had young families, preached love and inclusion, but had gone all drums-n-praise-band.
Exactly the same here. I do think ‘the rural church’ is a very different animal to urban areas or those within striking distance of a town so that both the villagers have a choice and the church is itself a potential choice for the town.
True too of my late mother's benefice in rural Norfolk.
Nope. Not here. Maybe sometime in the future, but we do not need to create links at present, as they have always existed to date.
The evening service was set up for those who could not make mass in the morning. On any given week, about 5% of the morning congregation and 15% of the evening service attend the other service than their usual Sunday service. The evening service is approximately one-third the size of the morning service. Actually, a good portion of those are floaters who regularly switch. Thus, there have been links since the beginning which continue to this day. However, the actual links are stronger; both services depend on those who usually attend the other service to function smoothly. The team that runs the evening Mass is sparse; when specific members are away, we have to rely on a member of the morning Mass to take their place. Equally, the Sacristy team largely worships at the evening Mass, so the preparation for the morning Mass every week is largely done by those from the evening Mass. Thus, there is a symbiotic relationship between the two services, and long may it continue. The result is that for high days and holy days, we all muck in together, and there is no them and us attitude.
Oh, and our capacity for growth and regular worship attendance depends on us having at least two masses. We do not have a large building, and with modern patterns of sitting in church*, when we reach around the size of the combined congregations, then people are sitting in pews with a poor view in significant numbers.
*Our pews may officially sit five or six, but rarely more than three people sit in a pew, even when we are very full.