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PDF versionThe church is not a 'place where' but a 'people who'
by Bill Tammeus on Oct. 19, 2011
Despite several obvious differences between Catholics and Mainline Protestants, we confront many of the same problems.
Lots of our congregations have been losing members. Many of our youth are drifting away from the faith, some never to return. Biblical and theological illiteracy run rampant among our members. And on and on.
In my own congregation, we're trying to move boldly into our future by looking directly at our strengths and weaknesses and devising a plan for doing ministry for the next three to five years.
Such work is called a strategic plan, and I'm chairing a nine-member task force working to create such a plan to recommend to our Session (our board of ruling elders) and to our congregation.
In the process, I've been exposed to a lot of fresh (and some stale) thinking about what the church is really about and how it might be possible to do ministry in this post-modern, post-Christendom age.
But nothing has been more helpful to our committee than to think through the foundational questions about Christianity, such as: Why does Jesus matter? And: Just what is the church?
Our pastor, who this past spring received his doctorate in 21st Century church leadership, has told us over and over again that the church is not a "place where" but a "people who."
That simple formula recently took on more clarity for me when I heard a leader of the international missional church movement, Michael Frost of Sydney, Australia, describe his own version of the mission of the church:
"The mission of the church is to alert all people to the universal reign of God through Christ. There are two broad ways you can do that. On the one hand, you can speak about it. You can declare. You can tell people. ... On the other hand, you can demonstrate or show people what the universal reign of God through Christ looks like."
So if we imagine that when the reign of God finally comes, there will be no more hunger or homelessness or illiteracy, we work now to counter those conditions and give people a vision of the coming kingdom.
We do not imagine that our own hard work will bring about the final reign of God. Rather, we simply work to show people the love, compassion, mercy, justice and beauty that will infuse that kingdom.
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The process of demonstrating what the kingdom will look like should attract others who see that vision and want to be part of it.
In my own congregation, that means that we are trying to focus our ministry efforts more sharply so we don't try to support a million different ministries with our money and talent.
This past year, therefore, we selected a community program that deals with abused and neglected children and one that seeks to move people from homelessness to home ownership.
In addition to the roughly $130,000 our congregation is investing in these two agencies, we are providing people and other assets to help make them successful.
We can't solve the nation's homeless problem or prevent all children from being abused. But at least on a small scale we can demonstrate what it might look like if such matters could be solved. In other words, we can demonstrate the universal reign of God in Christ even as we also proclaim that reign.
Huge piles of books have been written about what it means to be the church and what the church should look like now. And a few of them even get the point -- a crucial point, indeed -- that the church is not a "place where" but a "people who."
Surely that is true, whether local expressions of the church are Catholic, Presbyterian, Orthodox, Baptist or Episcopal. But it's so easy to forget. And forgetting is at the root of the common problems all churches face.
[Bill Tammeus, a Presbyterian elder and former award-winning Faith columnist for The Kansas City Star, writes the daily "Faith Matters" blog for The Star's website and a monthly column for The Presbyterian Outlook. His latest book, co-authored with Rabbi Jacques Cukierkorn, is They Were Just People: Stories of Rescue in Poland During the Holocaust. Email him at wtammeus@kc.rr.com.]
I just added the following
I just added the following article in response to your Facebook posting. I was unable to read the entire article because of the failed link at the time, so wrote this thinking it related to the "who" in the Catholic church community.
For the most part, the Catholic Church in the USA has lost credibility because of its intransigent stance on non-ordination of women and refusal of married priests to be welcomed back into full ministry once again. The issue of new language in the Mass gets more attention than the injustice being perpetrated against a Maryknoll priest, viz., Roy Bourgeois who has been working to close down the tax funded School of the Americas. What is the kind of "community" young people will be drawn to if communities are not involving themselves in social justice issues of the day? They don't seem to be drawn to rosary crusades or perpetual adoration societies which provided a sense of identity in the past.
Kind of difficult in view of
Kind of difficult in view of molestations..... jm
Nice piece Bill. Best of
Nice piece Bill. Best of good wishes on your plan bearing fruit. I was at
ND in 1972 and I responded to the question " Do you go to Church?". My reply was that Church is not something I go to; it defines who I am. As you well know many people for a variety of reasons do not attend anymore. This is because the place where and its temporal caretakers have coopted all the
decision making for their own clicque. I get tired of hearing how many people have left the church. They for the most part, have not left at all.
They have in fact been left out in the cold. As soon as we can recover some sense of having worth beyond obedience and cash in the box we may even consider attendance. In the meantime our basic christianity is very healthy
and life itself is the greatest sacrament of all. Thank you for your postings. I wish that we all could be one in the Lord. In many respects we already are. Its just those pompous ones in many confessions who thrive on
separation and dissent. I do feel that there is much to hope for as we see
old castiron systems crumble and struggle to make themselves meaingful. For
us Catholics of the Roman persuasion it appears to be a ride back to Trent.
We need an old ecclesiology. The church of the fathers looks good right now.
God Bless,you are truly blessed to know it about who we are.
TomC
TomC, Wow. Many thanks for a
TomC,
Wow. Many thanks for a most excellent post. You very insightfully analyzed and covered the entirety of the Roman Catholic problem and your hope for the future. You spoke eloquently for me, as well.
Blessings and all the best to you and to Bill for your thoughts and efforts.
hopefully,
bob
Our pastor, who this past
Our pastor, who this past spring received his doctorate in 21st Century church leadership, has told us over and over again that the church is not a "place where" but a "people who."
First of all the pastor is well educated. He has his doctorate. That makes him ahead of the game. Second, the church is a "people who." People sound empowered and represented.
It would be wonderful if all pastors were well educated. A doctorate is rare with Catholic priests, giving them a reason to be moved up and out of parishes into the hierarchy. If the Roman Catholic Church came to see itself as a "people who" a lot of relational problems would be solved, but that would require a change in thinking and an empowerment of the laity. The problems are more universal and more complex. Let's hope some of this thinking hits the RC Church soon.
But it's so easy to forget.
But it's so easy to forget. And forgetting is at the root of the common problems all churches face.
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Mr Tameus, I'm deeply grateful!
With so few words and so simple but well articulated arguments you made my day! I must all extend my thanks to Mr. Tom C: he expressed so well what I feel! I wouldn'be able to add or substract a word...
God bless you!
An excellent message and
An excellent message and effort, but with an assumption that is a major error IMO. The church is both a ‘place where’ and a ‘people who’! One does not need a Doctorate or an advanced degree in Theology to figure that out. In the RCC in most places, the people in charge of the ‘place where’, govern what is done by the ‘people who’. And those who are not in agreement with those in charge are invited to leave or are actually put out of the ‘place where’. When that happens, and it is irrefutable that it has and does and most probably will continue to happen, it is quite apparent to the careful observer that the good Doctor's assertion that the church is only a ‘people who’ is short of reality. Pax – george
Mr. Bouchey, As I often hear
Mr. Bouchey, As I often hear people say: "I know that's right." While much of what Mr. Tammaeus has written is, I think, an accurate assessment of the signs of the times, the fact remains that the entire edifice of "official" RC ecclesiology, including the documents of Vatican II, consigns the laity to a status entirely subordinate to the ordained hierarchy--with everyone ultimately totally subject to the Bishop of Rome. One has to look to some other Churches for broader organizational structures. It is not likely, is it, that RC structures will be broadened to include a fully active voice for the laity in matters of governance when what progress Vatican II did bring about is being steadily dismantled? It seems the laity, as always before, can be counted on to let it happen. Indeed, in a time when nearly every institution of cultures are undergoing radical change, many people seem to prefer their faith communities to be oases of sluggishness. But, I speak now as an outsider looking in at "the who" to which I once belonged, but having acted on a matter of justice was formally put out of. There is, in fact, vibrant Catholic life distant from Rome.
I am a resident of Sydneys
I am a resident of Sydneys "North Shore" (read Manly). The Manly Daily is a local news paper that is distributed through the Manly/Warringha/Pittwater local area. Michael Frost is a regular contributor to the Saturday addition and his column is on my "must read" list along with the NCR. A very though provocitive column.
Please read "Come by Here" by
Please read "Come by Here" by Rev. Judy Lee of Ft. Myers the story of her RCWP ministry with those suffering from homelessness and other injustices of this country's systems.
The women priests are living the Gospel-the Good News of Jesus with our lives. Would the larger RC faith community do the same, instead it re-entrenches itself to pre-Vatican II and its call to be the "People of God" for others.
That is what all comminities
That is what all comminities and parishes are supposed to do in order to follow the gospel.
Thanks for the uplifting repport.
Church is People Being
Church is People Being Eucharist to One Another
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Church is the miracle of feeding the many with the little. The act of giving all one has for others, a few loaves, a few fish. It is people-altruism, love for others that is contagious and causes others to give of themselves in like manner. “As I have done, so you should do.”
Eucharistic Altruism is the contagious example that makes the little become the miracle of plenty. Eucharist, intentional symbiosis, is about being something, about self-outpouring. It is not about the “unbeing of nothing”, of self-holding-in. Exclusive institutional claim on Eucharist is non-transformational, counter-evolutionary. Eucharist is "incrementally revolutionary". Eucharist is what the People of God, WOMEN INCLUDED, is.
www.divinicom.com
Watch for the Eucharistic website soon to come online: www.wordunlimited.com
Bill Timmeus should be chosen
Bill Timmeus should be chosen by representatives of lay people, priests, and bishops in the United States as the Presiding Bishop of the Catholic Church in the United States of America!
I might agree about whoever
I might agree about whoever Bill Timmeus is, but as for me, Bill Tammeus, I'll pass, though with thanks for your kindness.
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