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The Crumbling of the Church Family

AllanaParis RGBThe Church has always been big on family. Many churches preach about how today’s society has lost the value of family. The divorce rate is thrown around and pastors have people raise their hands to see who actually eats dinner together. While this is a lovely sermon that I can’t disagree with, I am finding it increasingly hypocritical. Not because I find that Christians do not have whole, healthy families, but because the Church itself has ceased to be a family.

This issue never bothered me until a third grader at my home church came up to me and informed me he was angry he could not go to ‘his church’. When I told him that he was at his church, he explained that his church was the children’s church and that I had a separate church in ‘the big room’. This completely horrified me. He essentially viewed the children’s church as separate, and did not realize that he was in the same church family as his parents.

What does that teach children? What does that teach anyone? It can create, in the most toxic of environments, an intense self-centeredness and narrow-minded attitude. How are we supposed to grow and stretch if we are only interacting with our own age group or demographic? I don’t have an issue with a Bible study geared towards a demographic for that relation and encouragement to happen. I don’t have an issue with specialized groups. The main issue is that worship should include the entire congregation.  

Church worship is meant to be done as a family. I find it discomforting that it is increasingly prevalent for churches to be split by age. It usually tends to look like this: infants go to the nursery, preschool/elementary aged children spend the ENTIRE church service in a classroom having “children’s church,” some churches put teens in a “youth service” and, even worse, there are churches having a separate church service for college aged students.

The ochurch-famne place where ages should mingle and find solidarity in Christ, where Christians engage with and learn from different demographics, where we learn to worship together whether or not we personally enjoy drum-kits or liturgy or gospel music, is gone. Families outside of church include the mixture of ages, the compromise of living with those of a different generation, so why shouldn’t the church have that too? Shouldn’t the church be a mirror of what God intended a family to be? We use the word family because it’s all-inclusive and signifies a personable and close relation, so why make church age exclusive?

To give a solution of how I feel congregational worship should look, let me start with an example I have witnessed while at Houghton. One of the ministries that I have encountered the last few years is Sojourner’s Mennonite. While their style of worship is unusual and not meant for every worshipper, there is one thing that every church can take away from them: their focus on family. Children help pick out songs for worship, the older members might bring food to share or play an instrument, college aged congregants may lead worship. It’s communal. Church should be a place where all ages feel welcome and included. I think a church should have congregational worship that does not focus on an age group, but worship that clearly recognizes the diversity of ages represented and respects them. Worship that makes one look at what they can give instead of what they can take and, in many cases, that simply starts with blending age groups together.

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News

War in South Sudan

South Sudan is the newest country in the world, born in July of 2011. For the first time in history people were able to go to the polls and over 99% of them voted for freedom. It was a time of joy and excitement as people looked forward to living in a free and prosperous country. But it was not to be. For much of the past 50 years the black southern Sudanese have been at war with the Arabs of northern Sudan – over 2 million lives have been lost. Having a common enemy forced the southerners to unite. But now the common enemy is no longer there and they have turned on themselves.

To understand South Sudan it is important to realize it is made up of over 90 ethnic groups – each having their own identity and speaking their own language. The largest group by far is the Dinka, numbering about 3 million people. The second largest is the Nuer, numbering over 1 million. When the new government was formed these two groups immediately dominated the new administration. The President of the country is Salva Kiir, a Dinka. The Vice President is Riek Machar, a Nuer. These two ethnic groups have similar cultural backgrounds. They are both pastoralist societies who love their cattle. But over the centuries they have fought each other for cattle and access to pasture and water. Sadly they have brought these longstanding enmities into the new government.

Courtesy of en.wikipedia.org
Courtesy of en.wikipedia.org

Many western countries have come to help get this country started. South Sudan is a country with great potential, having large quantities of oil, gold, wildlife and arable land. Juba, the southern capital, has become a boomtown with expatriate organizations struggling to find housing. When I visited there last year I saw apartments going for $6000 a month and offices renting for $80,000 a year. Money has poured in to help prop up the new government, but much of it has disappeared into the private accounts of corrupt politicians. South Sudan is presently rated as one of the three most corrupt countries in the entire world.

Several months ago President Kiir decided to do something about it and dismissed most of the ministers in his government – this included his Vice President Machar and the other Nuer ministers. This caused ill feelings and in December fighting erupted in the capital Juba. Each politician had his own unit of trained bodyguards made up of either Dinka or Nuer soldiers and they started fighting each other. The fighting quickly spread and engulfed the town of Juba. The Dinka soon controlled the town, but actively pursued and killed Nuer people. The opposite happened in other towns where Nuer dominated and they killed Dinka people. Many civilians fled to the various UN compounds for safety. The UN compound in Juba is protecting over 20,000 people who are camping on the premises.

The fighting has become increasingly ugly across Jonglei province with armed militias killing anyone of the opposing ethnic group – often targeting women, children and old people. They are even entering hospitals and shooting sick people in their beds. The latest figures estimate that over 10,000 people have been killed and over 700,000 people are displaced – hiding in the bush without adequate food and water. Even humanitarian groups trying to supply emergency aid have been attacked and been forced to withdraw their services.

There have been ongoing peace talks in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Initially these were heading nowhere as each side continued to fight. But a peace agreement has now been signed by negotiators on both sides. It is well worded and demands an immediate cessation of hostilities. However, many of the militias operate in remote areas and there is no central control over these fighting groups. So fighting continues. Word needs to get out to these militias with orders to stop fighting. There also needs to be guarantees of safety so the humanitarian organizations can get into the country and offer immediate aid.

Civilians are fleeing to Uganda at the rate of over 1000 a day – joining the 50,000 refugees that are already there. Most of them are walking and are in bad physical shape. The high numbers have seriously stretched the ability of the humanitarian organizations to feed and house them. The refugees interviewed have no faith in the peace agreement and many are stating that they want to live in Uganda and never return to South Sudan.

Sadly the atrocities and killings have renewed deep hatreds between the ethnic groups and created a desire for revenge. A diplomat stated that this fighting has set the country back 20 years. Fortunately there is a strong church in South Sudan. The church leaders are united and pleading with their people to forgive and live in peace. Forgiveness is their only hope.

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Stories In Focus

Behind the Scenes of Prism

The Houghton College website says, “The 2013 Christmas Prism, Savior of the Nations Come!, is an artistic exploration of the joy of Christmas manifest through music, dance, visual art, and poetry.” Although the show itself is a testament to the hard work and dedication of the performers, hundreds of hours of effort go into the production before any performer takes the stage.

PrismPhyllis Gaerte, Director of Community Relations, opened the conversation by joking that she has had so many interviews with the Star this year that she should be well prepared for any questions. As a part of the Department of Community Relations, which organizes all the public and signature events for the college, being a target for interviews is quite understandable.

Although not a part of the onstage performances, Gaerte plays an integral part. She said, “For Prism, this means giving a birds-eye view of the whole Prism event…Outside of the performance itself and what the music department needs to do to make sure that is the quality is what it should be, community relations is responsible for all the other aspects of Prism.”

The Community Relations Department works closely with the Marketing Department on promotion, handling box office issues, providing ushers at events, organizing the upscale dinner for over 200 people–including finding decor and planning a menu in conjunction with Sodexo–that precedes the performance, and developing the budget alongside other administrative offices.

John Buteyn also gives much of his time to making Prism the astounding display it is. He is both the designer and engineer of the lighting at the performances not just in Houghton, but also in Rochester and Buffalo. Additionally, Buteyn will be assisting with the live sound and recording for each performance, and in order to organize everything, he begins his work months in advance.

This year, Buteyn said that the budget was used to purchase lighting gear, instead of merely renting it. Although this is believed to be a better use of the budget, there is now much less lighting gear available than in the past. To create a visual experience on par with previous years will be quite a challenge. Buteyn joked, “I think I’m up for it.”

Buteyn describes other challenges such as older venues in Rochester and Buffalo that sometimes aren’t equipped to handle Prism’s power demand, where he “can’t tell you how many breakers I’ve tripped…Last year, I even stationed a student worker at the breaker box for the entire performance just in case.” Challenges allow an opportunity to improve though. Such as switching to LED lighting to reduce the power required. He said, “There is always something to learn, each year, at each performance, at each venue…  I better understand the layout, architecture, and natural beauty of the venues to highlight with the lighting design.”

It is not without a humorous side though. “Let’s just say, when all the techs are working on very little sleep and very few calories, laughter keeps us going.  Well, laughter and caffeine,” Buteyn joked.

Gaerte sums up Prism by telling a story from Houghton’s first year in Buffalo. This young woman came out to the ticket table with both her mother and grandmother: three generations of people familiar with the church. “Her words to me were: ‘This church seems to be dying, but it came to life tonight.'”

 

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Opinions

Students and the Recognition of the Sabbath

Every Sabbath, I ask myself this: to do homework or not to do homework – that is the question. Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to conquer the papers and projects of outrageous overload, or to relax with my weekly Sabbath away from the tsunami of stress.

saffabthEven here at a Christian college, I notice that many students spend their Sabbaths cramped up in their room, studying for that big exam they have the next day or starting that eight page paper that they have been avoiding like the plague. Where is their Sabbath day of rest in this? What has happened to the day that God has set aside as holy? Exodus 31 tells us, “You must keep the Sabbath day, for it is a holy day for you,” and what joy we feel when we observe the Sabbath!
The Sabbath was made to meet the needs of people, and not people to meet the requirements of the Sabbath (Mark 2:27). We are human, and because of that, we have limitations. We cannot run continuously without ever getting exhausted; heck, I can barely run a mile without breathing like Darth Vader and getting side stickers. For us humans, rest is a necessity. In 2011, full-time college students studied an average of 15 hours a week, 30% got less than 6 hours a sleep a night, and 25% worked 20 hours or more a week (National Survey). These statistics alone show that college students overwork, under-sleep, and over-commit themselves.
But because God cares for us and loves us, He gives us a model to follow. That model is himself. On the third page of my Bible, I read, “On the seventh day God had finished his work of creation, so he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, because it was the day when he rested from all his work of creation” (Genesis 2:2-3). Now, I can’t imagine that God was exhausted and that He actually needed an entire day to rest. But God set an example so that His children could emulate Him. So why don’t we? Why do we fill the Sabbath with work, homework, and constant business?
This is something that we as Christians should change. We should weekly take the Sabbath. So what is one to do on the Sabbath? Are they just supposed to lie in bed all day sleeping? Well, there is a difference between being lazy and resting. I believe Barbara Brown Taylor, a priest, professor, and theologian, says it best in her book, An Altar in the World, when she describes the Sabbath as “a day of saying no. A day of spiritual growth. A day of not doing, but being.” I don’t think the question is so much, “If I do this, does that count as working on the Sabbath?” as much as “How can I rest today and enjoy this day that God has blessed me with and has made holy?”
That being said, I’m not going to be like the Pharisees, defining what can and cannot be done on the Sabbath, but know that the Sabbath looks different for each person. Sleep in. Go to Church. Spend time with God: through prayer, worship, his word. Journal. Spend time relaxing, giving your mind a break from all of the studying and paper writing. Fellowship with friends, enjoying their company. Go on a hike. Read a book. Take a nap. The options are endless.
But there is one thing that is important, and that is to “Be still and know that God is God” (Psalm 46:10).
And I admit, it is hard to obey the Sabbath. This past Sunday, I battled with whether to do homework or not. With two papers and readings that were due on Monday alone, taking an entire day off from homework sounded unreasonable. But I tell you what, I kept the Sabbath. I spent time with God, I worshipped, I watched a movie, read a book, hung out with friends, and ended the night celebrating a friend’s birthday. And throughout it all, I had peace. When Monday morning rolled around, God gave me the strength to rise out of bed, and blessed me with an abundant amount of time to work on homework. And I am still at peace, thankful once again, that I obeyed my Father, rested, and took the Sabbath.
I believe Christian author Mark Buchanan sums up the Sabbath the best, saying, “Sabbath imparts the rest of God – physical, mental, spiritual rest, but also the rest of God – the things of God’s nature and presence we miss in our busyness.”
For these very reasons, every Sunday I say to myself: To observe Sabbath or to observe Sabbath. There is no question.

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Opinions

A New Old Ecclesiology, Part 2

Last week I discussed my work as an intern at a local church and the idea of a reimagined ecclesiology. I examined the need for the church to stop tricking people into its doors, to become less like a weekly commitment and more like a way of life. Here I would like to continue this discussion by examining some issues I have seen and what to be careful of when viewing the church as “family.”

churchOne of the most pressing issues I have encountered at the church is the sheer lack of time parishioners spend in the church community. I see this as an issue particularly with the youth. These children are in the most formative years of their lives and yet they are only spending an hour or two a week with the church community. These young men and women, girls and boys, are bombarded with new ideas and pressured to conform to their world at every moment.

So how are we, the church, supposed to influence, shape, form and support our youth, indeed our adults as well, if we are only together an hour or two every seven days? We cannot expect a good sermon to last a week, to be formative enough to counteract everything our culture throws at us. The church cannot be only a weekly commitment, it has to be a haven, a safe place to return to after work each day, a safe place to relax at the end of a long week, a safe place to mourn, rejoice, worship and engage local and global issues. The church should be like returning to the comforts of one’s own home.

This is not to say that the church should not challenge. Families challenge. In our safest places we can be, rather we should be, challenged constructively. Of course we see this in Jesus: he is both our greatest comfort and our greatest challenge. The church should be a place where, although we are comfortable, we are able to exchange ideas, challenge each other to grow and question each other’s beliefs. All the while we should be reaffirming each other as children of God.

The forces of culture, politics, and social experiences influencing us on a daily basis should be countered by a church that does the same. I find as a youth director that it is extremely difficult to effectively counter what my students have experienced the past week with what we as a church wish to instill in their hearts. They have seen way more of the world in 6 days than I could show them of the church in one. For example, regularly I watch as healthy young women agonize over their weight, developing major insecurities because they have been told by their society that they are supposed to be skinny.

Now, I do not wish to sound like we should brainwash our parishioners. If you have seen the documentary Jesus Camp, know that I am not advocating anything of the sort. Indeed I believe that our culture does teach some healthy ideas, but the job of the church should be to act as a social filter. The church should be a place where parishioners sort out the wheat from the chaff; a place where men and women, young and adult, can abandon their insecurities and learn to find God in the places where they least expect him.

The whole idea of viewing the church as a family is to see that “secular” actions like hanging out, watching football, and playing cards and “Christian” actions like worship, word and sacrament can begin to find a place together. I am not advocating that we play cards in the middle of worship time, but I am advocating that Christians stop viewing church as a weekly commitment and start viewing it as the community in which they live out all aspects of their lives, the way a family member exists as part of a family.

Now I realize that the imagery of a “family” is flawed. There are plenty of broken families, and the idea of what a “traditional Christian family” should be is so elusive that employing it as a metaphor is almost useless. Here I define family as a group of people in which unconditional love thrives, a group of people who take care of their own and genuinely care for each other, a group of people who take the time to help form and shape, challenge and support each other, a group that is willing to spend time with each other.  Of course, there are plenty of families who do all these things and manage to be very inhospitable to those “outside” the family. So perhaps it is best to define the church as an “Open Family,” a group that takes care of its own, lives in community with each other, takes its relationships with extreme sincerity and has open doors to any and all who desire to enter. That is what the church should be.

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Opinions

A New Old Ecclesiology

This past summer and current school year, I have been given the opportunity to work at a local church, assisting with youth and adult ministries. So far the experience has been a good one, but it has got me thinking about the nature of “the church” and its role in society. Ultimately I believe the church as it stands is in dire need of re-imaging lest it slip further and further to the periphery of Western society.

The re-churchimaging of the church is not a matter of being relevant. It is not about trying to make your church as appealing as possible to the outsider in order to draw her in. This, unfortunately, is what many churches are resorting to these days. I see churches that meet in bars, advertising a nice cold pint while you talk about the moral issues of the day. I see churches where worship is akin to a rock concert. And of course there are the 15,000 person mega-churches where the 45-minute sermon reigns supreme. All the while the idea of sacrament has all but vanished from many of these institutions. We are a collection of individuals appealing to individuals.

These attempts at a new church experience ultimately fail. After a while the new tactic stops attracting people and the church is left to find a new way to pull people in. If I were a member of one of these churches I would be infuriated because so much effort is spent on drawing people in that those who are already in the church are left to struggle their way on their own. Thus we are left with spiritually malnourished congregations and rapidly declining numbers in almost every one of the near 40,000 denominations.

So what do we do? Well, many have suggested that we have to start over, abandon our current traditions and become like the first century church. But the problem does not necessarily lie within our traditions; indeed I believe some of the answers are found exactly there. The solution is found in Jesus’ view of the family. For most they are familiar passages (Luke 14:26, Mark 3:31-35): Jesus repels his biological family and says that his followers are his real family. He even goes as far as to say that those who want to follow him must hate their family, turn and follow him.

I don’t think Jesus really means that we should hate our families; I think rather that he is emphasizing the importance of the church as a family. This is what we need to embody for the church to survive in our culture. I do not mean the church should be a family in the sense that we all feel close to one another only every Sunday when we gather. The term “family” does not mean simply that we have to tolerate each other. Reimagining the church as a family means that we meet like a family, interact like a family, care for each other like a family. It means that instead of church being a once-a-week thing, it is a lifestyle, founded on the sacraments. As Dean Jordan stated in chapel on Monday, church is not about the individual experience, it is about existing as a corporate body. The church should be a refuge against the anti-gospel veins in our culture, supplementing them with the words of Christ.

This is where my work at the local church comes in. They are a church that is on the right track. Worship is only every Sunday. The Lord’s Supper is celebrated every Sunday without exception and the church is grounded in the notion that we meet Our Savior every time we eat the bread and drink the wine. But the church does not stop there. Every other day of the week, the church is busy with parishioners coming and going, tending not only to the building but also to each other. The church building is a hub for all that is going on in the church community. People help supply each other with food, tools, service. It is not a group of people who are cordial to each other on Sundays. It is a group of people who live together, work together, play together and depend upon each other. That is what the church must be.