Terence,
thanks for the reflection - I resonated with you on many points. However I was
still left with a couple of questions about belonging and membership.
Can you ever 'belong' to a national institutional organisation - or can you only 'belong' to a local group? (who may or may not share beliefs on whether woman can preach and be elders or whether Spong's wrong)
If so then is membership a completely different issue, which as Bruce and others
have noted, can be a little irrelevant for many (especially younger) people?
Can you have a legally consituted organisation (like the uniting church) without formal membership? probably not...
Can you have a local community of faith without a degree of belonging? probably not
which leads me to the real question which is "Should we have membership at all?" and if so how does it
have anything to do with "belonging to a group/culture/community"?
A lot of questions, I know, yet they spring from a disquiet at the future of an insitutional church - at least
in its current complex and bureaucratic form.
Niall
Terence Corkin wrote:
G'day Daren,
I think that you make some very important points about how to encourage people to participate in a community as persons aho are respected and who have a safe place to belong, explore and believe. However I sense a "gap" in your schema. I think it rests in the comments about belonging and the assumptions which I (can only) hunch lie behind it.
It seems to me that the idea of belonging that you have assumes that belonging is a matter of personal choice ie if I want to belong then I should be able to do so. There is no sense here of the other party having to want me there or even me having to contribute anything to the relationship. As I hear it (and I may be wrong - it is early in the day!) - such a view is founded on the cultural presumption of the primacy of the individual. ie I choose my community and I come and go as I please (presumably depending on my criteria of the value to me of belonging). It is not appropriate (and it is not consistent with the gospel accounts, eg the call of the disciples)to say that people just choose to hang around and that this is the same as discipleship.
If in the first line of your scema you really mean "People participate
before they believe" then I have no problem and want us to be a community
that honours, encourages and values participation / interaction with people
who think very differently to ourselves. However participation is not the
same as belonging. Belonging is a relational word and it assumes that the
work has been done in regard to developing that relationship - including
coming to understand the character of the parties involved and the
expectations that we can have of one another.
Belonging is a commitment and it is this that Tom is raising and it is this
that quite properly requires people to prepare for. What is required for the
health of the Christian community and for the development of an individual's
faith is that we find a way of inviting / drawing / chaqllenging people to
understand that discipleship requires that we participate in a mutually
accountable relationship. That is what confirmation is about. It is
acknowledging that faithful expression of the Christian faith requires a
community. What our congregations need, and what is causing many of them to
really struggle at the present time, is to understand that we are a
community and that I don't just turn my belonging on and off because I don't
like something.
On the flip side of "belonging" the church has made a lot of problems for itself because it has not been honest with people about what the UCA stands for and has come to convictions about. Then later on we find ourselves still having to fight in congregations about whether women should be ordained (and in one place I know quite well - even Elders). No one has a right to belong to the CHurch and deciding to belong should be based on informed consent by both parties.
Participate "yes" but the community of the christian church has a character that has to be defined by other than all comers receiving a secret handshake and then being able to make the decisions that further define the nature of the church. No other organisation would operate that way.
I think that what we have buried in Darren's comments is the issue that the Assmebly is wrestling with - how do we organise ourselves in a way that recognizes that people participate in the life of the church - including its ministries in local communities - but do not necessarily want to be or become members? The "Becoming Disciples" project and related discussion about redefining membership so that it is more based on baptism and continued participation in the community than on a one off event called confirmation is our part of the responding to the very different context in which the church is placed re these matters. However one thing that I am clear about is that whatever shape it takes there is a requirement that there be an act / actions that name, comit and express the existence of a mutually acocuntable relationship.
Enough!
Terence Corkin
-----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of darren wright Sent: Thursday, 4 March 2004 11:17 PM To: Insights-L Subject: Church Membership - Secret Handshake
As one of the resident devils advocates....
This sounds like an awful lot of work to become a "member".
I'd be encouraging people to say "hey presto you're a member" and give them the secret handshake (if you dont know the secret handshake then you're not REALLY a member)
And then to offer a faith course, weather it be an introduction to the UCA structure or confirmation or the Dear Kim stuff from Bill or going through the "Sacred Life of Us" book (Phil Daughtry) with young people or use the Belonging resource (Uniting Ed), or the Alpha Course or having a study or activity or conversation with people who are interested in knowing more.
A wise man (who i think is on this list...) and I had a conversation where we came up with this formulae:
People belong before they believe People come to faith through belonging People are not a "member" until they believe
When I read "membership" I read "belonging" especially if "membership" = voting rights.
With that in mind, when you do the sums theres a fault in this formulae.
So it's a question of process, sure... run some courses but I'd have to ask the question of how Jesus went by his Membership process...
The way I see it Jesus did something like this...
Jesus: "hey Peter, come here and follow me... trust me, itll be a great trip" Peter: "ummm, yeah sure, just after I gut this fish..." Jesus: "no time for that, come along, we'll learn together..." Peter: "ok, why not, these fish smell anyhow"
Then AFTER Jesus grabbed the disciples he started to teach and eat with them. Membership came before knowing.... before believing.
Accept the people as members, then run some studies.
Besides... if they've come from (another) denomination they're already "members" of the "Church" that we speak of in the creeds... one holy apostolic Church... there's only one, they're already members...
Cheers
Darren Wright Sinner Youth and Family Worker Canberra Region Presbytery --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.588 / Virus Database: 372 - Release Date: 13/02/04
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Niall McKay
Bathurst City Uniting Church
140 William Street Bathurst
NSW 2795
Office Phone: 02 63321197
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Prophetic words
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