Good Bye to the Village Church ...

I'm still reading Diana Butler Bass' work - "Christianity for the Rest of Us" and thinking alot about Village Churches, which it would seem form the core constituent of current mainstream denominations ... I've realized that my roots lie in two very different, and very funky village churches ...

The first church could rightly be described as MY family church ... it was located across the road from the farm that generations of my paternal family called home for close to 130 years (last year for the first time it passed from our hands ...). The original worshipping congregation met for a time in an old stone building that stood out the back door of my grandmother's house - when enough money was saved up by this German speaking faith community they built a beautiful yellow brick structure that is still in use today ... Years ago my Grandfather was the Sunday School superintendent, and served on the board, and now atleast five generations of my family (including my dad) lie in the ground of the Cemetary on a third corner across from our family farm and the church.

A couple of years ago I was back in Ontario for a couple of weeks and one night I found my self passing by the old church. I noticed a bunch of cars and the lights on, and being a bit bold decided to stop and poke my head inthe door to see what was going on ... Turns out it was a Board meeting - other than the minister, I was related to about 90% of the people gathered around the table ...

Today as I thought back on that church - the church community of my birth ...I realized that it was a rural Village church bound together by geography (everyone was raised or continues to live within a 10 mile radius of the building), ethnicity (all the members are decendents of the German settlers who came to the are in the 1850's), relationship (the extended family is a VERY real thing) and common boundaries, rules, expectations and world views ... that little yellow brick church continues to be a familial village church ...

Because of my father's death as a family we moved to the sister congregation in the city down the road (my mom and dad already lived in "town"), and it was there just prior to the Union of the Evangelical United Brethren with the United Church of Canada, that I was baptised ... and it was there, in the big red brick church in a neighbourhood that had been traditionally the home to the workers at the old Grand Trunk and later CN Railway shops that I was raised.

It too was until the day it closed a Village Church. Originally a German speaking methodist congregation, it remained largely a gathering of descendents of those German immigrants who lived in the shadow of the enormous train shops that for years dominated Stratford's history. About the time the shops started to wither German services gave way to English, but even25 years later as I roamed the old red brick building as a teen, the ties of family were still strong. We shared a common heritage and history, and we were bound together, no by geography - members were scattered all over the city - but by relationships formed in the crucible of being like people with similar backgrounds, heritages, ethnicities, and world views ...

Today that beautiful red brick church is home to another non-United Church Congregation, because like so many other Village churches it could no longer sustain itself as successive generations like mine moved away ... the little Yellow brick church continues to hang tough, but even its days are numbered- there are few under 50's left to support it, but those who are still there are dedicated to keeping their family church open ...BUT - the writing is on the wall ...

Today as I thought about Butler Bass' writings on village churches, and I thought about my own village churches that nurtured me and sent me off into the world, I realized that those faith communities represent a safe harbour in a dark and stormy world. They are like the paintings by Thomas Kinkade - they give us a soft focus ideal of the nostaligic dream we have come to believe ONCE WAS, and could be again if only ...

But there's the rub ... the world ain't no Thomas Kinkade painting, and village churches become gated faith communities that serve only to exclude the outsider ... the comforting commonality becomes the descriptive and the deciding ethos and outsiders need to conform or move on ...

We live in a time filled with folks described by Butler Bass and others as a SEEKERS ... they are not looking for village churches, but rather are looking for open, welcoming communities that embrace the fullness of life, and the complexity of the questions life raises - and they want to be part of the conversation ... In short, they don't want soft and easy answers, because the questions of life are anything but ...

The seekers don't want a Thomas Kinkade version of reality that uses soft light and blurred focus to present an ideal ... they want to engage life on life's terms and create a NEW ideal ... Seeker aren't interested in coming home to a Village Church, they want to create a community that values the journey and is like them, prepared to be nomadic on ALL levels ...

It's a journey just begun ...