Skip to main content

Microchurch

The Unitarian faith is, of course, in a period of transition. It's almost a cliché to say so. The most visible change is the change in the way we govern ourselves nationally. The old big Council is going and it's going to replaced by a slim line Executive. This Executive is going to be elected directly by every member of every congregation (at least in theory if everything works out with paperwork). This is quite remarkable. It makes us in the Britain much more democratic than the American UUA which as far as I understand it elects the President at a General Assembly. Not that for us, but a direct postal election for every registered member of a congregation. Hopefully people who are Associate Members of the General Assembly will also be able to vote, but that has yet to be decided. I'm an Associate Member, but I only just joined my church so I will only be able to vote if Associate Members can.

I think the change is to be welcomed, although I wish a more spiritual, and less management/business type word than 'Executive' could be used. This will indeed be an interesting period as we go through the first election.

An interesting change this will bring about will be the shift from a congregational-based to a membership-based religious culture. This might be quite a revolution. I'm not sure if this will happen, but I've heard a lot of people in-the-know talking about it. The absolute individualism of Unitarians is something that has been holding us back for a long time. Every congregation has the right to run its own affairs, but this also means each congregation has the freedom to ignore its connections nationally and regionally, and to ignore its mission as a church.

In short, there has been much freedom and little responsibility, little sense of belonging to a greater community covenanted to be together. This has meant that a small group of people could run their church as a social club for their kind of people, with no mechanism to challenge them. Perhaps I am being a little unfair, and a little simplistic, but there is some truth to what I'm saying.

How revolutionary it will be, then, for us to see ourselves as being a member of a national body, defined by our right to vote for the Executive, who join together in various ways locally. What will this mean? What will this look like?

Sure, congregational polity ain't all bad. Something like it will always exist in this community, but it is in need of renewal. The UUA Commission on Appraisal Report is a good start. Nevertheless I think the way we view 'church' is changing, and must change.

What we need is interconnected webs of communities. What is needed is small group ministry, engagement groups that meet and pray together interconnected locally and nationally. It depresses me a little bit that I hear a lot of American Unitarian Universalists talking about 'megachurch' as the future. Sure megachurches can teach us some stuff, but I think what is needed is ‘microchurch.’

Thankfully, I’m not the only person thinking about this. Epiphany Church in Oklahoma is the kind of church that makes me optimistic about Unitarianism (at least from the website). It is a Universalist Christian microchurch. The website says,


‘Micro-church means that we intend to be the opposite of the modern "mega-church." Following the model of the early church movement, we seek to focus on spiritual depth in small communities that will then multiply themselves in other places and other ways, all with the aim of developing the leadership of all, becoming permission-giving and mission-focused instead of being clergy-focused and controlled by committees. Instead of putting all our money and resources into bigger buildings, budgets, and lengthy bylaws, we want to put them into our passions and ministries in the world. Eventually we hope to have a network of "Epiphanies" or "micro-churches" in and around the Tulsa area. One overall congregation meeting in multiple sites at different times and places and different ways, cultivating lay leadership and hands-on service to our immediate neighborhoods as well the wider world, staying connected through leadership gatherings and some regular celebrations of worship.’


I would hope this could be something we could begin to cultivate in British Unitarianism. I wonder whether this could only work as a church-start, or whether it could develop out of an existing church. I don’t know. Perhaps what is needed is small group ministry in many different contexts. Our churches in the UK are already small, how difficult would it be to convert them to intentional micro-church groups?

Comments

LaReinaCobre said…
I often wonder about the amount of resources utilized in maintaining large buildings and committees. My church, quite a large one, with over 1000 members, is raising money now for its huge campaign to build the Eliot Center ... this project requires millions of dollars. When I think of what our congregation could do with millions of dollars .... When I think about how we are asked to pour so many resources into this project (and I have not, as yet), and yet we don't collaborate with any of the congregations in our town ....

Popular posts from this blog

Radical?

When I started this blog nearly 4 years and nearly 300 posts ago one of the labels I used for it/me was "radical." Perhaps I used it a little unreflectively. Recently I've been pondering what radical means. A couple of things have made me think of this. Firstly this blog series from my friend Jeremy, which explores a distinction between "radical progressives" and "rational progressives." There is also this definition of radical, liberal and conservative from Terry Eagleton quoted at Young Anabaptist Radicals : “Radicals are those who believe that things are extremely bad with us, but they could feasibly be much improved. Conservatives believe that things are pretty bad, but that’s just the way the human animal is. And liberals believe that there’s a little bit of good and bad in all of us.” What interests me is finding a way to express the tension I feel sometimes between myself and the wider Unitarian movement. One way to express this is to say I tend

What does it mean to be non-creedal?

Steve Caldwell says "The problem here isn't humanism vs. theism for theist Unitarian Universalists -- it's the non-creedal nature of Unitarian Universalism" This is a good point. We need to think much more deeply about what it means to be a non-creedal religion. The first thing I want to say is that there is more than one possible understanding of non-creedalism. The Disciples of Christ are a non-creedal church, they say here : " Freedom of belief. Disciples are called together around one essential of faith: belief in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Persons are free to follow their consciences guided by the Bible, the Holy Spirit study and prayer, and are expected to extend that freedom to others." Quakers are also non-creedal and say here : Quakers have no set creed or dogma - that means we do not have any declared statements which you have to believe to be a Quaker. There are, however, some commonly held views which unite us. One accepted view is that th

What is Radical Christianity?

Radical Christianity is about encountering the God of love . It is first and foremost rooted in the discovery of a universal and unconditional source of love at the heart of reality and within each person. God is the name we give to this source of love. It is possible to have a direct and real personal encounter with this God through spiritual practice. We encounter God, and are nourished by God, through the regular practice of prayer, or contemplation.  Radical Christianity is about following a man called Jesus . It is rooted in the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth, a Jewish prophet living under occupation of the Roman Empire two thousand years ago. It understands that's Jesus' message was the message of liberation. His message was that when we truly encounter God, and let God's love flow through us, we begin to be liberated from the powers of empire and violence and encounter the  "realm of God" - an alternative spiritual and social reality rooted in love rather th