Earlier this week Maggi linked to this article by Craig Bird. If you haven't read Churchless Faith, this seems a good teaser/book review. I especially liked this bit, which made me and Zoe smile a lot!
"He [Jamieson] compares them [dechurched] to travellers who abandon a luxury liner in mid-cruise. They grow tired of the endless buffets and entertainment, the carefully designed activities, or the captain who makes all decisions about the ship's speed and direction. Longing to experience what is not on the itinerary, they sell all they have to buy a small boat and leave the well-travelled sea lanes for uncharted waters. For these "leavers," Jamieson says, the danger of going it alone is still safer than the scripted sameness of conformity."
Towards the end of the essay Bird tries to make some recommendations. In particular he (and Jamieson) suggests that we become 'leaver sensitive' and as we have focused on the need to go to those outside our churches so we should go to the dechurched.
This for me raises an important point. The Christ and Culture debate (contextualisation and all that) is often treated as something very tangible- like us going to them is simply a physical movement. For me this article highlights that with the complexity of modern networks, what is needed is no longer a physical move but an emotional and spiritual move. The mission of the church is now less about geographically coming alongside people and more about understanding people and realising why they're so blooming angry with the church and it's leadership.
Yes, I have always found that 'leavers' have some real problem they are keeping to themselves and so they need special care. For instance, someone I didn't know particularly well was missing from church. I was prompted by the Holy Spirit to ring him up and I found that he had had to go to work one morning with instructions from his employer that he was to sack himself and all his staff and close the place down. The shock resulted in his having to have treatment. I'm afraid that the church weren't there for him - just when he needed it!
When I addressed Conference in Wolverhampton on the subject of 'Domestic Violence and the Methodist Church', I said that if it was noticed that someone's behaviour had changed and they were not coming so regularly or not doing their church work as well as usual, please don't berate them for it. You might be adding to the problem if there is domestic violence.
People who suffer this go to great lengths to hide it, feeling that they have failed in the Christian life.
I could give many more instances of 'leavers' who had hidden problems, like a motorcyclist who feels that God has let him down because a bad accident put an end to his nursing career that he loved so much. We need to show that we care and are there for the 'leavers', perhaps for years, until they are ready to return to our fellowship.
Posted by: Olive Morgan | August 23, 2005 at 09:16 AM