Spiritual Community in Transition
Evolving Notions and Experiences of Church Today
Practicing Community – Part Eleven
This article is part of our continuing series on practicing community. If you’d like to access the earlier parts, click here.
It was the pews that got me.
I remember coming to church and wondering why things looked the way they did. Why were there these long benches instead of normal chairs. Why was everyone sitting and watching a program up at the front of the room? Why did only one person get to talk?
Well, I guess that’s just what “church” was—and we did it that way because that’s the way it had always been done.
But not really. It wasn’t until much later that I learned the form of church I grew up participating in had a lot more to do with the 16th century than anything Jesus or the early Christians did. Throughout the centuries, various elements got picked up into what constituted a church “service” or became “mass.” These forms have their benefits and serve folks in many ways, but new ways of being together are emerging that will better serve how spirit is evolving us today.
The pandemic helped illuminate this. Churches had to close and folks got on Zoom. As they watched the church service on the screen, the fourth wall that was always there became even more apparent. In many ways, it broke the mold for “how things were always done” and opened the Overton Window for what was possible in how we gather—and why.
This was already happening in many ways, as traditional church attendance and participation has been declining in the global north for some time, yet spirituality is still calling to folks just as much if not more.
But it’s not simply a matter of swapping out pews for chairs. It won’t be about better marketing and putting on a better show. It’s not about new programs or better music. These minor shifts and enhancements may help some for a short time, but spiritual community is fundamentally shifting in this time—and it is demanding greater structural transformations.
Wine & Wineskins – Substance & Form
Jesus spoke to this with the symbol of wine and wineskins. He said, “No one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins; the wine will spill, and the wineskins will be ruined. Instead, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved” (Matt. 9:17).
Jesus is talking about form and substance. The container and the energy/spirit within. Both are important and necessary. As new spirit comes—new wine—new containers are needed. New forms need to emerge to hold the new wine. This is required because as new wine seasons and ferments, the container has to be flexible and able to expand. Old wineskins have stretched to capacity already, and are now more rigid and set in their ways. This is a good symbol.
And, it’s better for the old wineskins too! As Jesus says, both are preserved. Old structures and forms will continue and serve in their way, as long as there is still “old wine” to hold.
And the new wine needs new wineskins—new forms with flexible structures and expandable containers. This does not mean we need to plant more new churches. It means that we need a different way of holding, different containers, new forms.
Much of our focus tends to dwell on the substance of our faith and spirituality. It may be just as important to pay close attention to our forms, especially when new wine is coming forth.
Releasing Ourselves from Stagnant Structures
We don’t want to make any blanket statements here, for most forms and structures that continue to endure serve some purpose. They will still be beneficial for some.
Yes, there are overarching principles and trends for the way things are going. There are needs that have been suppressed and abuses that are able to remain under certain systems because of their calcification around authority and power. We could be so bold as to say that the writing is on the wall. Again, not for church or spiritual community in general, but for the current predominant systems and structures of institutional religion as it looks today.
For our purposes here, we are less focused on a thorough analysis of current religious systems—though that can be a useful endeavor.
Here, rather than focus on the previous structures and institutions, we will look more toward the new. “The best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better” as Richard Rohr says.
There are many who are called or have to work within these current systems. To foster health there as best they can. To support the presence of spirit and love in the midst. Perhaps even to serve palliative care or be a hospice worker for the dying forms.
But for others, it may be time to release what is no longer serving us (or them). To respond to the calling of the invitation to something new. To allow the new energy and possibility within us to find its necessary new place to come forth. Its new wineskin.
Some signs you might be ready for a new form of spiritual community:
You aren’t excited to go to church
You feel a longing for more than what is happening in your current community
You feel there isn’t room to bring forth what is needed
You feel like you’re going through the motions
You don’t see much transformation happening around you or in you
You question what or who all of this is serving
You are feeling the lure of possibility somewhere deep within, perhaps in ways you can’t quite put to words
The structures and forms that come up around community do not exist to serve themselves. At their best, the organization of how we come together should be designed and intended to foster life and flourishing. They should resonate with the longings of our hearts and serve the aspirations of our deepest being—of our divine calling in who we are and seek to become even more. Fostering ways of being together that expand and intensify our spirit.
If we can’t find these out there, we will have to create them. For we cannot afford to remain for long in the old when the new wine has come in us.
Jesus used another metaphor in his teaching on wineskins. He also said that “No one tears a piece of cloth from a new garment and sews it on an old one. For the new will not match the old, and the patch will pull away from the garment and a worse tear will result” (Luke 5:36/Matt. 9:16).
A patch of the old on the new—it will tear. It will not match. We can trust ourselves to feel the dissonance, to recognize the incompatibility, to feel the restraining constraining.
In a time of transition, it may be that we want to hold on to what has been. We love that old shirt, and if we just patch it up a little, we can still put it on and feel the way it used to. But the new patch will only cause a greater tear in the old garment.
It’s hard to let go. And it’s ok to hold on as long as we can—as long as it still serves us in some way, still benefits others, still offers something of value.
But when the time comes, will we find the courage to release what no longer serves life in you?
As Rumi said, “If you’re here unfaithfully with us, you’re causing great terrible damage.”
Because you are meant to be where you can be faithful to yourself, to spirit, to who you are becoming—not who you were.
Say Yes Quickly
Forget your life. Say God is Great. Get up.
You think you know what time it is. It’s time to pray.
You’ve carved so many little figurines, too many.
Don’t knock on any random door like a beggar.
Reach your long hand out to another door, beyond where
you go on the street, the street
where everyone says, “How are you?”
and no one says How aren’t you?
Tomorrow you’ll see what you’ve broken and torn tonight
thrashing in the dark. Inside you
there’s an artist you don’t know about.
He’s not interested in how different things look in moonlight.
If you are here unfaithfully with us,
you’re causing terrible damage.
If you’ve opened your loving to God’s love
you’re helping people you don’t know and have never seen.
Is what I say true? Say yes quickly,
if you know, you’ve known it
from the beginning of the universe.
~Rumi, as translated by Coleman Barks
A Time of Great Change
This is a time of great change, unprecedented in human history. The advent of the internet, bringing extensive global connection and accessibility, has expanded our horizons in ways that we still can’t fathom and are still unfolding.
For most of our history, community was limited to what was geographically close by. And spiritually, we were bound to the religious confines of what was culturally close by. People could either accept or reject the religion of the area, but access to alternatives was rare. In more densely populated areas, there might be a few different churches or religious traditions to choose from. But even then, nearly all of the forms were bound to the tradition that had been passed down for generations.
Spirituality is now no longer bound to the confines of traditional religious structures. The local church/mosque/temple is not the only place people can go to access spirit in meaningful and transforming ways.
Perhaps this has been true for longer than we think. Nature has always been an ever-present cathedral of spiritual connection, but less given to community.
We still need sacred enclosures that bring us together in ways that support, foster, and nurture our spirit. We need the challenge and mirroring of other perspectives and experiences. We need the synergy and collaboration that can come through collective creative endeavors only.
How will we meet these needs and find new spiritual community in this time of great change?
What are some of the new shapes and structures of the emerging new forms of spiritual community today?
That will be our exploration in next week’s writing, “The New Architectures of Transformative Community.”
Practicing Community
Look at the organizational structure and forms of your spiritual communities. What do you see? What aspects stand out as helpful and what are no longer serving?
Ask yourself or another the question, “How aren’t you?”
Is there anything you are being invited to release in your life? Any role or obligation? Any participation in a group or activity that is an old wineskin for you?