The New Architecture of Transformative Community
Creating Structures for Evolving Spirituality
Practicing Community – Part Twelve
Last week, we considered the need for new structures and ways of coming together in spiritual community. Recognizing that many of the old forms are not equipped to handle the new wine of evolving spirit in this time of great change, we looked at our own personal place in the midst of these great transitions. Where are we meant to be? Where is spirit calling us to live and contribute with our unique gifts and presence?
In this article, we’ll look at some of what may be coming forth. What shapes the new forms may be taking? What qualities and values give shape to the forms of new spiritual architecture that are emerging? Not necessarily physical architecture—though that too at times—but organizing design, online structures, underlying values, gathering principles, and more.
As we differentiate the new, we do so with the intention and appreciation for what has come before. We do not want to throw out the baby with the bathwater. There is much that is still viable, still beneficial, still serving not just what was, but also informing what will be.
When we consider form/structure, as distinct from looking at essence/substance, we may feel freer to accept changes. If we conflate substance and form, we are more likely to be attached to the forms, thinking they inherently represent the substance. For instance, the essence of “the church” is not the same as the structures, forms, and institution that has been built up around it. So we are not betraying the church or disowning the substance, but rather opening to consider what changes might actually better serve the substance of what it is supposed to be. This includes not just high-level large systemic issues, but even small things like the specifics of what we do together on a Sunday.
As we honor and integrate what has come before, it will be more beneficial to carry through the energy, the story, the symbols from what has been, more so than the forms that have carried them. This is re-integrating our mythic and magic structures of consciousness, which happens less from re-enacting old forms (though that is a part of it) than from welcoming our ways of knowing and being through integrating these consciousness structures—not repeating external structures and processes.
The new architectures of spiritual community will make space for ways of being together that integrate all of our structures of consciousness—as is in the nature of the “new wine.” To integrate the best from before with the new essence of spirit that is flowing forth in our time.
Principles & Values of the New Architecture
As in any time of transition, we are still coming to discover what is at the heart of the new calling from the future. Some of what is helping us extricate will be over-reaction, and in time will need to be counter-balanced, released, or re-formed to find healthy stabilization. So the following is not a definitive list at all. But here are a few emerging principles and values that seem to be part of the essence of the new wine that needs new wineskins.
The New Architecture is Participatory
This might be the most fundamental value of new spiritual community. It is a movement from structural elitism to valuing participation from all. Religious structures that were built with a hierarchy of functions and roles—as well as a privileging of information and knowledge—are giving way to the need for more holistic cooperation.
Structures that were built as forms of “power-over” are giving way to structures that are “power-full” (“power-for” or power-with”). Everyone can embrace their own personal power and energy of presence, wisdom, and spirit—and have a place for it in the community.
Everyone is involved experientially in what is happening when we come together. There are still roles and times of teaching and learning, speaking and listening, but the structures provide the opportunities for everyone to be engaged in an active spiritual experience.
Accessibility is a major influence here. What has been privileged and reserved in terms of knowledge, authority, and opportunity are no longer solely in the hands of the spiritual elite and institutional leaders. We are finding greater democratization and opportunity through new channels of connection, new ways of sharing, and the ongoing process of shedding discrimination and prejudice on the basis of gender, race, sexual orientation, ableism, and more.
In spiritual communities, the mystical ethos is that we all have unmediated access to the divine. We are not required to go through intermediaries to dispense “communion” or worship, but can come to that freely. New forms of spiritual community, explicitly “mystical” or not, will be organized around this divine accessibility, open for all to participate in actively.
“Sacred Circle” – Artist Unknown
The New Architecture Brings Forth New Dimensions of Connection
While mysticism has perhaps often been associated with hermits and eccentrics, isolated off from the mainstream, that dynamic is changing. With new pathways and opportunities for connection, we are now coming together in mystical communities. We are able to be less isolated—we can find others who are seeking the divine in this same way, which was much harder before. As such, we mystics are learning too how to disentangle from the predominance of individualism in our time, and the seclusion of the past.
Community, in geometrical terms, is expanding in dimension from our singular point. From one dimension to two (or more). A line is a relationship between two. Community takes shapes in more complex forms, such as pyramids, circles, and other dynamics of relationship that symbolize the dynamics of interrelation and connection among three or more.
While some shapes are proving better than others for this time—such as the move from a hierarchical pyramid (like the chancel or stage in the front of church) to an egalitarian circle (like a gallery-view zoom screen)—the new spiritual architecture will need a multiplicity of shapes, drawing upon sacred geometry with increasing complexity of interconnected patterns and forms. Indeed, even accessing and giving shape to new dimensions.
“The key to growth is the introduction of higher dimensions of consciousness into our awareness.”
Can mystical spirituality help attune us to new dynamics of architecture, building through the fourth and fifth dimensions of reality?
That may be a bit lofty—or maybe not! Whatever the conglomeration of shapes these new structures take, they will be oriented around creating new pathways into connections of mutual empowerment. Flowing in various directions for the good of the whole system, not self-absorbing or solely consuming.
As such, the gathering principles of community will be less around a central figure such as a pastor or thought leader—one single point, but around the pathways of connection that are fostered and enabled. The energy and life of the “lines” between and throughout us, enacting fields and communal bodies not defined or dependent on one primary individual.
The New Architecture is Nonlocal
While the new architecture will still have concrete, physical elements to it—we will no longer be bound by geographical limitations.
Our fixed-location churches are fading away, already. Even as we still have many local spiritual centers, people already have access to a wealth of spiritual resources, including both learning and community, through the internet. And people are more and more taking part in this wider expanse.
The one-stop shop church is already a thing of the past. Increasingly, it will become less and less the definitive center of a person’s spiritual life—because it is no longer possible for one community, one organization to be everything, to offer everything, to contain all that is needed in today’s landscape.
This is a major advance in what is possible for the church becoming something that is truly universal, truly catholic. The church is not a building—as it never was—nor even just a specific makeup of a certain group of people. It is the whole body of Christ, which we can now access and connect with more and more.
This is the transformation into spiritual community being a network of connections, resources, groups, processes, practices, and more. As such, there will be a need to learn how to navigate these networks, how to interconnect, where to give time and resources well, and to engage in ways that are serving the whole not reinforcing our individualism and egoic preferences.
With more opportunity and choice comes an increased need for discernment and wisdom. As the structures have expanded to open us up to so much more, we will need to find our place and move toward that which is most deeply resonating with our calling and where spirit is leading us to show up in the world—now in many places at once!
The New Architecture is Open
Unlike physical architecture, which is a concrete, finished structure after it is built, digital architecture is ongoing, adaptive, and flexible. It can be reformed, updated, and expanded continuously.
The new architecture will provide more opportunities for further building, not just resting content in what has already been built.
It invites us to become Makers. To step into our creativity and bring forth new worlds of possibility. As these forms of community open more channels of connection and expand access, the opportunity and possibility of collaboration exponentially increase.
As Teilhard de Chardin said, “To worship is now becoming to devote oneself body and soul to the creative act.” This new devotion of creativity as worship is because we are all called to bring forth life. Creativity is in us all.
That might include enacting new structures and forms. It might entail supporting that which is currently being built. Some will feel drawn to reinforce that which is struggling or spice up the stale. For many it will simply be to love in ways that encourage and support one another. For there too we are co-creating life in another.
Crucially, all are invited to participate actively in this way of being together in community—there are no passengers on the spaceship. We are all crew.
This aspect, along with some of the others, may feel a little uncomfortable. It’s not as cozy as settling in for a ride that someone else is taking care of. It might also feel frightening, for there aren’t the same longstanding established structures that hold an underlying security to them. Although this “security” is often an illusion, as we now have access to information that doesn’t allow large institutions to hide their misdeeds as they have in the past.
However, we still need to have trust and a sense of spiritual safety. We need to feel grounded in belonging and have a sense of place. We need to feel accepted for our own uniqueness in the midst of connection. We need to receive as we give, feeling supported and led by others in various ways.
Later on in this series, we’ll explore some values of new spiritual community, specifically drawing from what we have cultivated and co-discovered in our Integral Christian Network community.
Some Shapes of Emerging Structures
So what do these new forms look like? How are structures coming up around the new wine that is emerging?
Much is still being figured out. A few wonderful case studies were done in years past by the folks from Sacred Design Lab, drawing upon examples of post-religious spiritual and secular ways of gathering.
Last March, ICN participated in a grant-funded retreat bringing together new community creators from across the country, which was the beginning of the Mycelial Network, an inter-community network of connection for support and future collaborations. We’re coming together again this month. Still in its infancy, we’re experimenting with what this will look like and how we can serve each other.
(If you are a community creator, reach out if you’d like to become a part of this new initiative)
Many of these new community groups are increasingly online, especially since COVID. Various forms of circling, we-space, dia-logos, and more are gathering on zoom and other platforms. VR (virtual reality) community spaces are probably not too far away.
At the same time, there are community movements bringing us back to nature, back to pilgrimage, back to eco-responsibility and regeneration.
Much of what is coming forth will have different capacities and infrastructure than what has come before. There is a great need to experiment and find ways to support new initiatives—trying out different approaches with creativity and freedom, while also seeking to be viable and sustainable. This is much more difficult without the financial support of larger institutions. Some denominations and organizations are seeking to be supportive of new initiatives, but often have a hard time doing so in ways that aren’t still bound to their bureaucracies and entrenched structures.
What else is still coming to form? What else will emerge in the years ahead?
Perhaps you’ll even be a part of making it happen!
“Stellarscape” by Oriol Angrill Jorda
Becoming the New Structures
We are not an audience.
We are not consumers of spiritual commodities.
We are not bound to the structures of centuries past.
We don’t have to travel to church anymore. It is not far away any longer. Church is in our midst. Spiritual community is right here.
We don’t need a rule of life or a morality check anymore, for we are walking the cloisters of connection—pathways of interrelation in the new architecture that brings us together for great creative possibility.
We travel the corridors of divine presence in our midst.
This way of being doesn’t require a basilica, a chapel, or a special place to meet the divine. It is an open communion with the spirit of God in the midst of all life. In the fields and in the faces of our divine siblings. In the blade of grass and the strand of hair. In the dirt and the digital code.
We are the nave. We embody the open space of divine presence simply by coming together in ways that foster the immediacy of God flowing among us.
We are the sanctuary where God dwells. All we need is to come into the authentic presence with our awakened being, in ourselves and in one another. And structures to help make that happen.
We are the transformation of spirit becoming.
We are the new architecture.
We are the beloved body of Christ being born anew.
Practicing Community
Come together with others in your spiritual community to create something new. To introduce a new structure of practice or gathering. What do you see that is needed? How can you be a part of creating that which is waiting to be built? What collaborators will you need to do this?
Look to see what is being created around you, locally or in online spaces. How can you support these initiatives? Is there a contribution you can offer, either in your gifts and skills or financially?
Integral Christian Network is one of these communities seeking to build with the new architecture. We are not supported by any institution or endowment. We are funded by people in our community who participate in this work because they believe in what we are trying to do together.
Your contributions make all the difference in bringing this way of community forth, in making possible our part in the loving evolution of Christianity and the world. You, our ICN community, are the co-contributors of the future of spiritual community—and we are bringing it forth now!
If you feel so drawn, please consider how you might contribute and co-create together with us, including through a financial contribution that can help us grow this work and offer it to more people across the globe.
Thank you!