One question leads to another.
–Mary Oliver from Questions You Might Ask
Typically, when I visit congregations, I get asked: "How can we get young people to come to our church?" For the longest time, I would provide several responses. These ranged from inquiries regarding the demographics of the town to dispelling rumors of quick-fix strategies to stories of what other congregations are doing. I've decided I'm not doing that anymore. Instead, I'll give a different response.
“I'm sorry, I don't mean to be rude, but you ask the wrong question.”
Several years ago, I sat with a friend discussing various topics about the life of the church, the state of society, and our yearnings for a deeper and more meaningful life. He told me of the evolution he and his wife had gone through regarding their now-adult children and the subject of religion. "I no longer ask them about church or religion. It just put us into this awkward conversation with a shaming quality. So now I ask a different question. I ask them where they are finding grace or peace or meaning."
This exchange has stayed with me for a long time. I let it sit within me like a sweet sauce marinating my soul. He's right. His new questions are better. Asking people where they find grace, peace, or meaning is better. After all, isn't that what we want for our friends and family members? Sure, we can ask them about their institutional affiliations, memberships, and community associations, but aren't we hoping they'll find their way in the world through intimacy, service, and soul?
A few weeks ago, I met via Zoom with some folks exploring a house church. They've only met once for conversation, an abbreviated liturgy, a meal, and some healthy discussion. "I'm looking for an intimate group of people to explore the depth of faith. It's not that I'm anti-church. It's just that I'm a tad fatigued by the operational aspect of budgets and building. I know that form of the church means a lot to people. Good for them. For me, I’m ready for something else." That's a rough quote from a lay leader who has spent decades serving in numerous roles as an usher, committee member, and president.
What would happen if we started asking a different question? Instead of "where are you going to church," how about "Where are you finding grace?"
I've started this little experiment myself by asking people this very question. A few responses include:
• "I have a group of friends; we walk every morning. It's my life-saving time as I go through a divorce."
• "I don't know what grace is, but I'd love to learn more about it."
• "I garden. That's where I commune with God."
• "I built an altar in the woods behind my house. That's where I go to pray."
• "Every Friday night, I volunteer at a homeless shelter. It's what connects me to people in a real and honest way."
• "I'm in a book group, a study group, a dream group, a prayer group."
• "I'm a singer, and that's my spirituality…ideally with other people."
As we witness the decline of the institutional expression of religion, maybe we are also seeing a resurgence of the original meaning of religion. The word religion means to connect again. Legio is similar to the word for ligaments, those connecting fibers in our joints. Are we going back to connecting with a more substantive aspect of the sacred?
Despite our secular world, there seems to be a deepening interest in the sacred. David Tacey suggests we live in a Post Secular Sacred world. I love that phrase. It indicates that despite all our scientific and technological advances, we still long for the sacred. Since we are, by nature, meaning-seeking creatures, we yearn for story, ritual, song, and community. The careful reader of this little essay would stop right now and say, "wait a minute. Did you write: Story, ritual, song, and community? Isn't that religion?"
Yes, those four-plus acts of service would form the marks of a spiritual community. What I see and hear is a hunger for those but fatigue from the operational elements of maintaining a building, keeping programs going, and dealing with the institution's struggles. This has been particularly exacerbated in the last four or five years and most intensely around the pandemic. Decisions around masking alone have caused people such angst that a few have walked away. One part of me is sympathetic, while the other part notes these as the struggles of living in the community. People like to point to Jesus' words about where two or three are gathered to justify holding onto a gathering despite the poor attendance. What they miss is that Jesus is saying, "where two or three are gathered, you are going to have conflict." Ask anyone who has gathered two or three people to decide on something, and you'll have a pattern of flight, fight, or freeze.
So, what do we do about this dilemma? Is the answer just letting everyone go off and do their own thing?
I'm putting my energy into a recovery of sacred practices. Story, Song, Ritual in community for the sake of the world. That's a theme, a purpose, a direction I can embrace. I think it can help a broken world desperately seeking wholeness, hope, salvation, peace, grace. (In my view, those are all words that essentially point to the same thing.)
A few weeks ago, about 30 people gathered at our Conference Center in New Hampshire to explore some of these topics, which I call Weird Wisdom. We read ancient folk tales, walked with Jonah to the sea and back, discussed a dream, released symbols of stuck-ness into a fire, reflected on our intended legacy. It was a kind of entre into a new chapter in my life and work as a spiritual guide, teacher, and storyteller. For some in the group, it confirmed some ideas brewing in the basement kettle for some time. For others, it was an opportunity to consider some new steps forward, perhaps by letting go of some old ideas. It was firmly not a weekend of TRANSFORMATION with all those overhyped promises of a radically new life. We were all too full of life experience to buy into that advertising. But it was a bit of metanoia (A Greek word meaning turning). We'll do it again next year. I'll let you know the details later in case you like to join us.
These kinds of events grow out of asking a different question.
One last story. I'm recounting this one from a memory of a story I heard from Will Willimon.
One Sunday morning, a woman woke up and decided, spontaneously, to go to Sunday worship at a nearby church. Later that afternoon, she was at a BBQ picnic hosted by friends. When she mentioned she had been to worship that morning, an older person asked, "well, what was said?" She engaged her nieces and nephews a short while later and mentioned her morning activity. They looked at her and inquired, "well, what happened?"
“What was said” is a question assuming the purpose is information gathering.
Instead, “what happened” is a question expressing the hunger for an experience.
I think our post-secular world is looking for an experience, an encounter with the sacred.
So, where are you finding grace?