More Institutions, Please
Why I hope our church structures don't completely implode
About a month ago, Nadia Bolz-Weber wrote a Substack post that made the rounds on the niche progressive church spaces I occupy online. You can read the whole thing here if you haven’t already.
It’s a hopeful take on the collapsing structure of the institutional church. It was quite popular, I believe, because it offers a vision where we could release what worries us most in the church. In one paragraph that imagines how we would function as church if the world was ending in five years, Bolz-Weber states not once, but twice how we wouldn’t have to keep a mortgage on a building we couldn’t afford. And you know what, if the world really was ending soon, I likely would abandon parts of my church building.
But you know, as far as I can tell, we’ve got longer than five years.
My local church building sits opposite a public high school. When school is in session we have an endless stream of mountain dew bottles and candy bar wrappers left in our yard as evidence of students living their best lives. It’s impossible to not think about the future when surrounded by these students. For this school district, they’re trying desperately to pass a levy, basically self-imposed taxes, on the ballot this fall. This method of funding Ohio public schools has been ruled unconstitutional, but with little consequence.
This local school district is hoping to utilize land they purchased across the street from us to build new facilities. Previously there was a private school there, now long closed. A little further up the street from us is a shopping complex that used to house a Target. No more—it’s been largely abandoned ever since I began serving my church six years ago. Our neighborhood holds possibility alongside vacancy.
Perhaps most importantly you need to know the racial demographics of my community.
In 2000 the city was 79.01% white and 17.63% Black.
In 2010 the city was 53.9% white and 41.9% Black.
In 2020 the city was 40.6% white and 54.8% Black.
You can perhaps guess that when my congregation was founded in the late 1950s it was quite white. They never had tons of money, but enough to purchase property and build a facility and pay staff. This was their investment in themselves, but in their neighborhood.
It enrages me to think of my congregation abandoning the responsibility we have to our community now.
I get it when people are ready to lay down the burdens of institutions. Institutional work can be terribly boring and tedious and slow. It can be cruel. It can be so much more complicated than simply meeting in our homes.
The institution that created my congregation however enacted space that currently houses multiple community organizations that feed people in my community. We are a parking lot for football games and a gathering place for AA and NA. We are neighbors to an apartment complex for those 62 and old—a complex built because of a gift of land our congregation provided. We host funerals for free and act as the only LGBTQ affirming church in our area.
To lose this would not be part of some kind of institutional decluttering. We are not holding onto this out of some kind of uppity desire to have a church sanctuary with the stained glass we love the most. I am part of a small community that is tenaciously holding onto what we have because our institutional, committee-driven, bureaucratical structures matter greatly not just to us, but our whole community.
I have been deeply influenced by the work of Partners for Sacred Places who talk about this thing called the Halo Effect. In short, there are quantifiable ways of measuring what churches offer to our communities. I actually don’t need people to be persuaded by Jesus to acknowledge that if we abandon our church properties the whole community suffers.
I am persuaded by Jesus as it turns out. That whole loving your neighbor thing is really compelling. Without being a martyr, it’s the heartbeat behind what I do. I’m not a part-time pastor because it’s easy, or lucrative, or even always fun. I help carry the burden of an imperfect institution. The shape it currently inhabits won’t last forever—on that I agree with Nadia Bolz-Weber. But I’m not quite ready to let go of it yet.
Bonus writing!
This week I have a post up on the Vital Signs & Statistics blog as part of the United Church of Christ’s Center for Analytics, Research & Development, and Data (CARDD). It’s a little more technical than what I often offer here, but I know many of you would love to hear about how bivocational ministry fits into the wider world of multiple jobholding. Let me know what you think—I’m looking to expand my writing into more spaces like this one.
What life looks like
Good dog.
Rachel, thank you for this clear, passionate love letter to the church.
Re: your post on UCC's CARDD - I've read a number of posts on that site over the years. Your writing style for that piece was spot on IMHO. Further, the final line places the whole exactly where it needs to be: hopeful challenge. Keep writing!