...mainly prompted by the amount of emotional energy being taken up by juggling moving houses and jobs, and more importantly my Dad's continued deterioration (after more than 3 months in hospital the doctors are now indicating that it may be unlikely that he will recover) but I did really want to write down the thoughts below somewhere.
I was listening to a few interesting podcasts from emergent uk when I heard a couple of people referring to emerging church in the context of people who are “believing without belonging”. I think the idea being highlighted was people can (and do) have Christian beliefs without needing to be 'joiners', without needing or wanting to commit to weekly attendance or being part of one 'congregation'.
On the other hand, most of the emerging church talk I had previously heard tended to talk about “belonging without (or before) believing”. The idea being that people want to belong and can be invited to join and experience Christian community without being subject to some checklist of beliefs. Once engaged with the community and having imbibed its values they would then be interested and prepared to hear about the beliefs which shaped the community of which they were a part.
So which is true? I think probably both. From the anecdotal evidence of my own non-church-attending friends and acquaintances I would say that many of them believe some things. For instance they may believe that there is a good God. They may believe that love is the central principle of life. They believe that there is more to life than the merely physical and that spirituality is important. They may believe that the life and teaching of Jesus is a view of the divine. But they do not believe that the earth was created in six days, that Jesus was born of a virgin or that there is only one path to God. Above all they do not believe that the church's edicts help them to understand or to live life constructively.
They are desperately seeking belonging. But they don't think they belong in the church. Mainly because they don't believe the things they think they'd have to believe. And because they're more interested in relationships than in institutions. They'll willingly get together with friends on a weekly basis. But they don't want to be told they have to get together once a week on Sunday mornings.
So what do I do about this? Well, it seems to me that I need both to find the commonality with their beliefs and to offer places of belonging. You see, I suspect in the end that neither “believing without belonging” nor “belonging without believing” is good enough. I think humans want to belong with those who believe as they do. (I know I'm desperate to find and hang out with some people who actually believe that St George will one day win another Premiership...)
Or maybe the real problem is with neat theories that parcel us up into one camp or another. Do you believe? Do you belong? I'm not sure if I do or not. Maybe we could just hang out together and wonder...