Reflections on Churchless Faith

By Jason

28 Jan 2004

It will take me some time to digest and reflect on our time with Alan Jamieson, and his summary of his research/book “Churchless Faith”, and the follow research and his new book (coming out next week). We’ll get MP3s of his session on line next week for you to listen to, and some other thoughts. Meantime here is a list of his findings of things people leaving church wished their church had done/been to help them stay involved. Where are you with these?

1. Provide places to explore, question and to doubt

2. Include a theology of journey

3. Understand the leaving process

4. Offer assistance in our faith struggles

5. Model other theological understandings

6. Focus on realities rather than ‘shoulds’

7. Have more room for emotions, feelings and intuitions

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  1. Comment by Warren Schatz

    6.15 pm on 28 Jan 2004

    Good thoughts Jason,
    I am a fellow George Fox Student in the other Sweet cohort – MaryKate gave me your name.
    My project is aimed at helping churches change their structure for ministry to the emerging culture. She thought you might have some good thoughts on the theology behind organization, and especially recommended your paper from last semester. I was wondering if we should compare notes and see if we could help each other.

  2. Comment by gareth

    10.16 am on 29 Jan 2004

    thanks for the list – its nice and succinct but has very obvious connotations for how we ‘do’ church, I think particually of the difficulty in modelling other theological understandings. Sometimes it can be hard enough within a community to articulate your own.

  3. Comment by Jason Clark

    11.24 am on 29 Jan 2004

    This is far from a simple list of things to do. It is about thinking, relfecting, being and doing. Take this list seriously and church will look very different and be very different that most we we know of today.

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