The Death of Public Space
17 May 2006
Many emerging church communities are exploring simple and sustainable forms of church, having no advertising, no teaching, minimal programs, and no obvious leaders. And I think this is vital.
But in doing so are we in danger of losing something vital, too?
Attendance at our emerging church group may include the risk of uncertainty, food, and relationship. Our groups run the danger of involving people into in the people’s worst fears: forced intimacy, sharing, and lack of public space. People want to watch, listen, and observe without pressure because very few relationships are intimate . . . we tend to think of intimacy as the ‘Mecca’ of relationship.
But would all relationships in our lives be better if they were intimate?
Emerging churches by their nature necessitate intimacy, but this very attribute can be a hurdle to many people ever connecting meaningfully with us. Those of us that really enjoy these new forms of community, can validate ourselves as committed and “authentically” Christian/Missional etc, in comparison with those who do not. Rather than being open communities, our new expressions can become closed and as culturally exclusive. Our new groups can become small communities made up of tired, frustrated Christians who reject the church and view the new community as an ideal place.
A primary axiom of some groups is in the area of gathering. Many emerging church groups have moved away from any form of public, congregational space. Joe Myers, however, suggested that public space is vital for postmodern people to connect. Gathering has been vital to pre-modern, modern eras, and will be in the postmodern church. It can be argued that fear of congregations may restrict the ability of many groups to be significantly missional.
We need the mission of God through the church to take place in all the spaces, public, social, private and intimate.
For an intro to the nature of how people belong to different spaces, get hold of Joe Myers, “The Search to Belong”.
Tagged: Congregations, Emerging-Church, Key-Posts, Pub-Space
18 comments
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Comment by brett jordan
10.37 am on 17 May 2006
When people first visit a secular ‘club’, the usual reaction is a ‘friendly distance’, polite acknowledgment that you are new, and that you are welcome, but no attempt at ‘intimacy’. As the person attends more regularly, assuming it is invited, more interaction occurs in a progressive and relational way.
I’m much more comfortable with this approach, and most people I know are too… it is certainly preferable to the over-enthusiastic ‘Good to see you, where are you from, why are you here, what is your life-story?’ kind of greetings that many churches have instructed their ‘welcome team’ to offer.
Comment by GMD
11.02 am on 17 May 2006
I’ve just finished re-reading this book for about the 3rd time and can highly recomend it.
Gary
Comment by Marc
12.13 pm on 17 May 2006
Hi Brett. I understand what you are saying but I would tend to disgaree.
I think it’s important that some be made to feel welcome coming through the doors of a church and that doesn’t mean probing into their life story.
Although we have a welcome team at my church, we all try to welcome new people simply because it’s difficult walking into a hall of 200 people.
For us Brits, in our culture, we are generally quite reserved where as our american cousins can be much louder.
Either way we need to welcome people sensitivly.
Comment by ron
12.24 pm on 17 May 2006
“We need the mission of God through the church to take place in all the spaces, public, social, private and intimate.”
Thanks for this post Jason, it should be challenging us in ways we can permeate all these spaces with a kingdom presence…Missio dei.
Trackback by the Weary Pilgrim
12.27 pm on 17 May 2006
the death of public space?…
Many emerging church communities are exploring simple and sustainable forms of church, having no advertising, no teaching, minimal programs, and no obvious leaders. And I think this is vital. But in doing so are we in danger of losing something…
Comment by lammert
12.30 pm on 17 May 2006
Couldn’t agree more Jason and search to belong is a great book. Malcolm Gladwell in his book the tipping point writes some good stuff about different levels of communities too. It often feels like the pendulum has to swing to the other side… small is beautiful at the moment; big is scary… I love both small and big (and in between!)
Comment by Daniel
1.24 pm on 17 May 2006
While I agree with Brett about how people enter a club, I don’t think that a club is the best analogy for the type of community Jason is talking about. I think that a better analogy would be a group of friends. Here is an example from my life. We moved to Richmond, VA a few months back and didn’t know anyone here. As we have met certain people we have been invited to hang out with them and their friends, either at a party or at a resturant. There is no forced intimacy or sharing necessarily involved when hanging out with a new group of people. A couple people generally take more interest in new people and want to get to know you, but it is natural. I feel that this is the type of public space that these groups need, friends hanging out and having a good time. Does that make sense?
Comment by brett jordan
1.35 pm on 17 May 2006
Daniel & Marc
Thanks for your comments. I’m guessing that the ‘right’ approach will differ from person to person. The ‘family’ approach probably works for some people, especially people who are already christians. People like me would rather a lot of space to begin with, and that was before and after conversion! I’m completely willing to be told I’m in a a tiny minority, it certainly won’t be the first time :-)
Comment by Marc b
6.36 pm on 17 May 2006
The amount of ‘space’ a person needs is very much dependent on cultural background and personality. My worst nightmare is when the church I am visiting asks all its visitors to stand up during worship and introduce themselves! Relationships can never be forced and are always built on trust. Trust takes time. While it is good to welcomed in friendly way to a church that does not mean I am going bare my soul on the first visit.
Comment by PurplePastor
1.15 am on 18 May 2006
Jason, your question “…would all relationships in our lives be better if they were intimate?” is, I hope, rhetorical. Even if it’s not, my answer is an unapolegtic “no.” I could not sustain intimacy in all of my relationships, no matter how devoted I was to the ideal. In fact, I regularly wander in and out of intimacy with even my closest companions, including my wife. Your suggestion that perhaps intimacy is not the “Mecca” of relationship is wise, very wise. So often our desire for intimacy actually hinders or stifles the intimacy we so desperately seek.
Comment by tas
9.55 am on 18 May 2006
Once again stimulating thoughts here Jason! This discussion is very much in line with my thoughts at the moment which are to do with ‘how can we as Christ centred communites be both open to others and also real and intimate?’ I definitely think that a key to all this is to not just develop “simple and sustainable” forms but also natural forms. (I agree with your analogy Daniel) We need forms that are dependant on those spaces we are talking about…the public, the social, the private and the intimate, and not removed from them. This is why I think eventually as our communities grow, we should be open to the congregational but it may happen(i hope!?)in a very different way than are existing at the moment. I am thinking of the Kingdom of God as a fluid network of connections (some intimate, some more at a distance) but that flows through the public spaces (the pubs, clubs, parks, cinemas, internet!) as well as the cathedrals, churches etc and homes. Makes me think of the early church…they met in homes and at the temple. Private and public. This is all very important stuff to ponder as we develop emerging missional communities, I personally do not want to miss/distort what God may want to do just because I am in some way reacting to a past model i.e congregational. ;-)
Comment by tas
10.04 am on 18 May 2006
Another thought… maybe what we need to be thinking about is not whether our gatherings are welcoming or open, but whether we are welcoming and open to others, inviting people to our homes, or not too busy with ‘church’ to go down the pub for a mate’s birthday? and also on the flip side to my earlier post, how are we ’safe’ people to be around (in all senses of the word)…do we have those intimate relationships in place (soul friends?) so that we can be safe and open to others when we are in the public space?
Comment by brett jordan
11.37 am on 18 May 2006
Tas is right about christians needing to mix more with non-christians, and (as long as we remain in a close relationship with Christ) opportunities will naturally (and supernaturally) arise for us to share the gospel, in word and in action
And, more importantly, the contact with people who don’t share our faith, presuppositions (and often quite barmy idiosycnracies that go with this) is a healthy incentive for christians to remain aware of the questions that people outside of the christian worldview are asking
Comment by Jason
4.59 pm on 18 May 2006
Brett: Progression and relationship, sounds vital, and fits the ideas of multiple spaces. Thanks for that.
Daniel: makes a lot of sense…great to hear from you.
Lammert: I do’t remember that from Gladwell, I’ll go back and re-read, thanks.
Marc B: That is a nightmare and I’d refuse to do it! Also inviting people to small intimate spaces and making the participate in other ways is just as restrictive…part of what I was posting about.
Purple: I hear you…we can set ‘intimacy’ as the zenith of church, but it’s not how people work in real life most of the time.
Tas: I’m convinced any community of faith that grows needs a congregational space…but that’s another post!
Brett: I agree, and we need to sop obsessing about the forms of our church, and get on with mission in the world.
Marc: Welcoming isn’t automatic, it’s part of the practice of hospitality, and we can get better at it…thanks mate.
Comment by jonny
5.29 pm on 18 May 2006
BRETT – your comment reminded me of a thought i had a while back…
with our public-space/main-meetings/serivces (delete as appropriate in your context) -instead of using the metaphor and method of a Concert/Gig/Lecture – why not use the metaphor of a Club/Party/Discoteque (sorry had to pop that old scholl word in there).
Comment by Jason Hesiak
6.11 pm on 24 May 2006
Everyone is talking about the forms of the church so much, but what about what is behind the forms? I mean, what about what is in our hearts and minds that drives what appears in our lives and in the worlds? That stuff doesn’t change, that story is the same as it was 2000 years ago. May sound like a, “Daah hello?”, but just wanted to throw that out there. It is what’s essential.
My small group is probably a good example. We’re a bunch of white young twenty-somethings immersed in the highly culturally-mixed Hollywood, Los Angeles. We’ve been here for three and a half years now, engaging mightily in this discussion on the forms of our congregations and small groups. But we are JUST NOW, it seems, starting to hit on the stuff in our HEARTS that is REALLY causing the sense of closed isolation, the stuff that is REALLY making it seem difficult to “reach out”.
I mean, what’s the difference between sitting in a group of 15 and a group of 300 if the question in your soul is about the guy sitting across from you who you don’t know but are awkwardly trying to interact with in some way?
Another major thing that’s goin on BEHIND all these questions of form is “epistemology”. “Rather than being OPEN communities, our new expressions can become CLOSED and as culturally exclusive. Our new groups can become small communities made up of tired, frustrated Christians who reject the church and view the new community as an IDEAL place.” I put certain epistemologically key words in those two sentences in caps. The dynamics between the words “open”, “closed”, and “ideal” (and real) all depend on the epistemological shift between ancient-modern and then also modern-postmodern (and also have a lot to do with the picture of an openly trusting Jesus facing the reality of suffering in this life).
Are we really willing to dive into that discussion? Are we really willing to change the very foundations of how we think, which moves how we act? Are our hearts, minds and souls OPEN to that disturbing of a foundation that the moderns spent 400 years SETTING in us? Interestingly, it seems, despite that fact that we have already been in a “postmodern” world/age for 50/100 years now, and despite the fact that I am always around folks who are supposedly in a “postmodern” church, the most common answers I find demonstrated in the words and attitudes of myself and those around me to the above question is “no”.
How can we expect unity with folks unlike ourselves if we aren’t willing to OPEN up on our deepest of levels, even to and within ourselves?
Comment by Jason Hesiak
7.13 pm on 24 May 2006
Oh, and I forgot to mention. The whole point that lead me to talk about the “epistemology” thing was the very title of this blog! “The Death of Public Space” reminded me of another book title, “The Fall of Public Man.” With a new epistomology comes a new idea of “public”.
Marchall McLuhan’s idea of “acoustic space”, for example (which is a term that partially plays off of the term “public space”) which has a radically different and new/old epistemology behind it, implies a very different idea of public and private from the one we are used to. Now, I don’t know quite what I think of that specifically (his idea of public/private, as put forth in “The Medium is the Massage”), but what I do know is this. He is breaking down the walls and distinctions between observer and observed. He is challenging the idea that we can just sit back and cooly and calmly look at the world as detached observers (like snobs with our noses in the air). In the/his new way of thinking (it’s not just his), we have to OPEN up.
We have to let go of our grip on this “ideal world” that we have in our heads, which causes a huge separation between ideal and real, thought and action, mind and body, and like Jesus embrace real life incarnationally, WITH all of its uncertainty, danger and mystery (and excitement!).
The problem with this epistemology of Idealism is that the ideal ends up made in OUR OWN image of our false selves. An alcoholic, homeless Latino doesn’t fit our ideal image of a man (a young white yuppie 20 something), and we close off and hover and cluster around others like ourselves. Even in a group of 15 in someone’s living room you end up spacially and conversationally divided between folks who are like and folks who aren’t like you. Meanwhile the Latinos on one side of the room and the whites on the other are subtly and deceptively “observing” each other (like what is done in the model of public space that we are used to) to see if they can trust them or to see just how much like or unlike them they really are.
What does a group of 15 or 300 look like if our picture of Man (our “epistemology”) is God’s picture? Do we “know” that guy sitting over there the way GOD does?
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