"Something's Going On": The Future Denominational Church

July 26, 2010 by Deborah Arca

Continued from Page 2

In the midst of the conversation about the "mainline decline," there are significant voices in every denomination, as well as outside of denominations, saying we should let the church die so something new can be born. What's your response to that and what new forms might church take in the 21st century?

Okay, I could riff on this forever. I get into these conversations all the time, especially with friends from the Emergent Movement who come from non-denominational backgrounds. I think their context defines their reaction to denominations. There are a growing number of us within a denominational reality that have a very positive experience and don't feel we need to throw everything out to move into the future.

When someone says to me, "you know, we're post-denominational," I say, "I totally agree, we're post-‘50s denominational." We have yet to decide and discern what denominations look like in the future. I think one of the things the emergent folks are buying into culturally is an isolationism and disconnectedness that technology has brought about. And if we follow them, then we're buying into this idea, in an almost rebellious attitude, that you can do everything on your own and you are not accountable to anyone other than the folks you have deemed part of your immediate community. A denomination, on the other hand, says to the world that we're accountable to folks who manifest the Spirit and the Body of Christ beyond our human constructs, and I think that is a prophetic word for the world today. Denominations certainly have their issues, but we do also have a gift that we can offer.

I would add -- and this is what Phyllis Tickle would say -- that the future of the Protestant church will be defined and formed by the mainline emergents, which she calls "hyphen-mergents," because we know how to do structure. Now we certainly don't want to just do it the way we've done it before, or do it in a way that stifles creativity and adaptability, but we do understand the benefits when it's done well. There's this great convergence now between the traditional evangelical emergents and these emergents coming out of mainline traditions, and we're trying to figure out how much we are going to work together. But when people say we're post-denominational, I think that's too easy. I'm not a cheerleader for denominational survival, but at the same time I think we can offer something in a different form than we have in the past, and some of us are trying to figure out what that looks like.

So what do you think we are learning from the emergent movement? How is that particular community informing the future of the mainline church?

One of the things we have to understand when thinking about future forms of church is that if we take seriously that we're a postmodern church in a Christian context, we have to honor, understand, and respect multiple manifestations of church equally. There are far too many who are still caught up in the modernist mindset that says the church just needs to be ‘not that,' so the ‘not that' issues are no longer valid expressions of community. And that's dangerous because we're only moving into the next calcification of the institution.

Some of us are getting to the point of being open to valuing all of those manifestations of church and asking what, then, is the structure that holds us together and gives us the freedom to be the church in our particular contexts? How do we even do that within our own congregations? We're learning now from the churches that started within the last 5-10 years and that are now getting to the point of talking about what this looks like for the long-term. Are you really as fluid as you say you want to be? Because mainline churches have a mindset of longevity, we're having those conversations now in many congregations.

We're going to have to be open to multiple manifestations of the church whether we understand, like, or agree with them, and we have to honor them all. We're seeing many denominational churches -- House for All Sinners and Saints in Denver, Church of Apostles in Seattle, Mission Bay in San Francisco, The Open Door in Pittsburgh -- churches that are saying we can straddle this postmodern-modern thing and do it well.

I think the learning is coming from the tension that's arising from trying to figure out what sustainability looks like. It's easy to talk about being church different -- it's much harder to actually do it. Our church used to meet in a café, which theoretically was a very cool idea, but practically was horrible. Putting the theory to practice is where we are now, because more places are open to us trying to do it. As I said earlier, everybody knows something is going on, so there is more openness now to these new ways of doing church.

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7/26/2010 4:00:00 AM

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About Deborah Arca

Deborah Arca is the former Director of Content at Patheos. Prior to joining Patheos, Deborah managed the Programs in Christian Spirituality at the San Francisco Theological Seminary, including the Program's renowned spiritual direction program and the nationally-renowned Lilly-funded Youth Ministry & Spirituality Project. Deborah has also been a youth minister, a director of music and theatre programs for children and teens, and a music minister. Deborah belongs to a progressive United Church of Christ church in Englewood, CO.

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