Reviving the Parish Church
Old Ideas for Vibrant Ministry in This Generation
“Are you sure you really want to leave our church to go somewhere else?”
It was 2012 and I was on staff working in the children’s ministry of a large DC-area church. This was the same church where I had also come to saving faith just two years prior. I loved, (and still love) this church for its role in my coming to faith and affirming my call to pastoral ministry.
At the time, however, I was having several issues with church leadership over ministry philosophy (it turns out I wasn’t the only one, as the church went through major turnover in the following years – it is now very healthy, praise God!). I was torn; in my conscience I couldn’t agree with the ministry of the church, but I also didn’t want to leave the safety and comfort of this massive, resourced church.
I responded, “I don’t know what to do. We can do so many things for the Kingdom of God here. I don’t want to leave for a small and ineffective neighborhood church!” In hindsight, I can see the way that I regarded size, resources, and influence as measures of success. While these assets of larger churches are valuable, I was unable to see the strengths of smaller neighborhood-focused churches.
In my previous post, I set forth numerous challenges for local churches when their understanding of “the city” remains an abstract concept. In summary, abstract understandings of “the city” generally confuse a place with a cultural movement, such as secularism or cultural trends among younger generations. As a result, abstract city-minded churches struggle to represent any one place, drift toward mono-culturalism, and can be ineffective at reconciliation ministries across ethnic, racial, or class boundaries.
My suggestion, then, was for churches to become more articulate in the kind of city church they want to be, rather than relying on abstract ideas. I set forth two kinds of churches: the regional or cultural church, as well as the neighborhood or parish church. Both kinds of churches present their own strengths and challenges.
For example, the regional church will excel at creating presence over a large geographic area. They will struggle, however, at contextualizing to unique demographics across the city. They also tend toward mono-culturalism and find it difficult to include marginalized communities.
The neighborhood church will excel at contextualized ministry to a much smaller geographic area. While they will not have the resources for large programs and events (many of which are good!), church members are equipped and empowered to invest in each other and their neighbors because of their primary sense of call to the neighborhood. Reconciliation ministries are more successful across boundaries because of the daily life-on-life presence of church members with their neighbors.
As I also observed in my previous post, I think that, in general, we have far more regional churches than neighborhood specific ones. For this reason, many marginalized communities are left behind by those who ought to care for them most. Reconciling ministries make little traction, as a couple hours in Sunday worship simply isn’t enough contact to learn to enjoy each other.
Healthier church ecosystems within any city, then, would involve fewer regional churches working together with multiple neighborhood churches. The strengths of each model would benefit the other. When any city is occupied by too many regional churches, cooperative ministry efforts are replaced by competition to reach similar cultural demographics.
In the remainder of this article, I’d like to set forth some ideas about what the neighborhood church can look like.
Recovering Old Ideas
There are two concepts that have been helpful for our growing church community to articulate our heart and vision: parish and chaplain. Both words have fallen out of the common use of most Christians today. They each convey old ideas that can be recovered for vibrant, beautiful ministry in the next generation.
The parish can have two meanings. A more general definition of parish is simply a small district or geographic area. Within historic Christian traditions, the parish is a small, local community that a local congregation takes responsibility for. The parish is not so much about a church building as it is all the relationships (civic, education, economic, environment) within which the local congregation lives out its life together.[1]
Within a parish church, members of the congregation share a deep sense of call to a neighborhood. Both the leaders and members of the parish church are compelled to live within the neighborhood. To free up emotional and spiritual energy for their neighbors, members of the parish church choose to focus on local needs and issues of the neighborhood rather than national concerns or the latest debates within American Christianity. Because they are shared concerns, parish churches put the needs of their immediate neighbors first.
In addition, church members care for members of the neighborhood regardless of whether neighbors attend their church on Sunday or not. Simply by being in this parish with us, the church views their neighbors as under their care and concern.
In our church planting ministry, we have seen, repeatedly, how refreshing this approach is to members of our community. Our neighbors can see that we are not simply trying to build a brand or institution for ourselves. They can see that we are not trying to bait and switch them into a pitch for our faith or our church. We simply want to faithfully care for and share with our neighbors. This has invited vulnerability, honesty, and genuine opportunities to share Jesus – often across class and racial boundaries – that likely would not have existed otherwise. We are regularly invited into relationships with businesses, non-profits, and community organizations which likely never would have occurred if we were more concerned with our own institution.
Chaplain has been another helpful concept for us. This word is most often used for those who minister in certain institutions such as hospitals, prisons, the armed forces, or professional sports teams. The role of a chaplain is to represent Christ through their presence with people, especially in their times of need. While chaplains do seek ways to proclaim Christ with their words, they also value intercession, counsel, and friendship as necessary demonstration of their faithful presence with others.
In many churches, the terms missionary or evangelist are used to describe the role of church members in the city. Often, churches will use the idea of being “sent out” from the church service as an evangelist into the city for the rest of the week. I like both words and the intent behind them. However, I think the connotation of both terms is of someone going from one place to another, rather than living faithfully where you already are. In addition, evangelist carries the idea that your primary responsibility is verbal proclamation with your neighbors, rather than an all-of-life concern. Finally, these words can create a separation between Sunday and the rest of the week, as if I am one thing on Sunday and something else the rest of the week.
To be a chaplain in the neighborhood communicates something else. A chaplain has an intentional, faithful presence that comes alongside our neighbors over the long haul. Chaplains are patient, kind, gentle, and wise about how to share Christ in trust and vulnerability.
I love how much our family get to interact with our neighborhood, as well as community leaders and institutions. I love that when I’m playing outside with my kids, a member of our congregation or neighborhood friend is likely to drive by and honk. I love that our neighbors know where pastor lives, that they have my phone number, and that they can ask for help or prayer. Life in the parish is beautiful.
Our family recently went through a crisis that gave my wife and I deep anxiety. We shared this situation with a few others, including a member of our growing congregation who lives just down the street. With the hour she was at our house with a card, with a listening ear, with prayer. I can’t tell you how comforting it was for us to be “chaplained” by her!
Anxiety among our neighbors is high, as it often is in neglected neighborhoods like ours. Our family has been privileged to “chaplain” our neighbors over the long haul. This has resulted in friendships across divisive boundaries, opportunities to share Jesus, and opportunities to grow in faith, hope, and love.
Regional churches are often attractive for the comfort, security, resources, and programming they bring. I appreciate all of that and think these things are often good. I wouldn’t want to take away from any of these things! However, we also need to be honest about the potential challenges of the regional model, including:
· A consumer mindset, where people treat the church as a place to receive rather than to give and grow.
· A mono-cultural church, often unintentionally falling into expressions of the homogeneous growth principle.
· A drift toward sole concern of those on the “inside” of the church rather than those on the “outside.”
· Potential competition across regional churches to reach similar demographics.
Where the regional church can struggle, the parish church brings its own strengths. The parish church challenges the assumption of many Christians today that church size and resources are not true measures of success. They uniquely witness to a watching world who tire of the accruing or abuse of power in churches that were more concerned for themselves than their neighbors. They tear down boundaries of division and focus on long-term relational ministries of reconciliation.
Because parish churches believe that God is up to something in their neighborhoods, parish churches bring levels of care to particular people and places that the larger regional church simply cannot. For this kind of church to succeed, though, requires people who are bought in to God’s heart for their neighbors and neighborhoods, especially those that can be most difficult and challenging to love.
It is a beautiful thought to dream of a multitude of parish churches being planted in the next generation, made up of members who are learning to give themselves away in love to the neighborhoods around them.
Behind it all, we give witness to a generous God who gives himself away for the sake of his people!
[1] For more on the parish concept, check out The New Parish by Paul Sparks, Tim Soerens, and Dwight J. Friesen. It is very helpful.