Monday, July 30, 2007

What should church look like?

WOW! I just finished reading something for my Cultural Anthropology class that was a wakeup call! I have been baffled for some time about the issues facing "small churches" as I have been a part of MANY small churches and the only thing that changes seems to be the nametags! :-9 The issues seem to transfer from country to country, denomination to denomination, and only the actors playing the different roles change.

Today I was reading Charles Kraft and some words lept off the page at me! Here is what he said:
When large extended families are a major part of the local society, as in many parts of Latin America and elsewhere, any given church may appropriately be made up largely of a single family. In rural United States, we often have churches comprised of associations of families. In urban areas, where our associations tend to be more of individuals or nuclear families, our churches reflect this. This is right and good, for there is not a single pattern for churches in all parts of the world. God uses whatever the culturally appropriate practices of groupness may be to provide the social basis for His local churches. This is the point of the so-called homogeneous unit principle that has been a part of church growth theory from the start
What do you think? I KNOW I should have seen this AGES ago, but I guess when you live in the forest, you don't pay much attention to trees. I grew up in a church that is basically an association of families. We always denied it because we thought it was bad. But maybe it is OK?
The bigger issue is that the population growth in this traditionally rural, farming area tends to be people from a more urban perspective, running from the ills of the urban society they came from, for the "peace and safety" of rural life. Is it possible for this rural church to have an influence in the development of another church more appropriate to the urbanites who are moving into the area? Or does it have to be a whole new organism...grown from scratch?