How to Do Something Like Church, Authentically

There's a great piece recirculated this week in the ECF Ministry Tips newsletter. It's about a surf club ministry run by the Episcopal chaplain at UC Santa Barbara.

Especially important bit:

This is exactly what I mean by “faith-adjacent” community in my recent scholarship. If people of faith are not holding spaces that unaffiliated people would actually want to spend time in, we’re missing out on opportunities for relationship and sometimes more.

“Church is not a social club” is such a misguided slogan.** It should certainly be a relationship club. And if we get that right, meaning-making happens, the Spirit is at work, and who knows what will emerge. But if we’re in an Aggressively Not A Social Club posture, we’re either inviting unaffiliated people to something most of them won’t be interested in (the data is so clear about this) or we’re doing bait and switch.

When we find authentic ways to meet and have meaningful fun with our neighbors, good things happen.

** I added this note in conversation with my colleague Kirsten, who had a comment whose gist I trust will be clear in my response: I tend to see "church is not a social club" used as a critique of initiatives like Surfing & Spirituality. I.e., "If you're not engaging in explicitly religious practices, or at least leading people to them in an intentional way, you're not doing it right." There's usually an implication that such approaches are a cause of the demographic realities of the moment (rather than a thoughtful response to them). But I'm certainly fine with "church is not a social club" as a repudiation of church as a place to perform socioeconomic status or a way of confusion of building maintenance with mission.