What does it mean to be Church?

Reflections from 9/6 Gathering :-)

Xochitl's Reflections:
I am making my life’s work out of asking two questions: What it mean to be a Christian, What it mean to be the church. And here we are church differently. It’s not surprising that some people do not think of us as church. We disrupt their definition, their ideas, of what church is. As people who think of themselves as Christian and as church, we probably also disrupt their own sense of identity because they do not see themselves in us.

One response can be - who cares? We can do what we do regardless of what others think or say. But for me, since theology will also be what I do with my life, I have to be able to answer the question; How are we, The Pub Church, church? Any response we have is a work in process of course! But here's a go at it...

I think of church as a people, who with the Spirit, participate in a new reality. We participate in embodying and making real something that is more in tune with a sacred vision for the universe. Now, of course, I understand that embodied vision through the divine incarnation of Jesus. But not all of us do – and to me, the fact that we can still come together, taking our differences into account, while seeking out our commonalities, is more church to me than anything else.

I think that very fact, that we all are willing to be together and participate in what each other brings to the table, in itself communicates what and who we are as church. We come together with many different perspectives, frameworks of thinking, experiences, values, but still open to one another. We are not imposing ourselves on each other, but are willing to come together in difference, with difference. We come together and we explore and we share a way of living and relating that can include us all. And because it actually includes us, we shape it along the way. We move in and with the sacred to explore and to learn, to experiment and try new things. And to me, this reflects a new and divine way of being and relating in the world that is what I call church – A people gathered in Spirit participating to embody a divine way, always in process, always held in openness.

This is my church – we are church. And I learn what it means to be Christian and what it means to be Church by being willing to hold my Christianity in openness here with you.

That’s why I picked those readings for today – because they capture some of the answers to my own questions.
~~~~~
So now I want to turn it to you all and ask what you all’s questions are? How do you answer your own questions – or do you have answers to them. What are the questions we want to keep asking?
~~~~~

Some of our responses were:

• What it means to be church is not my question. My question would be What is community and what does it mean to be a participant in community? How do we be community. But I see commonality in the community questions and the church questions so that we are able to come together even though we have much difference.
• There is a reality of power and abuse of power that Christianity has, so it is important for those of us that do have the church/christian question to be aware that we do not dominate or impose our questions on others.
• We have to continually seek out and ask questions so that we do connect in our commonalities but aware and open to our differences.
  

The Weight...

I pulled into Nazareth, was feeling 'bout half past dead
I just need some place where I can lay my head

We took a "load off" at The Pub Church last week. Andrew Prete was there to play one of my favorite songs, The Weight by The Band and it was awesome. It really is a song that helps take me to a better place...


The DugOut, the pub where we met, turned out to be our favorite location so far - we'll definitely be going back there...


Our conversational sermon continued on the gospel of Mark 1:1-8. John the Baptizer is preparing the way for the one whose sandal straps he finds himself unworthy of tying! We talked about being excited about the arrival of something, someone for whom we makes tons of preparation...and the disappointment we most commonly end up experiencing, even with Jesus and especially with the church. In our Telling Our Stories part of the gathering, one person shared how their experience of church was just like this...we invest and prepare, we are excited for something new and different, we make all the preparations we can think of, we go above and beyond in our hope and anticipation. But then we are left crushed and disappointed. Sadly, this is the experience many people have with Christianity and the church.

So we were ended by noting that the critical question is, what do we do then? How do we respond and what will we do after this kind of experience? It's an open ended question for sure.

A light note to end on huh?! ;-)


But, then Andrew played The Weight, we put our loads down, shared resources and shared communion...I think in openness and uncertainty, we are already practicing a response to the experience of being let down by so much. We drink in the Spirit and in the end, we had tons of FUN!

Our sharing of resources this week was for Common Ground Relief. They are a community-initiated volunteer organization that was started in order to provide short term relief for victims of hurricane disasters in the gulf coast region, and long term support in rebuilding the communities affected in the New Orleans area . Their founder, Malik Rahim, was invited to speak at Boston University the week before - telling us about the devastating situation that continues in New Orleans. And so we were inspired to send them our shared resources from this week.

We also stuck around and played pool afterward...

JOIN US NEXT TIME! :-)