Elites and Church Pt2

Thanks to all of you who have commented on my post Elites and Church, and to those who are thinking about this in their context.

In my fist post on this issue I focused on those in leadership, but the other side of the coin are those who are not, i.e. the rest of the congregation.

In many church contexts there is still an expectation and desire that the "pastor" or "vicar" does everything. I know of situations where leaders have tried to distribute the role of pastoral care among well able people in the congregation only to find that when these people visit "those in need", there is still the expectation that "the Pastor" should visit and their visit does not really count!

Now there are lots of issue there (i.e. if this is the case then does authentic community really exist?), but the issue that jumps out to me is that if we are become or emerge towards a church where each person contributes / participates then the "congregation" needs educated in what this means.

For all the talk about post-modern society being one in which we are participants and not static receivers, this participation is of a limited or specific kind. In the main participation is as a consumer. To be sure this may feed back to the producer to effect change on the product, but this is far from cooperative participation. Even sites like youTube which on the surface appear to be highly participatory are not really. I can sit in glorious isolation and "broadcast myself". All you get to do is watch - you are therefore participating either as a "competitor" or as a "consumer".

All of this means that when we want or expect people to participate in church not as consumers but are contributors there can be much frustration and disappointment. There is a disunion between people's desire to effect change in church and contribute to what's going on and their ability to effect this change. This can be because the leadership is "closed", but often it is because they cannot (due to other commitments and/or social conditioning) participate in making this change happen but abdicate this responsibility to the paid staff member. Or they want a new thing to happen, say a new event, but are not willing to commit to being part of this!

Therefore being a cooperative participant in church leadership is even in this post-modern / complex society primarily a counter cultural activity.

Comments

[Margaret Sutherland]

but the issue that jumps out to me is that if we are become or emerge towards a church where each person contributes / participates then the "congregation" needs educated in what this means.

I think this is a hugely important point. Are people really surprised when people don’t participate when given the opportunity?? Government have tried with the consultation process but guess what – few people participate! Churches (or anyone else for that matter) can’t expect people to make paradigmatic shifts in thinking and acting without some support and guidance to get them there. I see moving from a didactic style to a participatory style as a process and a journey. There are lots of good participatory approaches in use in society – see participatory methodologies in use in relation to community in parts of the African continent, South America, work of Paulo Freire to name but a few. We would do well to explore these and learn from them.