06.19.08
A New Picture of Church
Yesterday, Jason suckered me into attending a meeting for all pastors and priests in the Marche region. Normally, I’m horrible at these things - meeting people and describing our “denomination” and mingling aren’t my strong points. But the theme of this meeting piqued my interest: the problems of youth.
For most of the meeting we were divided up into four groups discussing various aspects of youth like The relationship between youth and spirituality and Youth and secularization. There were pastors there from all kinds churches: Greek Orthodox, Catholic, The Apostolic Church, Seventh Day Adventist, and little ol’ me. At one point a young priest said that young people need “una nuova immagine di chiesa” - a new picture of church. He talked about how it’s time to stop asking the young people to fit into old models of what our relationship with God looks like. Church needs to be about community, and allowing people to “work out their salvation” and not be perfect before walking in the door.
Did you catch that this was coming from a Catholic priest?
The conversation went on and I described how we have begun to change our view of church as well. Instead of asking people to behave and believe a certain way before they can belong (be a part of the community), we switch the order. They can be a part of the community, which causes them to change their beliefs, which causes them to change their behavior.
And then another lady started criticizing the Catholic church, and the conversation stopped there while the priest dodged the arrows that were being launched at him. It was too bad, because there was a good thing going.
I’m never sure what to do with these ecumenical meetings. On one hand, I think it’s silly to think that any of us, with our various theological backgrounds, would ever be on the same page (though that’s probably not even the goal). On the other, conversations like this where we learn from each other can only benefit the capital “C” Church.