Hipster churches in Silicon Valley: evangelicalism's unlikely new home
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
A few years ago, our small church here in Berlin moved from a model where we were paying thousands in rent for a "meeting space" to simply meeting in a living room and sharing our lives. It's been a wonderful change which has really been great, not only (but also) financially.
BTW, an influential book in that regard is particularly Neil Cole's "Organic Church".
There's actually two sets of government-controlled Christian religious organizations (one Catholic and one Protestant). (Similarly, there is a government controlled Islamic organization.)
the most common feedback was "I've always been looking for a group where I could have meaningful conversations about 'bigger' things in life, or more personal things.", and people would often keep returning.
I'm probably going to start something similar in Berlin in a month or so. It's really fun, and a great way to make friends.
> ...keep the discussion from being overtly religious (while respecting those who were religious).
I generally don't feel respected when people ask me to leave part of my identity and lifestyle at the door. I understand the aversion to fiery sermons (I'm not a huge fan either), but asking people to not be overtly themselves can be very exclusionary, especially if you are shooting for inclusiveness and authenticity.
But trying to have meaningful relationships is a great thing. It's certainly harder than it looks. Good luck!
Then, again, you mention "communication such as it is", which could alleviate some of that problem. But, for whatever reason, small church communities don't tend to use electronic communication much. It tends to be very face-to-face or speaker-to-audience these days. A microchurch (well, any healthy church) needs safe electronic places to have peer-to-peer and peer-to-trusted-friends communication.
And by safe, I mean medical records, bank balance, and legal advice safe. Despite the article in The Guardian (if coffee-induced anxiety is your biggest problem...), lots of real spiritual needs happen around very important but sensitive topics that any wise person would be discrete about: sex (in and out of marriage), marriage crisis, unplanned pregnancies, money, addiction, physical health, mental health, fertility problems, problems with coworkers, and the list goes on. Right now, electronically, the only options are to say nothing to nobody or post this sort of information on facebook or something similar.
So I still circle back to "hyperlocal" for now. People need a lot of courage and (usually) a lot of quality time to get to the point where they'll let down their guards and be honest. I'm not sure how to accomplish that unless everyone lives in the same neighborhood.
But in general, churches haven't scaled well. It's actually a serious issue that most people aren't thinking about. Microchurches might be one solution to the problem.
I think that you're onto something.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2013/05/21/celebrate-reco...
http://www.celebraterecovery.com/
It's modeled after AA, but has a broader focus. I've been to meetings where people talk about struggles with problems like eating disorders, infidelity, anger issues, you name it. Even problems people might be surprised about like people-pleasing, perfectionism, and low self-esteem.
Like AA, it's a safe place to share (or not) what's going on.
...but good churches generally foster that sort of authenticity within smaller groups. One of the churches mentioned in the article has what they call "D-Groups" (https://www.c3sv.com/d-groups). The names for these sorts of groups vary, but good ones combine spiritual teaching, prayer, and very authentic friendship. Joining one of these groups would make that sort of sharing a more permanent fixture in your life.
these bigger churches often treat the Sundays as the 'evangelism' meetings (simple sermons, a lot of often high-quality entertainment, etc.), and then have the more in-depth bible study and interpersonal connecting in the weekday 'small groups'. These are usually in someone's house, and while they have a 'leader' the evening is usually taken care of by a different person in the group each time. It's in these house meetings that people often share more personal things and make their deeper friendships.
It's a very nice and very successful model, and sometimes I wish the 'atheism 2.0' attempts would take their inspiration more from these evangelical movements rather than more 'established' religions and religious practices.
Even in the old testament, tithes were more like 23% though they included taxes to support government. But there were additional social welfare rules on top of that, like not harvesting all of your grain so the poor could take the rest.
The teaching I have seen at churches in San Francisco (not all churches mind you - I have only been to 3, and one of them didn't do this) was teaching this absolute lie that all people should be giving God (by which they meant the church) money, and that by giving money to the church, God would repay them with more. It isn't biblical, and it is really not helping with the huge homelessness problem in the city.
Anyone going to a church that is teaching this should be doing their own research, and then challenging the teaching at their church.
I used the term "low bar" in an opaque way. If the question is, "How much do I have to give?" then the answer is "You're asking the wrong question."
Jesus talks about money in Luke 12, and his opinions (on inheritance and accumulation of wealth) would run counter to God-loves-rich-people theology. Heck, they probably run counter to what most Americans would consider common sense.
The bible talks about cheerful giving for ministry. The notion that all people should be on the giving end of the bargain is nonsense. The city has a huge homelessness problem, and yet as a visitor, my perception of the churches was that they were just making things worse.
Unless you count the 100% contribution in Acts 4:32-5:11.
In the Acts passage, everyone shared everything they had with everyone else - the money was being distributed to people who needed it. This means that some people ended up gaining possessions and some ended up losing possessions. Viewing it as percentages doesn't really make much sense - it is just lots of people sharing what they have with each other. If I choose to combine my bank account with my wife's, then you probably wouldn't say that I gave away 100% of my money.
Actually, in that passage from Acts, everyone who had property was commanded to sell all of it, and to lay all of the proceeds at the foot of the apostles, who would determine how to use it for the good of the community.
People with property sold it. People without property didn't sell it (because they didn't have any to sell). The apostles took the money and gave it to those in need. It wasn't a black hole of money where the apostles took it and used it to pay rent on a church building that people were encouraged to visit, the distribution was to people to meet their needs.
Without having been there, I imagine that the way this played out was that everyone gave everything they had, then the apostles worked out what the needs of everyone were, and then divided things up so everyone's needs were met. If people tried to hold something back then this just makes the practical matter of dividing things up much harder (instead of being able to say "each family gets N things plus M things per child", they need to take into account whether the family already has stuff and reduce N and M to compensate). Yes, the sin of Ananias and Sapphira was not that they made logistics difficult, but I do believe that what they wanted to be able to do was to just do a simple job of just distributing things fairly and transparently, and people holding things back made that impossible.
Giving money to a church makes a lot of sense, and is clearly biblical. Using that money wisely also makes lots of sense and is biblical. Churches that invest this money in expensive mixing desks or outrageous rent when there are people in their congregation who don't even have a place to sleep are not making good use of the money they are being given.
My opinion is that if a church has a regular person in their congregation who is lacking food and shelter, and the church is collecting money from people to spend on things like sound desks and coffee machines, then that church is stealing. People who give money to a church are giving it with the expectation that it be used in a way which is in line with biblical principles, and to be spending it on luxuries for the affluent when there is such obvious need is unconscionable.
My town is roughly 120k people and has roughly 1000 registered churches (yay bible belt!).
It mixes Quakerism’s meeting for worship and evangelical bible study. It’s popular with 20-and-30-something Christians.
Why are church donations paying for a building that often remains mostly empty most of the time (I know, not all and not always as some churches try to keep their doors open and share the building with others) to heat it, upkeep it, take away land/property taxes from the local government/community? Those saved upkeep expenses could go directly into helping the poor and those in need.
Scrap ten buildings and get one, keep it open 24/7 and make it a shelter and soup kitchen. (But too many church goers/members treat "their church" like a country club or Malibu beach side home owners... "I don't want to mix let alone see those 'dirty poor rascals'".)
I would imagine that the majority of financial support though comes from a minority, which probably make enough to exceed their standard deduction even without tithing (especially for the "country club" type churches).
$12400 is not difficult hit exceed for a married couple with state and local income or sales taxes, property taxes, mortgage interest, student loan interest?, medical and dental expenses, and charitable contributions.
Also, if churches have to pay property taxes I think many will ditch the building.
Do you have any numbers for that? All the churches I know have activities and meetings all through the week, though not necessarily in the main sanctuary.
As for tax exemption, churches routinely do other charitable work, including things that would be called social work in other circumstances. In general, doing work the government would otherwise be responsible for qualifies a group for tax exempt status, even if with a different classification.
I suspect that if the religious tax exemption were revoked, the structure of giving would change, but churches themselves would stay more or less the way they are. After all, they predate the United States, its tax code, or the 16th Amendment to the Constitution.
It's certainly not biblical to hate or judge anyone. That also means I can't hate or judge people for their hateful or judgmental attitudes. But it's not worth diving into a particular community steeped in those problems either.
http://swampland.time.com/2013/03/21/why-republicans-are-say...
> Isn't that true with all religious groups?
I don't think so. I've been to Christian churches that were more like giant groups of acquaintances than places for growing real friendships. I would say that's missing the point of church, but I'll stay away from theology on here.
> You feel much closer with people you share your secrets.
That's a good point. But the feelings aren't the main point of the friendships I'm talking about. The good ones are certainly nice, but sometimes being a good friend feels terrible (calling someone on his crap, for example). Meaning, even if you could engineer the feelings, you wouldn't get the whole effect.
Maybe instant love was a wrong way of saying it, but I meant this article https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8866933
> I don't think so. I've been to Christian churches that were more like giant groups of acquaintances than places for growing real friendships. I would say that's missing the point of church, but I'll stay away from theology on here.
Well I feel that you can still have this bonding effect in any like-minded,tight-knit group, religious or not. Religion itself doesn't have any effect in that.
These qualities are neither exclusive to, nor always found in, Christians.
If "hipster" engagement with faith is superficial or driven by fashion trends, there's nothing special they'll find in Christianity as compared to any other faith structure that will make the experience of engaging with that faith any less ephemeral or inauthentic.
It was evident they were speaking from personal experience. Whatever works, y’know?
Its generally an error to make general statements in the second person and the indefinite sense of the present tense based on experience in the first person past.
Further, I don't see why one would particularly expect "hipster churches" to feature "healthy, constructive, no-judging, be-yourself community with other Christians". Certainly, there are some Christian communities that feature that, and plenty of Christian communities that don't (particularly the "no-judging, be-yourself" parts.)
Surprisingly the only pork product is actually pork shoulder AKA pork picnic [1]. The preservatives are the problem.
[1]http://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en/your_questions/our_food/whats...
The Public Charter
The Sunday Assembly is a godless congregation that celebrates life. Our motto: live better, help often, wonder more. Our mission: to help everyone find and fulfill their full potential. Our vision: a godless congregation in every town, city and village that wants one.
There's also a surprisingly large "God called us to live in this dark city of sin" contingent, which I find sad: if you can't appreciate a place like San Francisco, you're only half alive: surely the antithesis of the promise of Christianity.
In places where people have money compared to the cost of real-estate (like Texas), you see giant superchurches. In places where real-estate is relatively expensive, churches tend to be smaller since large auditoriums are basically out of the picture.
Though especially in dense areas, I've also seen what I call "church franchises"; one "church" with maybe half-a-dozen locations spread across a metroplex. To different degrees, the pastoral staff and congregation will float around to different locations from week to week. It's a way to grow without having to make absurd capital expenditures.
Now bit more seriously. I could easily imagine some sort of two week 'hacker camp' organized by church. It works quite well for musicians, artist and other groups.
I think most faith groups fail to identify creative-but-not-artistic types (makers, hackers, builders, etc.) as having a lot of skills and passion to contribute. It's certainly not coincidental that both the tech-oriented (and more broadly, male) portions of American society are underrepresented and probably under-served.
How do people who are (probably) scientific-minded reconcile themselves with this sort of thing? I love community, and I'm actually fine with all the theological stuff. But evangelical zealotry like point 5 ("All people are lost and need a new birth through Christ.") turns me off strongly, and I hope it doesn't infuse people in the tech industry, like it has in Middle America.
However, many Christians have a far more liberal view of theology that does reconcile. If you’re interested in a computer science perspective:
There's very little in that "statement of belief" that is even within the domain of empirically-explorable fact, so I don't see what being "scientific-minded" has to do with it, unless by that you mean something beyond using science to explore questions within its domain like the epistemological view that anything outside of the domain of science is to be rejected as a valid matter of belief.