Hello faithful readers,
This week I experienced a few “not-since-before-Covid” things. For example, our French bakery, Amelie’s, reopened its Uptown Charlotte location, which has been closed since November of 2020.
Occasionally these little victories occur, and I remember again what the world went through over the last three years.
Selah.
The Part Where There’s an Essay: Join the Institution (Part II)
Recently I’ve been exploring some “small and boring” ways to invest in your community. This series starts back here. This week is continued from last week, on church membership.
Choose Your Chains
So what is the remedy?
First off, the recognition that you resist involvement would be a good step forward. Take a minute to evaluate why you resist sacrificing your own agenda to that of the group. What do you fear? Are you resisting obligation to others in general? We all have seasons when it’s difficult to manage time obligations, but many times, obligations are a matter of priority. How high can your commitment to your church rank on your priority list?
At the most elementary level, joining is the remedy. JOINING. But we hate that word so much, it has become an insult of sorts. “He’s a joiner” means he has no discernment about what he links himself up to. He joins every club, every cause.
Joining is counter-cultural recently! Joining any kind of institution is. Running for office, joining your HOA, even being a friend of your local library -- these are all small cultural institutions that require commitment and sacrifice for the greater good. They are all searching for volunteers, as our cultural landscape becomes increasingly self-centered and people’s worlds get smaller. These institutions might interfere with your own personal goals and requirements. They put events on your already-packed calendar. They put a label on your name and ask something of you.
David Brooks suggests that fulfillment comes in turning away from this pattern of avoidance:
In reality, the people who live best tie themselves down. They don’t ask: What cool thing can I do next? They ask: What is my responsibility here? They respond to some problem or get called out of themselves by a deep love.
By planting themselves in one neighborhood, one organization or one mission, they earn trust. They have the freedom to make a lasting difference. It’s the chains we choose that set us free.
One of my favorite authors of our modern age is Wendell Berry. He writes essays, fiction, and non-fiction. Much of his writing is centered around the idea of fidelity. Fidelity is another word for faithfulness. The people in his fictional town of Port William view themselves as a part of a “membership.” They are part of the town, and the town is part of them. They invest in their neighbors and understand their obligation to the people around them. This means they witness births, deaths, heartbreak, planting, and harvest together. When it’s time for the hog slaughter, the neighbors appear to share the load. Nobody wants to bear that burden alone, nor can they!
A few years ago a pastor wrote about how he thinks about Wendell Berry when he teaches on church membership:
To belong to a community is to be at its disposal, to have given over all you have to be used for whatever your community needs. It is to be implicated substantively, not just sympathetically, in the ups and downs of a place and its people. It is a submission of yourself—your identity, your interests, your ambitions—to the needs of those to whom you’re bound.
In today’s very mobile society, the idea of committing to your neighbors in this way is revolutionary. The idea of committing to people in this way who are your fellow church attendees is even more revolutionary. Sometimes you don’t even have geography in common with them.
The people at your church are probably difficult. There are people who differ from you politically. They have bad ideas about the way the world should work. They grew up in a different way and the way that they converse is uncomfortable for you. They are too old/too young/too unfashionable/too trendy to talk to. And on top of that, they have coffee breath.
Here’s a news flash: so do you. You are weirdly opinionated about something unimportant. You are hard for someone to tolerate. Someone — let’s face it, more than one — in your church body has to work hard to love you. This should not make you embarrassed. Everyone has rough edges to the people around them. Rather, it should make you grateful! How kind of the Lord to put you in a body where you are loved by people so different than you. This love from your people, given in particular to you, at this particular place and time, is a manifestation of His love for you as His child.
In return, you can work to love those who are hard to love. Those who God has placed around you for this particular season, in this particular place and time, for this particular purpose -- to love one another and love the piece of the world around you.
For the Anglophiles
My friend Julie runs an Instagram account for readers of Elizabeth Goudge’s works. Though I have never joined in the reading, I love her account for the little glimpses of real places. One example from last week: The swans at The Bishop’s Palace at Wells. They ring the bell on the drawbridge when they want to be fed. Here’s a video of some little ones learning:
Reads & Listens of the Week
It may seem odd that I’m posting a series of essays about committing as a church member while there are two documentaries of harmful churches/movements making the rounds at present. I resonated with part of what was said here: Hillsong was extraordinary. That’s the problem. (more to come, maybe?)
I liked this little reflection on summer superhero blockbusters and predestination.
If you’ve partaken of any of the recent Charles Taylor-inspired books by Carl Trueman and others, you might benefit from this article. “The porous self is one that does not draw a sharp boundary between the inner and the outer, between the psychological and the material, between the physical world and the spiritual. The buffered self is the self that does make a clear distinction between these things. And it is the rise of the latter that connects to the disenchantment of our current age.”
Story Warren republished my small biography on an inspiring lady named Virginia Lee Burton. You might know a steam shovel she invented, by the name of Marianne.
A sum can be put right: but only by going back till you find the error and working it afresh from that point, never by simply going on. -CS Lewis, The Great Divorce
Port Williams is very much my town, with family names and feuds going back for years, and “newcomers” who stay that way until they’ve been here at least 15 years. I want to ignore the truths you wrote here because it’s just so hard to join with others--for years we’ve been looking for a way out of this town. But God keeps rooting us down in this place, and now we own a deli and market that is the only meeting place outside of church here. There is too much for a simple comment (sorry for rambling!) but I just wanted to say yes, you’re right, and it’s hard to live out. But commitment to a place is what He calls us to. (Darn it 🤣)
Thanks Kelly! Glad you are enjoying the book scenery :) You might like to start with A City of Bells, which is about Wells - the cathedral city where Goudge was born. So many good bookish quotes!!