| Recently many people define themselves as "spiritual but not religious." As a pastor, I wonder why people feel the need to make the distinction. What message do these people want the church to hear? What can the church do to meet their spiritual needs? Would they be open to relationships with Jesus-followers in a gathering to dialogue about spiritual issues? Could we build enough trust through those relationships to begin to hear the deeper stories and maybe uncover some of their wounds? Why does the church, which supposedly offers Living Water, seem spiritually dry to those outside? I wonder how we can learn to be church, to live church, in a way that nourishes these hungry souls.;To listen more deeply and explore these questions, my Lay Advisory Committee and I designed Gathering Groups, places where people could build relationships with those outside the church and simply listen to their spiritual journeys. Through experiential "practice" Gatherings, I trained Group Leaders in the process of facilitating conversation and we brainstormed ways to get conversations started. Then, the Leaders took it to the streets, recruiting participants and designing Gathering Groups. We ran the Groups for about six weeks and met again to process what we had learned.;In the process we discovered that people longed to have a safe, non-judgmental place to share their spiritual journeys. The story-telling of these journeys became the basis for trust and relationship building in the Groups. Many stories shared a theme of being hurt by church, and the Leaders' listening presence offered a healing balm for those wounds. After experiencing the ministry of listening, the participants asked the Leaders' to share their own spiritual journey, and the Groups became a type of "Listening Evangelism." The Groups did not become a "stepping stone" into church, but we realized that we need new language to talk about church because of so many emotional assumptions attached to it. The Leaders learned that they could "be" church, offering the presence of Jesus Christ, simply by listening, asking questions, and providing a safe haven for these kinds of spiritual conversations. |
