01.31.05

should church be safe

Posted in faith at 1:24 pm by

Brian at the faithful skeptic asks a great question about church. “Should Church be safe?” It’s a good question, really. Should church be a safe place, if so, what should church be a safe place for?

It’s an idea that really gets me thinking. I think that there’s an underlying question there that we need answer in order to truly get at the nature of the issue. That question is, “what is ’safety?’” You see, safety means a lot of different things.

Brian describes the safety of one of his fellow parishoners:

One of the people in the group said that there were a couple of key aspects of safety (I’m paraphrasing):

* The church should accept members and guests wherever they are on their journey of faith and recognize that people will always be in different places in terms of theology, worship, prayer, etc.;
* The church should accept what a person can give in terms of their time, spirit and money realizing that lives are often complicated;
* Members should be able to expect that confidences will be held, both by clergy and parishoners.

For this person safety is about tolerance of people being in different places. Brian’s definition of safety was altogether quite different, though no less valid.

My approach was that as a member of the leadership team, I need to be able to feel that I’m accepted in spite of my failures as a leader. I have a very stressful job and I don’t want church to become a place I feel guilty about attending because I’m struggling with my leadership duties.

Fundamentally, I sort of agree with both definitions of safety. Perhaps, Brian and his fellow church member describe two necessary but alone insufficient terms that compose safety. That is, alone these things don’t a ’safe church’ make. For Brian, the safe church was about feeling loved despite ones shortcomings.

Perhaps, these two concerns and desires of safety are a case of different words that describe the same emotions. I don’t know for sure. I respect what Brian and his parishoners are trying to accomplish in developing a Church that offers a ’safe place.’ I wish that the churches I’ve come in contact with were so concerned.

However, there’s a part of me that wonders–is there any such thing as a safe church? I think that, in truth, there isn’t. I’m sort of bending the definition of what Brian is talking about in terms of ’safety’ so bear with me…what’s starting to sound like argumentative, I realize really is not because we’re talking about different things. That said, I don’t believe that there really are any ’safe places.’ The concept of a safe place is one that evangelicals have been screwing up for years. In a world full of crap, no place, not even the church is safe. The evangelical belief that the church is safe while the world is not, is the concept that I recoil from.

I think that probably what Brian and his church mean by ’safety’ I would term ‘welcome.’ I think that they want a church where everyone, despite their theological state or shortcomings, is welcomed just as they are.

I suppose that I think that a Church should welcome everyone regardless of age, sex, race, sexual orientation, etc…and everything that implies…but it’s a place that should be safe for no one…at least according to my understanding of safe as a crutch.

Thanks, Brian, for helping me to think through this!

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should church be safe

Posted in faith at 1:24 pm by

Brian at the faithful skeptic asks a great question about church. “Should Church be safe?” It’s a good question, really. Should church be a safe place, if so, what should church be a safe place for?

It’s an idea that really gets me thinking. I think that there’s an underlying question there that we need answer in order to truly get at the nature of the issue. That question is, “what is ’safety?’” You see, safety means a lot of different things.

Brian describes the safety of one of his fellow parishoners:

One of the people in the group said that there were a couple of key aspects of safety (I’m paraphrasing):

* The church should accept members and guests wherever they are on their journey of faith and recognize that people will always be in different places in terms of theology, worship, prayer, etc.;
* The church should accept what a person can give in terms of their time, spirit and money realizing that lives are often complicated;
* Members should be able to expect that confidences will be held, both by clergy and parishoners.

For this person safety is about tolerance of people being in different places. Brian’s definition of safety was altogether quite different, though no less valid.

My approach was that as a member of the leadership team, I need to be able to feel that I’m accepted in spite of my failures as a leader. I have a very stressful job and I don’t want church to become a place I feel guilty about attending because I’m struggling with my leadership duties.

Fundamentally, I sort of agree with both definitions of safety. Perhaps, Brian and his fellow church member describe two necessary but alone insufficient terms that compose safety. That is, alone these things don’t a ’safe church’ make. For Brian, the safe church was about feeling loved despite ones shortcomings.

Perhaps, these two concerns and desires of safety are a case of different words that describe the same emotions. I don’t know for sure. I respect what Brian and his parishoners are trying to accomplish in developing a Church that offers a ’safe place.’ I wish that the churches I’ve come in contact with were so concerned.

However, there’s a part of me that wonders–is there any such thing as a safe church? I think that, in truth, there isn’t. I’m sort of bending the definition of what Brian is talking about in terms of ’safety’ so bear with me…what’s starting to sound like argumentative, I realize really is not because we’re talking about different things. That said, I don’t believe that there really are any ’safe places.’ The concept of a safe place is one that evangelicals have been screwing up for years. In a world full of crap, no place, not even the church is safe. The evangelical belief that the church is safe while the world is not, is the concept that I recoil from.

I think that probably what Brian and his church mean by ’safety’ I would term ‘welcome.’ I think that they want a church where everyone, despite their theological state or shortcomings, is welcomed just as they are.

I suppose that I think that a Church should welcome everyone regardless of age, sex, race, sexual orientation, etc…and everything that implies…but it’s a place that should be safe for no one…at least according to my understanding of safe as a crutch.

Thanks, Brian, for helping me to think through this!

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