Earlier this week I wondered if it might not be such a bad idea if some of our struggling established meetings experimented with the house church model. An commenter maps out the difficulties:
Speaking as a “meeting planter” (our small Friends meeting here was founded two years ago by me and one other Friend), I can tell you without reservation that, while we could meet in people’s homes, it would strictly limit the ability to reach out with our message and attract others to participate. You can pretty well be certain that only those who already feel comfortable with you will come back to someone’s home, which may not include the seekers who really are looking for something they can be part of.
I have seen this with other churches as well; the local UU fellowship grew from ten to 15 people in the 5 years that they met in living rooms; they grew from 30 to 60 in two years when they had their own meetinghouse.
I am trying hard to raise the money to allow us to purchase and maintain an appropriate building for a meetinghouse. Until we do, our Meeting will continue to hide its light under a bushel, despite all our efforts to the contrary. The desire to have a “home” is deep within the human heart, whether it is where we reside or where we worship.
The commenter was anonymous (update: no, he’s not, it’s Bruce Arnold of Letters from the Street) but I’d love to hear more. I wonder particularly of there’s a zone of difficult viability when the worship community it’s too small to support a building structure and need to pick a bigger-or smaller model for long-term viability.
Ok, I know I’m not necessarily supposed to comment, but I will anyway. Perhaps it’s stating the obvious, but Quakers cannot use the rationale that they will be more likely to experience growth with a meetinghouse than without one. All we need to do is look at the stats. That simply is not happening.
In fact, I think Quakers would be much more likely to experience growth with “house churches.” Why? In house churches you meet in a person’s home, which necessarily requires some amount of involvement in one another’s lives.
The bottom line is this. Quakers need to admit (and many I’ve met do) that they view their meeetinghouses as special, even “sacred” places, not the same as just any other place. Honestly, I think many Quakers value their meetinghouses even more than Catholics do their churches, which contain sacramentals and the Body of Christ.
Back when the Friends movement was just beginning, and for quite a while thereafter, Quakers built simple structures specifically to avoid having “churches,” to avoid the idea of “sacred spaces” because they wanted to place emphasis on the presence of God and not on the place itself. They reused wood and used crappy, rough planks to build their structures and [uncomfortable] benches. The structures were intentionally unimpressive. The hope was that people would not become attached to them, but instead would become attached to God. The reality is that Quakers do view their sometimes historic structures as unique, interesting, sacred, homey, whatever, and that is why Micah’s metaphor caused so many to be uncomfortable. This tension within Liberal Quakerism today is something that needs to be addressed.
And yes, Laura is sleeping and that is why I had time to type this using two hands.
I’m currently reading recent issues of Quaker Religious Thought… which makes similar points, though not necessarily about buildings. The points they make are more of the substance of faith, similar to what Marshall has written.
I’ve been a part of some “home meetings”… actually had one monthly in my living room when I lived in Toronto, to accommodate an elder Friend who had difficulties taking public transit to the main meeting. Although Friends at the time didn’t necessarily support the house meeting (felt it detracted from the main meeting), worship was what our elder Friend needed, and the group who met with her gained much in terms of her sharing her experiences at the close of worship.
I’ve also attended meeting in historic buildings when it was literally “two or three” gathered. The question for me is a viable community of faith, with equal emphasis on “community” and “faith”. Some of the most centered meetings I’ve attended have been with no meeting house, no house, but out in the woods or the mountains. I fear we often shut ourselves off from the rest of the world… including the natural world. Were we to use our meetinghouses somewhat more sparingly, we might re-discover right order without too much effort…
There is a smaller meeting in Montgomery County PA where there is a central room, used for both worship and fellowship. It was a simple home. I’ve also been in homes that were converted from meetinghouses, where the sense of Presence was palpable.
Thank you, Martin, for the invitation to comment.
I’d like to start by pointing out that your anonymous interlocutor said a bit more than you have reprinted here. He also wrote:
“The argument that we could sell our meetinghouses and use the funds to help the poor and disadvantaged makes some sense, unless you think it through all the way. First, there is the fact that having a meetinghouse for a ‘home’ for the faithful does fulfill a deep human need. Second, if we sold every Quaker structure in North America, how much would we really have and how much could we do with it? Can we be good stewards of what we have been given, and not apply some kind of a means test? Would what we could do with the money really be that much better than what we are doing with it now? I’m sure all kinds of anecdotes could be shared about meetinghouses with small congregations that suck up a lot of the available funds, but I’m not interested in anecdotes here. I’m talking about spreading the Good News: what would really work better?”
This, alas, ignores the character of the Good News to which he refers. For the teaching about selling what we have, and giving the proceeds to the poor, does not stop there. It continues, “…and come, take up the cross and follow me.” And what would “taking up the cross and following me” look like? That we have, too, in the same Good News: “Jesus said to him, ‘Foxes have holes, and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”
If we are now a postchristian club, such matters need not concern us. In that case, we might as well get on with the business of providing every worldly thing that could possibly make seekers feel at home: not just comfy meetinghouses, but day care, rap bands, and vocational training.
But if we are Primitive Christianity Restored, then the Good News places what we are about at the opposite end of the spectrum from temple construction and temple maintenance. And it clarifies, too, that the call to sell what we have, and give to the poor, is not given because of the difference it would make in the socioeconomic system, but because of the difference it would make in our own selves. The effect of Zacchæus’s making restitution to his victims was not to eliminate poverty in Jericho, but to bring salvation to his own house.
Your interlocutor mentions not hiding our light under a bushel. George Fox addressed that problem: he wrote, in a general letter to Friends, that we who declare God’s eternal truth and life must begin by living it: we must “possess as if we did not … be loose to the world in the Lord’s power; for God’s oil will be a‑top of all visible things, which makes his lamps burn, and give light afar off.” In other words, bringing the light out from under the bushel involves coming out from under our own security blankets.
We do indeed have a Good News to preach, a News more enticing than any creature comfort. And as long as we cling to that which we know in our consciences is counter to the message, we cannot preach that News. Our own dividedness silences us, or palpably discredits us if we try to preach anyway. Our first task, then, I think, must be to take the News fully to heart, and (as Fox said) let go of the world so that we may live it. Once we do that, we may be able to see whether our holy properties are still permitted us.
A couple other reasons to have a building. Space for the children. Accessible space as we age, or aren’t able to do steps at any age, or manuever a walker in many bathrooms.
We do sometimes worship our buildings and furnishings, to the point of insisting on ancient horsehair cushions no matter what happens to the person with asthma. If we worship the buildings we also have a problem spending money on them. One place (not in my yearly meeting) refused to replace a children’s table that was coming apart and not repairable.
Downside of having a building beside financing is the effort to maintaining it. At the best this becomes a way to include people. At t he worst a few older members are trying to keep up an old building.
I only know my own experience- a small aging meeting that grew because it needed/wanted people and had a few other things in its favor (location, a few very dedicated warm hearted leaders).
I didn’t mean to be anonymous. “Letters From the Street” is the name of my blog on WordPress. I guess as Quaker bloggers go, I’m not that famous. 🙂
There are some really good comments on this thread and I hope over the weekend to be able to respond to them.
Oh it’s you Bruce?! Good, thanks, I’ll update the post with this info. Since you’re active on QuakerQuaker (http://www.quakerquaker.org/profile/DrBruceRArnold) and use your name there, I’ve always thought of your blog as Bruce Arnold’s blog and didn’t recognize its name. I’d like to hear more about the efforts at meeting planting and what’s worked and hasn’t.
I wish I had more time for writing. I recently ended 15 years of private practice as a psychotherapist to take a full-time job (they made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.) Where I used to have cancellations and no-shows that gave me time to think and write, now I am busy busy busy. Love the job; it has changed things though.
I finally had a chance to get back to this topic. I would like to say that in making my comments about how a meetinghouse is important to Croatan Friends, I didn’t mean to say this is true for all Meetings everywhere. I only hoped to offer a point of view that broadens the dialog on this topic. Certainly, other Meetings than mine may be best served by gathering in a home or other space. Some Meetings are truly oppressed by the upkeep of a building unsuitable for their current circumstances. But let’s not overlook how many Meetings are, or could be, well served by an appropriate facility of their own. And, let’s not overlook how often our distinctive Quaker architecture has carried a message to visitors as profound as any words that may have been spoken.
There is more I would like to say on the issue of Young Friends and their importance to our Society, the original context which Micah addressed. I feel the discussion has been somewhat polarized, and that the reality is nowhere near so clear-cut. I have seen Meetings in which it was not age per se, but how long you had been a member of the Meeting that determined how much influence you had (and growing up in it was particularly well-thought-of.) I have seen many Meetings which cherished and encouraged their Young Friends — I came of age as a Friend in just such a Meeting, and cannot imagine my Quaker journey would have been as rich and deep if that had not been the case. So much more to say on this topic and I haven’t fully thought it through. It may require a fuller exposition on my blog. Again, I’m not offering these few words as the last word, but just trying to say that there is room for a much wider viewpoint than I see so often expressed when this comes up.
Apologies it’s taken me a long time to catch up with this. Interesting. V sympathetic to Julie’s point below, I love your writing and perspective — shibui 🙂
Some of the newer charismatic movements rent space when they need it, for accessible loos, children’s meeting rooms and so on — I know one that is just about bursting the seams of the club they rent, and another that meets in a local leisure centre. Nightclubs are often vacant at the times churches meet. So I don’t think we need meeting houses with distinctive architecture to provide for those needs, nor for meeting outside someone’s home. ETA: Oh — I am guessing this is what you meant about fire halls in the post before this one. I should follow conversations in date order instead of reading backwards.
Also love what Marshall Massey is saying below, thanks for writing that!
I am mulling over something about taking the meeting house into my life, instead. The spare plain architecture is an example I can contemplate, as my own life undergoes changes in my attempts to follow Jesus. There is an aesthetic which is starting to make an impression on me — I think if I ever get decorating and building skills, my space might start to look “meeting-house-ish”. I’m a slow learner in several ways, and I am nowhere near there yet, but I can feel a pull. The architecture is another example of those treasures of the Quaker heritage that we can mine as we search for ways to be really faithful in the now.
I absolutely agree with you. I used to belong to a meeting house that met in people’s home in the winter since the meeting house does not have electricity or running water. As a result, the meeting has grown very, very little in the last 100 years. People will come in the months that we meet at the meeting house but will not go when we meet in others home. When you meet in a person’s home there are issues of cleanliness, allergies, etc. The meeting house is a neutral place where everyone feels welcome.
Fascinating conversation. I am a great admirer or the Church of the Savior in Washington, DC, that has eschewed worship spaces in favor of a deep commitment to social justice — feeding the hungry, housing the poor, etc. That said, at my meeting we own one of those historic meetinghouses that requires maintenance ($47,000 committed for this year and next) and which we all love. Our community is warm and active and growing, although the growth is the result of our outreach and nurture efforts rather than the extremely scenic venue — and we’ve certainly had years when we have lost members and attenders, in spite of our meetinghouse. When we are not using the meetinghouse, it serves as a weekly venue for AA, and periodically for meetings by local community groups. We have permitted folks to use our lawn for yard sales to raise money for good causes. We hold dinners there for Hispanic guest workers from a local landscaping business. Between First Days, we allow the local folks to park their vehicles in our parking lot. We also have a one-room schoolhouse and until very recently operated a program where local schools sent 4th graders to experience what it was like to be a Quaker child in 1818. Although the village, where our meeting is located, was a Quaker community for many years, it no longer is, but our property is still very much part of the community and is valued even by those who never attend Meeting for Worship.
Recently, my husband and I were called upon to rescue the Archbishop of Cape Town (head of the Anglican church in Southern Africa and the successor to Archbishop Tutu’s seat) from a long lay over at Dulles Airport which is not too far from my meeting. We took him out to lunch at a local restaurant and then, since we had a little time to spare, we took him to the meetinghouse. When we entered, the sense of the many generations of good Quaker folk who had worshiped there was palpable and a hush descended upon us. Quite spontaneously we sat down and entered the silence for what I can only describe as a brief Meeting for Worship. The presence of the Spirit flowed through us and over us. It was an extraordinary experience and it would not have happened but for the opportunity afforded by the existence of the meetinghouse. My point is not that we needed the meetinghouse to pray together, but that God used this opportunity to bless us.
Perhaps, rather than viewing the issue of our meetinghouses as an either/or proposition, we should look upon them more in terms of both/and. If we use those spaces well, as part of our Quaker witness to the wider world, they can amplify our ministry. No meetinghouse, no matter how historic or beautiful, can take the place of a worship community, filled with the Spirit and going about God’s work. We have ample evidence of that. And even if we sold these spaces and “gave the money to the poor,” there is no guarantee that that is, in and of itself, God’s work. (Anyone who has had anything to do with foreign aid can attest to that!) Our meetinghouses are not sacred or holy, but assets to be put to God’s service. If we are faithful and follow the leadings of the Spirit, we will “come down where we ought to be.”
Hi Patricia,
I don’t mean this in an offensive way, truly I don’t. But what in the world does 47K get used for? I mean, that would be a hefty downpayment on a house (or even a church)! There are no taxes, so all you’ve got is heat, air, electricity, water/sewer, lawn maintenance/landscaping (which at my church is done by parishioners), and cleaning products. I cannot in my wildest dreams imagine why any meetinghouse should cost that much to maintain unless there’s a major improvement/repair planned. Also, I’ve never been to a meeting that had more than around 60 – 70 people in attendance. Doing the math, that’s quite a lot per person. Just curious.
Julie
Interesting comments. The one about prayer though. Are we so unaccustomed to prayer and worship that we have to go to a special place to do it? I notice when I hang around with charismatics we are likely to have impromptu bible study and prayer when we meet up for coffee of chat because a lot of people I’ve met in that tradition make it their intention to find the spaces to do that. They are looking to connect with the centre of life in God and making the opportunities to do it.