Thinking about the "Y" and Finding the "U" in "Community"
Ed Blum
Someone help me out here and explain the rage for “community”
for churches that clearly are many, many communities within one large
organization? Sure, this is a marketing strategy on one hand. Sure, this is an
appeal to a world where people “bowl alone” (although I’ve never seen that in
my nights of bowling with friends) on the other. If I had a third hand, I'd say 'and then on the next hand', sure, this is a cry for connection in a
time of seeming social anomie and atomization. But is there more
happening with the focus on “community.” Can anyone provide any meaning to
these, to quote Charles Long, “significations, signs, and symbols”?
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| one of the many murals in los angeles: http://you-are-here.com/mural/jesus.html |
Inspired by Matthew Frye Jacobson’s The Historian’s Eye project, Darren Grem’s work on and photographs of Chick-Fil-A, and Thomas Tweed’s new book on the Basilica of the National Shrine, I’ve been mass-transiting around southern California (mostly San Diego,
but getting into Los Angeles and the Inland Empire some too) and looking for
signs (literal, physical signs) of church and religious life. What has most
drawn my attention, aside from the big, gigantic Jesus murals, has been the
word “community.”
“Community” seems ubiquitous in church signage, even though
I know many of these congregations are gigantic. Reverend David Jeremiah’s Shadow Mountain Community Church is huge and the service is broadcast on cable
television. Heck, Shadow Mountain is robust enough to have Tim Tebow visiting
for father’s day (to talk about not being a father, I guess?) Journey Community Church is not too far away and it has at least one thousand regular
attenders. Both Journey and Shadow Mountain are also deeply
committed to the idea of “you.” Shadow Mountain’s current campaign is “God
loves you, He always has, He always Will.” Journey’s motto is “You Matter to
God. You Matter to Us.”
Someone help me out here and explain the rage for “community”
for churches that clearly are many, many communities within one large
organization? Sure, this is a marketing strategy on one hand. Sure, this is an
appeal to a world where people “bowl alone” (although I’ve never seen that in
my nights of bowling with friends) on the other. If I had a third hand, I'd say 'and then on the next hand', sure, this is a cry for connection in a
time of seeming social anomie and atomization. But is there more
happening with the focus on “community.” Can anyone provide any meaning to
these, to quote Charles Long, “significations, signs, and symbols”?
Comments
Just spitballing here: To what extent does "community" stand as a marker of independence or difference--maybe difference from denominationalism in this case. First Methodist Church or Grace Presbyterian strikes the as so formal and stodgy. It's about the institution itself. Community Church, now that's about all of us, and, most importantly, me.
I wonder, too, about the disinvestment from things like "community pools" or "community rec centers" and now into "community churches". Part of the privatization of America ... but use the language of the public good?