Alaska or Next Door

I am just back from two weeks of vacation in spectacular Alaska! Interesting to me that I kept thinking how difficult it would be to plant a new congregation there. I kept hearing that Alaska was the 'last frontier' full of 'young people' who were drawn to that place 'from all over the world'. People who were seeking new beginnings, opportunity, and change from whatever they considered familiar. People from diverse cultures, native languages and lives left behind which made for a melting pot of population spread across magnificent wilderess in small villages, towns and cities.

I am very familiar with the challenge of planting new churches. What kept running through my mind as I met these modern pioneers was, 'what would it take to collect such diverse young adults into worshipping communities?' I knew for sure it would look nothing like the institutional church. I believe it would take getting to the heart of knowing each other very quickly to establish connection. It would take authenticity, caring, relationship building and time. It would take courage to share the Gospel unabashedly through stories of personal experiences with God to establish spiritual awareness and commonality. It was obvious that these young adults didn't care much for material things. Many had left high paying careers in order to be in this place. So the trappings of the church, including expensive buildings, would probably hold little value to these folks. That was obvious just looking around Alaskan cities and finding very few churches that had a significant presence visa vi property and buildings. Simplicity appeared to be a high value in Alaska.

The more I considered this challenge the more I realized how getting down to the basics of Christian community are core to establishing new congregations. This messes with Episcopalians. We like our trappings. We 'respect' others so much that we dare not speak of our intimate spiritual experiences with God. We are highly educated and appreciate intellectual exchange. We have a hard time being simple and getting back to basics.

I understand that the Diocese of Massachusetts has a new program called 'Relational Evangelism' geared toward establishing small groups of young adults who learn to share their personal faith stories so that they can go out and share them with their friends. These small, open, inclusive groups are intimate, caring and safe. Sounds like these groups are right on target with how to respond to the needs of young generations in America. Sounds like what it would take to plant congregations in Alaska, or frankly anywhere.

My question is, do we, as missionary leaders, have the courage to focus time and energy on these activities? How bogged down are we in the day to day maintenance operations of our congregations with little time left to be creative? Are we so committed to social justice and human needs ministries that we fail to share our Christian motivation for doing them? As Loren Mead said twenty years ago, we are in a post-christendom era, we are beginning to look like the early church. And, in order to impact the world for Christ, we must go back to the basics, meeting in small groups, sharing the faith, caring for one another, and courageously going out into the world with the good news of Christ Jesus. A world that doesn't value Jesus as much as we do.

It takes alot of self examination to determine how valuably we spend our time and efforts. It takes hard work for congregations to do internal assessments, attempting to measure how effectively they impact lives for Christ's sake. How far away have we gotten from the basics? Perhaps this is a question worth asking whether ministering in Alaska or next door.