Author Andrew William Smith
Denominations are a strange thing.
Denominations divide us into discrete boxes of distinct doctrine but can also reflect dynamic diversity. For decades, the ecumenical movement in the United States has sought to transcend, unite, and even bypass these institutional categories to invoke a universal body of Christ. At times, that universality is one that brings people together regardless of faith tradition and even religion itself.
Since its first meeting in the fellowship hall of First Presbyterian Church of Cookeville, TN, in 2010, the worship collective ComeToGather (C2G) has assembled around a table of potluck supper and around the table of the Lord’s Supper. C2G is organic and anarchic, without officers or any formal polity. We meet weekly and practice an open pulpit for conversation, an open table for communion, and an open door to the community. Over five years, we’ve been a blend of Episcopalians and evangelicals, Pentecostals and Presbyterians, Methodists and Muslims, agnostics and nones, Quakers and Unitarian Universalists, neo-pagans and B’hais. Surprisingly multigenerational, interracial, queer-inclusive, especially in a conservative college town, C2G evangelizes its ecumenism by engaging the community and co-organizing picnics, protests, and parties.
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In contrast to the twentieth-century phenomenon that swept both the U.S. and the larger world, we identify not as a megachurch, but a microchurch.
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In contrast to the twentieth-century phenomenon that swept both the U.S. and the larger world, we identify not as a megachurch, but a microchurch.
When asked to describe the C2G experience for an ecclesiology essay as a student at Vanderbilt Divinity School, I began to use the words ‘mystical ecumenical microchurch’ to describe our experiment in Come To Gather. While stinging critiques about the changing landscapes of postmodern Christianity and the latest Pew Research statistics about God’s shrinking market share paralyze the Church with fear, the mystical ecumenical microchurch is simultaneously beneath and beyond that discussion. The mystical ecumenical microchurch is not interested in fixing institutions. Rather, we seek to provide those already following Jesus in community with an enhanced panorama of practical countercultural options for liberation.
Photo Credit: Andrew William Smith
In her article “Considering the Micro-Church Model,” fellow traveler Teresa Pasquale provides a working definition for microchurch. The microchurch, she says, takes its place at the communal dinner table, where “the shift is one towards intimacy with God and with each other; conversations not just within one parish or denomination or religion, but a table where we can all discuss our love and belief in the ‘somethingness’ of everything in communion.” The “somethingness of everything” does not deny the pressures of everyday life that weigh on the people of God during the workweek or rile our collective anger during the 24-hour-news-cycle. On the contrary, making the model so simple leaves room for the complexity of our confessions and contentions to flourish in conversation.
The mystical ecumenical microchurch does not replace existing institutional or evangelical ecclesiologies. Some contemporary house church proponents convey an air of ‘more-authentic-than-thou’—a pretense that this essay seeks to sidestep. Mystical microchurch already works within and outside the institutional church and provides a revitalizing and realistic model of its own distinction to serve a variety of denominational and demographic contexts. In our experience at C2G, the microchurch is too small and too fragile to vie for a voice in larger institutions. It seeks contact with the Holy Spirit and God in such a way as to bypass the droning fear that debates the chances for Christianity’s overall survival.
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Our intentionally small size demands dialogue. Between five and fifteen people gather each Sunday for supper church.
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The ‘regulars’ at C2G also belong to other faith communities, where they attend morning services on most Sundays. Those institutional forms of church find a complement in—not competition from—C2G. For us, the microchurch is a place to deepen our spirituality and engage in some small way in something creatively edgy, as well as in a radical social justice witness.
While the megachurch survives on spectacle and spectators, the mystical microchurch thrives on authenticity and intimacy.
Worship Service for Palm Sunday 2011
Photo Credit: Andrew William Smith
In the megachurch, worship works as a spectator sport, with all eyes exclusively focused on the praise band and the preacher. In mainline liturgical churches, hymns, responsive readings, and unison prayers provide opportunities for the body of believers to participate in the larger Body. Mystical microchurch abolishes the boundaries required by larger gatherings and instead practices participation by necessity. In Matthew 18:20, Christ charges, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” This eloquent emphasis rings true for the mystical microchurch; in our experience, there are times when only two or three show up at all!
What do face-to-face friendships look like in the microchurch? At C2G, our intentionally small size demands dialogue. Between five and fifteen people gather each Sunday for supper church. We engage in a weekly check-in of conversational prayer that expresses the traditional ‘joys and concerns’ as a go-around the table. Each week after the teaching message, the entire community provides lively and open feedback to the teacher-preacher. Theological and ideological differences emerge in these weekly discussions, but C2G has no formal statement of doctrine and thus encourages these fruitful forays into the finer points of Christian belief and appropriate responses to injustice in our world.
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Over five years, we’ve been a blend of Episcopalians and evangelicals, Pentecostals and Presbyterians, Methodists and Muslims, agnostics and nones, Quakers and Unitarian Universalists, neo-pagans and B’hais.
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The anarchic structure of our microchurch is a contrast and relief compared to the polity of our denominations and the bureaucracy of our workplaces. We are anti-authoritarian insofar as the universe’s vertical hierarchy really has only one leader in God. We are guided by God’s will as discerned by the group through study of scripture, communal prayer, and listening for the presence of the Spirit. Everything else is beautifully horizontal. Some of our founders have experience in the 12-step recovery movement, where this particular kind of practical anarchism has succeeded for 80 years. While the C2G worship meetings usually last between ninety minutes and two hours, our organizational planning meetings are rare (one-to-three times per year, supplemented with occasional online dialogue) and last about 15 minutes, simply to agree on the preaching-teaching rotations, themes, and schedules.
“4.4 For All” Holy Saturday 2015, which fell on the anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination
Photo Credit: Andrew William Smith
The mystical ecumenical microchurch has varied relationships with the institutional church from which it comes. The microchurch is not ideologically anti-institutional as such. It is not exclusively a house church or supper church movement. The microchurch can and does offer Sunday school classes, Wednesday night Bible Studies, small groups, pub/coffeehouse ministries, and other activities which are often extensions of established sponsor churches. These moments and zones could make the informal microchurch a viable church within the larger church. However, there are often points of conflict and contention between the microchurch and institutional bodies with which they are loosely associated.
In our case, C2G overlaps with an institutional mother church that provides free use of the fellowship hall inside an established institutional outpost, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). C2G’s relationship with First Presbyterian has not been without tension or controversy. Some of the members of the larger congregation (including some members of Session) do not share our passion for experimentation in liturgy, our affirmation of LGBT friends, or our desire for transformation of society through involvement with such movements as Black Lives Matters and Trans Lives Matters.
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While the megachurch survives on spectacle and spectators, the mystical microchurch thrives on authenticity and intimacy.
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On one hand, the use of First Presbyterian’s fellowship space and the members who have stayed active in C2G since its inception help us maintain our model of freedom and autonomy. Borrowing a building cost-free allows us to focus on our experiments in liturgy and liberation and not on fundraising. On the other hand, our implied affiliation with a mainline denomination by using their space could be an impediment to our spirit of radical inclusiveness, since some seekers may feel uncomfortable setting foot inside a traditional church building.
Memorial Painting of Martin Luther King, Jr. painted by Bec Cranford
Some microchurces that exist as independent and self-contained church plants have failed when members could not raise enough money to pay a pastor or staff. The volunteer spirit of C2G depends on members who are employed or otherwise financially secure, generally middle-class professionals or students with reasonable incomes. Our unemployed members are not currently looking to C2G to provide material mutual aid, but engaging in economic justice activities including acts of material solidarity and charity are not outside our hopes and dreams for the future of C2G. We want to be an embodiment of the Kingdom of God, not just another middle-class counterculture.
For C2G, that boundary between microchurch and larger church, between church and the world, or between Christ and the Social (sketched most broadly) is not too thin—but not thin enough. In the future, we hope to take more risks and reach more people in need of the kind of conversation and witness we are providing. Just this year, we transformed Holy Saturday into a day of protest and reflection through liturgical theater, starting in the streets and concluding in the church.
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We want to be an embodiment of the Kingdom of God, not just another middle-class counterculture.
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Holy Saturday at C2G
Photo Credit: Andrew William Smith
These experiences and many others allow us to see the Holy Spirit at work in the ecumenical microchurch. May it be so that the joyful, loving mystery of God is made more accessible to the one and the many through ecumenical microchurch, through any church, by whatever means God deems necessary. May the mystical ecumenical microchurch always be an immediate and loving insurrection, a peaceful revolution from within the church, for the church, and for the world. May it always be present in houses and coffeehouses, churches and clubs, books and bands, invitations and the internet, accessible to any that seek it!
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AUTHOR BIO: Andrew Smith is a teacher and insatiable creature: a college professor at Tennessee Tech, a beat poet, activist preacher, creative interfaith theologian rooted in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), community radio DJ, intermittent blogger, and nature-loving, trail-hiking, crazy-dancing, hard-rocking sober drunk, residing in Cookeville, TN. He is married to Jeannie since 2012 and is a recent graduate of Vanderbilt Divinity School. Check out his blogs teacherontheradio.com or unlikelysundayschool.blogspot.com. Follow Andrew on Twitter @teacheronradio.
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