If the title of this post caught your attention, you might want to read a recent article on Alban Institute’s Web site. Here are the opening paragraphs:
“On the cubicle where she works all day, Abby pinned a picture of a church. Where many would keep a photo of family members or beloved pets, Abby has an image of a brownstone building on the Cambridge Common, and she looks at it whenever she feels anxious or unmoored. At 25, Abby has seen more life than the average young adult. She moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts from the West Coast when her high-school sweetheart husband had an opportunity to pursue a graduate degree there. Not long after they relocated, however, the marriage fell apart and left Abby in a city with no stable job, no friends, and no family. What she did have, though, was First Church in Cambridge (FCC), a church she had first found with her husband and that had later helped her through the transition to singlehood. She now views the church as her anchor, and as she considers options for graduate school herself she is seriously considering staying in Cambridge so she does not have to leave the church behind.
“FCC is, in many ways, a typical mainline congregation. The music is usually classical, the liturgy rooted in Christian history and decidedly traditional. Boards and committees make many of the church’s decisions through a conventional governance structure. The ministry staff includes a senior pastor, an interim associate pastor, and a lay minister of religious education. The community where the church is located is highly-educated and liberal, and the church’s stance on social issues reflects this environment. What makes the church truly different from many of its peers is not just that it is growing–many churches do that–but the demographic category that is growing most quickly: Post-collegiate adults in their 20s and 30s. At one New Member Sunday in early 2008, out of 30 new members, 27 were under the age of 35.
“What is their secret?”
To find out the secret, read the whole article. “Setting the Welcome Thermostat,” on Alban’s Web site. (And lest some smug Unitarian Universalists think we have the third tension perfectly balanced, remember that some younger people perceive a doctrinaire theological hegemony of humanism in some UU congregations.)
I would go to that church. It wouldn’t make me feel guilty for not being in paroxysms of angst about the ills of the world and not wanting to argue about the terrible nature of said ills whether I could do anything, or would do anything, about them.
And it would let me talk about god, or God, without feeling like a moron.
Jean @ 1 — First Church in Cambridge (FCC) is right around the corner from the Unitarian Universalist church, First Parish; they both abut the old Puritan burying ground. And I think you might be on to something — although I like First Parish (I have gone to services there once or twice, and still have some friends there), although First Parish has also done an excellent job of attracting and retaining young adults,– yet the Alban article makes FCC sound like a very attractive community. And although my impression is that FCC has just as much social justice orientation as First Parish, my guess is that yes, they’d be more open to talking about god, God, and all those other big theological questions.
All of this raises one of the big questions for religious liberals these days: do denominational labels matter all that much any more, or is it more important to find a religious community that has set their welcome thermostat just right? If you just moved to a new city, and saw two liberal congregations right next door to one another, how would you make the decision on which church to attend — would you go with the Unitarian Universalist church because you identify as a Unitarian Universalist, or would you go to the liberal religious community that felt like the most welcoming religious community, regardless of denominational affiliation?
(And if I lived in Cambridge, what would I do? Would I go to First Parish, FCC, or Cambridge Friends Meeting? Ah, who am I trying to kid, I’d drive forty minutes to Chelmsford and try the Unitarian Universalist church there, because the one time I preached there, I felt they set the welcome thermostat just exactly right.)
1. As a young adult, a lifelong churchgoer, and a person of faith trying to find a spiritual home, this is a problem I’ve seen in many churches. The church of my childhood is struggling with this, as many churches are. I have been able to identify a few roadblocks. One is finding the balance of Welcoming, but Not Desperate; seeing myself as the ONLY young adult and getting pounced on does not encourage me to return to a church. I’m there to worship and be part of a community, not be a guinea pig for young adult outreach (though I can’t necessarily blame people for feeling that way).
Other roadblocks to attendance for me are very personal. First is timing. I live in the Boston area, but I take public transportation, and in order to get from home to FP Cambridge, I’d have to get on the bus a full hour before services, which starts to get a little too early for me (my unstructured weekends are precious). Second, my fiance isn’t that interested in attending church (he’s more “spiritual” than “religious”, he likes to say), and without that support and someone to discuss services with, I find myself getting frustrated and uninterested.
2. Dan, your questions about denominational labels is SPOT ON. I am a lifelong UU, but I’d certainly consider attending a UCC church that felt right. I don’t really believe in the divinity of Jesus, but if a UCC church had a welcoming feel, an openness and room for questions, then I’d gladly go. Sometimes I fear for UU’s dogmatic harping on openness and liberal theology; it gets too vague, cold, academic, and intellectual. We don’t go to church for a lecture, we go for a sermon. If UU churches continue to follow their heads instead of their hearts, then attendance will slip away.
Just my $0.02…. :)
Sarah K. — Although you refer to other roadblocks as personal, I’ll bet timing is key for many young adults (and middle-aged adults for that matter). It would be nice if UU congregations could break out of the Sunday morning box, and offer other options including Saturday early evening and Sunday afternoon. If I lived in Cambridge, and First Parish Cambridge offered a service early Saturday evening, I could definitely see myself going to church at that time, and then going out to dinner some place nearby — and hey, there’s also a pretty good movie theatre right across the street from the church, and some good bookstores a few blocks away….
Frankly, I find all organized religious communities to be irrelevant to the questions I am asking. Those questions are all related to this single overarching question: what good can I do while I am on earth?
And why are the communities irrelevant? Because — at least from my perspective — they seem to have pre-packaged answers. Pray. Volunteer. Tithe. Join. Talk. (Or, in UU congregations: Argue.)
Finally, out here in the lovely Midwest, the word “liberal” in conjunction with “religious” is hard to find, if not nonexistent, especially in smaller communities.
So, I think I’ll just skip the church service, and head straight to that nice dinner you mention, followed by a good book store. Oh, wait. We don’t have those either. Never mind. I’ll just go to the barn.
@ Dan — Everyone has their reasons for not “getting” to church (as I see it; I want to go, but…), which is what makes it personal, but most of them can be exquisitely common. And at what point do those reasons (however “personal”) become of interest to the church community?
However much I love Sunday mornings in church (the sunlight, surrounding yourself in that community first thing, etc), having a Sunday afternoon/evening service would be AMAZING. While I often find myself sipping tea right when a morning service would start, if it were in the afternoon, I’d have plenty of time to catch the bus over to Harvard.
And the services don’t need to be identical to the Sunday morning– when I was in England, I had the amazing pleasure of attending a couple different evening services, most notably the Evensong services at Westminster. Hymns, song, maybe a reading or two and a short homily. That sounds amazing, to me. And I have a feeling that would appeal to other members of my age group.
Another, random “personal” roadblock that could actually lead me astray from my UU upbringing– I often find myself drawn to attend church in the summer. The weather is beautiful (I am less interested in catching a bus to Harvard in the sleet and slush of February), the days are longer, and the mornings are bright. But I don’t want to go to a Chakra-yoga meeting or see East Asian drummers, or whatever summer service leaders people dredge up. And that’s when I might end up at FCC instead of FPC in Cambridge. Interesting.
It’s a tricky subject, to be sure. Thanks for the article, Dan.
What I got from the Alban write-up is that the seminarian and the FCC leadership didn’t dismiss the reality of Young Adult life as “excuses,” “stages,” “Challenges-that-are-really-opportunities” or any other put-downs I hear too often in UU circles. Apparently, the leadership then heard these reports with their hearts, and rejected the option of dismissing a demographic that doesn’t serve the leaders’ covenants as stewards of the institutional presence and budget.
What I also find interesting is the complete omission of the fact that FCC used to host a Sunday evening Jazz Vespers FCC once a month. This is the route many UUs would consider first, and here it gets not even a passing mention.