Disestablishment 2

            The Church is (or in some regions of the country, is becoming) disestablished here in the USA—that is, we have a different voice in our country and in our culture than we once did. There was a time when our society saw the church as an integral part of the social fabric and treated us as such. For example, there were blue laws that kept businesses closed on Sunday so employment wasn’t a barrier to worship. These days most people don’t equate Good Christian with Good American, the distinction between those two things has grown and changed.

            Without the social pressures of being a good citizen and a good Christian, those of us still in the church are here because we really want to be here, not because there is social pressure to be here! 

Disestablishment 1

Disestablishment of the Church—Being a good citizen in America doesn’t mean being a good Christian in the minds of most people

The Grid

	Disestablishment	Decentralization	Demographics
Gathering in Community	How do we gather without the explicit approval of our society?	What does gathering look like in a scattered world?	How do we gather in a racially ethnically and economically diverse world?
Confession and Forgiveness	How do we confess and forgive in a disestablishment world?	How do we confess and forgive in this decentralized world?	What especially needs to be confessed and forgiven in these new demographic realities?
Baptism	What parts of our baptismal identity shine through differently in a disestablished church?	How can we be centered in our Child of God-ness in a decentralized world?	As racial and economic identity shifts in our society how do we affirm our baptismal identity—in what ways does it shift or stay the same?
Word of God	What themes in scripture draw attention to themselves when read from outside the cultural mainstream?	How may the Word of God be preached and trusted in a decentralized world?	How do we hear and respond to the Word of God differently when we are ethnically and economically different than we were a generation ago?
Thanksgiving	For what aspects of disestablishment ought we give thanks?	What new ways can we give thanks when everything is decentered?	What methods of thanksgiving are found in non-Eurocentric cultures?
Meal	In what ways have we wed Holy Communion to the powers that be in our society?	Where do we have the holy meal in light of decentralization?	What aspects of Holy Communion can be expressed differently for a wider variety of cultural contexts?
Sending	Who have we neglected to go to in order to impress the powers that be?	Where and how are we sent when we’re already dispersed?	How are we sent differently to the new demographics in which we live?