How Churches in Maple Grove Perceive Themselves
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How do churches in Maple Grove perceive themselves? What characteristics do they feel are unique to them? What characteristics do they feel differentiate them from other churches? To answer these questions, this project asked the pastors from each of the profiled churches to describe what they thought was unique about their churches, what programs they thought were particularly successful and what differentiated them from other churches in the community. The table below represents their responses. Each column lists the characteristics each church feels is unique. Characteristics in each column have been positioned so that, when possible, they are near characteristics other churches feel are also unique about themselves.
Church Characteristics Each Church's Leader Thought Were Unique
Click on a characteristic to hear that church's leader describe it. Highlighted characteristics are those that multiple church leaders feel are unique about their churches (or characteristics that are related to each other).
Ubiquitously Unique: Interpreting Similar Perceptions of Uniqueness
As the many highlighted areas of the above table show, there are several characteristics that multiple churches believe are unique to themselves. These characteristics include having "accessible," "comfortable," or "understandable" Sunday morning sermons, attracting couples from different religious backgrounds who are trying to find a new post-marriage religious home and having church members who are welcoming to other visitors. In short, some characteristics seem to be "ubiquitously unique."
But listening to the audio clips in which leaders describe these "ubiqutiously unique" characteristics shows that although leaders may use similar words to describe their churches, their churches are not necessarily the same. For example, Pastor Bunnell says that he thinks his "messages are on [his congregation's] level," while Pastor Geisendorfer-Lindgren says "his sermons try to have some humor...yet I wasn't just a goofball either...and that kind of worked here...and yet we still have this traditional liturgy." Although both pastors focus on how their sermons appeal to the congregation, they describe what is appealing very differently. When Bunnell says that his messages are on the same "level" as his congregation, he implies that he is good at translating lofty scriptures to his less understanding flock. But when Geisendorfer-Lindgren describes what appeals, he instead emphasizes a good mix of humor and meaningful speech coupled with a traditional liturgy. Thus, although both Pastor Bunnell and Geisendorfer-Lindgren might say appealing sermons are unique to their church, what they mean by "appealing" is quite different.
In another example, both Pastor Moran and Bunnell discuss how welcoming their congregation is towards visitors. Pastor Moran says "people are very warm, friendly and very much want to share their love of Jesus Christ with others," meaning that when new people come in, "they're almost never not greeted and sometimes greeted a little too much." But Pastor Bunnell takes being a welcoming pastor one step further: he and his wife arrive at the homes of church visitors with chocolate, books, and time for a long conversation about their needs from the church, as well as their thoughts on their first church service. In other words, being a welcoming congregation means differing things to different pastors.
In sum, churches whose leaders understand themselves as unique for certain characteristics, actually share the same characteristics. However, they also use related language and similar categories to describe different practices.
Grappling With An Inherited Protestant Ethos
Three of the churches profiled mention how their church does or does not engage in "missional" activities. Missional activities include active attempts to recruit new members through outreach efforts, such as Christian camps for children, organizing overseas mission trips for members, or approaching social justice programs as opportunities to increase church membership. Churches' continual effort to define themselves in terms of how "missional" they are, or are not, is a continued response to a Protestant ethos inherited from 19th century America in the face of a new ideas about "pluralism."
A protestant ethos, inherited from early 19th century American Protestantism, still reigns in America. In Religious Pluralism in America, William Hutchison identifies the key "attitudes, beliefs, characteristics and behaviors" that composed this ethos. One such attitude is "moralism," or the individuals "imperative responsibility to save others." Songs from the era like "Throw Out A Lifeline" (listen to a later rendition on YouTube) speaks to the responsibility of every individual to keep others from "sinking today." The responsibility of all Christians, a Hutchison put it, was to "help others achieve their own salvation."
One of the pastors I surveyed exemplifies how this element of the protestant ethos exists today. Pastor George Bunnell of Grove Christian Center says one of his personal goals and one of the goals of his church is to be "missional." He believes that by engaging with active outreach with his members, they will in turn move beyond being "mediocre Christians" and will "live out" their confession of Christianity. With that in mind, two to three times a year the church sponsors a 35 cent a gallon discount at a local gas station. In return for the discount, members of the church ask drivers: "What's the best thing that's ever happened to you?" And when drivers ask reciprocally, "What's the best thing that's ever happened to you?" Grove Christian Center members share their story about being reborn at Grove Christian Center. This activity and Pastor Bunnell's goals are grounded in a belief that each Protestant Christian has the responsibility to bring their religions to others. In other words, both George Bunnell's personal goals and the outreach efforts of Grove Christian center exemplify the "moralism" still present in Protestant America, and Protestant Maple Grove in particular.
But the moralism of the Protestant ethos may have problematic implications in an increasingly pluralistic America. Hutchison describes today's America as attempting to accept "pluralism as participation." Being a pluralistic nation has come to mean not only refusing to persecute those outside the religious majority (i.e. non-Protestants), but also including those from all religions in "sharing responsibility the forming of and implementing of society's agenda." This level of pluralism requires inviting members of other religions to the negotiating table as equals, respecting their viewpoints, responding to them, and finding common ground in responses to problems or issues that affect all within our society. But there is limited space for "moralism" if one is supposed to respect their viewpoints and share responsibility for achieving common goals. Attempts to "help others achieve salvation," as exemplified by Pastor Bunnell's outreach efforts and noted by Hutchison, are more about the saved sharing their stories than listening to the stories of others. It's unclear whether one can simultaneously help others achieve salvation and listen and respect their point of view to form and implement society's agenda.
The three pastors profiled who mentioned whether their churches are "missional" or not responded to the problem of "moralism" and "pluralism" in distinctly different ways. Pastor Bunnell, described above, has continued attempts at converting the largest number of people possible as fast as possible, holding the truest to the 19th century Protestant ethos, undeterred by its conflicts with today's pluralism. It seems quite possible that he either does not accept "pluralism as participation" or ignores it when leading his church's missional activities.
Pastor Moran of Christ's Community Church has resolved the conflict between "moralism" and "pluralism" by interpreting the history of her denomination as discouraging missionary work. She says "as a gathering of Christians...our mission was not to build churches as we went, but to tell people about Jesus...so we would draw a large amount of people to faith...and they would then go to another church over there." In other words, Pastor Moran understands her denomination's history as emphasizing the importance of spreading the knowledge of Jesus, but not necessarily building new churches and, by extension, recruiting new members. In other words, instead of rejecting the new definition of "pluralism," Pastor Moran has rejected "moralism" as an important part of her congregation and its denomination's past, and as part of her Protestant congregation's "ethos."
But a particular interpretation of the denomination's history is not necessary to reject moralism. Pastor Jen Lindwall at Church of the Open Door says her church does not focus on attracting new members simply because the senior pastor is not interested in congregation growth. "There isn't a desire for growth on the minds of the pastoral staff. When you have somebody who would rather hang out with people that they like, instead of 5,000 people who will make them perform...so, we aren't doing outreach where there's Open Door t-shirts..that's not part of the church culture." Although the evangelical background of Church of the Open Door might lend it to proselytizing, the desire of the senior staff to spend their time on teaching and preaching replaces "moralistic" desires. In other words, Pastor Lindwall and Church of the Open Door resolves the conflict between pluralism and moralism by simply de-emphasizing moralism.
In conclusion, Pastors Moran, Bunnell and Lindwall all include words about their church's interest or disinterest in acquiring new members when describing their church. They do so in varying responses to the "moralism" emphasized by a historical Protestant ethos and contemporary definitions of "pluralism."
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