The Gravitational Congregation

The church in, with, under, and orbiting around Christ

And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent (Colossians 1:17–18, ESV).

Congregations are categorized differently than they used to be. The middle name used to tell you so much. Trinity Lutheran Church. Some are named after a kind of governance (Episcopal or Presbyterian or Congregational). Some are named after a historical confessional family (Lutheran or Calvinist or Wesleyan). Some are described by a unique practice or experience (Baptist or Pentecostal or High Church). Many congregations today are non-denominational or have removed the denominational name from their tag, and even those who retain it vary drastically from one congregation to another. Here are a few other categories that might be more helpful today? Does your congregation fit in any of these? Would you add, subtract, edit from the following descriptions?

Photo by Andrew Neel on Unsplash

The Boundaried Congregation. This congregation looks like a map. They find unity in clear boundaries marked by a shared battlecry, or mutually approved of or frowned on behaviors, or socio-economic/ethnic/political identity. Most, if not all, matters are settled. It is clear who is in and who is out. The “amens” in the pews are as unanimous as the bumper stickers in the parking lot. Fundamentalisms are hardening, both in the new Patriot Churches and the old Progressive Churches. In 2024, one will know who the approved and endorsed presidential candidate is in either of these boundaried kinds of congregations. Your vote will be a matter of orthodoxy or heresy. Older forms of Boundaried Congregations are seen in historic protestant confessional movements. The “here I stand” against compromise or heterodoxy clearly marks us as us and them as them. The sustainability of the boundaried congregation (movement) requires there to be raison d'être. If the issue today is masks or vaccines, when that issue no longer energizes, the battle will morph to anti-common core, then anti-CRT, then anti-wokism, then… Those congregations boundaried on the other side will have their own ongoing energizing issue. A former bishop nicknamed his more progressive denomination, “The Church of Latest Social Issue.”

Image generated by Substack based on the following paragraph.

The Coalition Congregation. The Coalition Congregation looks like a Venn diagram. Clear communicated overlapping values are sufficient to energize and to keep this congregation together. They usually coalesces around a persuasive leader—a convincing communicator. Pastor Vaagness was such a leader. North Heights Lutheran Church was coalition of varying emphasis: Pietistic, Charismatic, Patriotic/Moral Majority, Positive Confession (Peale/Schuller), Conservative, Global Mission, and a smattering of smaller constituencies. Everybody didn’t identify as all these things, but Vaagness was sincerely all these things, and as long as he was the pastor, the coalition held. In these kind of congregations, the leader probably functions as a norming influence, tethering each constituency to one another. The Pietist was kept healthier by not spinning towards legalism. The Charismatic was kept from spinning toward fanaticism. The Patriotic/Moral Majority was kept from spinning toward Nationalism. Positive Confession was kept from spinning toward full-blown prosperity teaching. When the leader is no longer there to tether the constituencies, they can become siloed special interest groups functioning more like boundaried congregations within a congregation. This can lead to struggle for power, conflict, and identity confusion. It is unlikely that any future leader will be able or willing to hold all the old constituencies in the same way the old leader did.

Baptismal font at the center of the gathering space at Trinity in San Pedro, CA.

The Gravitational Congregation. This congregation looks like a vortex. This congregation finds unity around the force created by orbiting around the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gathered people of God may have other identities (Jew/Greek; slave/free; male/female, blue donkey/red elephant), or they may have overlapping sympathies (similar activisms or worldviews or charisms), but they are not here to revel in those commonalities. Neither will they allow differences in these areas to divide them from one another. For “Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all” (Colossians 3.11). Christ is more than enough to hold together the congregation that communes “through Him, with Him and in Him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit” (words from the liturgy of Holy Communion). The pastor’s job is not to keep finding a current animating issue, nor is it to hold a coalition together. The leader in a gravitational congregation is to let “the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit” (2 Corinthians 13.14) do its creating, saving, and sustaining work. To point to it. Proclaim it at font and ambo and altar. To comfort with it. To provoke with it. To stir themselves and the church “To know nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2.2). The leader of this kind of congregation knows the freedom of being a messenger.