"A Counter-Cultural Sense of Community"

Robert Putnam, in his book Bowling Alone, has identified a severe decline in all social group activities in the US culture in the past 30 years or so. He began by studying bowling, and noted that while the number of individuals bowling has increased in recent years, the number of persons participating in bowling leagues has declined about 35%. He went on to study all other kinds of social groups – churches, service clubs, alumni associations – all the groups which provide our culture with what he calls “social capital” - all have declined by a similar percentage in the US. Putnam wonders and worries that we are becoming such an isolated, individualistic culture that we will not have enough of this social capital to hold together the fabric of our culture.

I have heard similar worries expressed by university presidents, faculty, and staff. One person said to me, “Our toughest job is to get our students to leave their rooms, their computers, and their smart phones – and to come out and interact with one another.”

It is ironic, isn’t it, that the very technology which promises to “connect” us with one another, oftentimes accentuates our isolation. The old cliché that people need both “high tech and high touch” is certainly true.

Maybe the church is one place where we can offer a counter-cultural sense of community, where people can actually meet together, hug one another at times, cry together at other times, and be fully human. Maybe our role is to swim upstream against the trends of our culture in order to invite people to reconnect – not for the purpose of saving our US culture, but for the purpose of discovering what it means to be a part of the body of Christ.

It will not be easy. Amid all the other experts who have tried to explain the decline of the US churches, Robert Putnam may be the one who best identified the societal trend which is impacting every denomination. But it may be that we already have in our “DNA” as a church the counter-cultural sense of community for which all persons deeply yearn and cannot find. Should we keep using technology to inform and invite? Yes, but we also need to provide the human and divine touch which we all need.

Annual Conference starts this week. It is a time of information, worship, decision-making, and celebration. Perhaps it is also a time to exercise this counter-culture sense of community. See you at Conference.