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1 Westminster Presbyterian Church Dubuque, Iowa 1 WESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH DUBUQUE, IOWA Missional Community Formation Report BUILDING AND REBUILDING: WESTMINSTER’S CONTEXT AND CALL IN DUBUQUE, IOWA by REV. LINDSAY BEALS JAMES In coordination with Dr. Susan Forshey and Professor Christopher James November 2015 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................... 4! An Ecclesiological Framework: What is Church? ......................................................... 4! A Missiological Framework: Paying Attention and Joining God .................................. 5! QUESTION ONE: WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM OUR MISSIONAL CONTEXT? ............ 6! Understanding the Unchurched ...................................................................................... 6! Religious Service Attendance ................................................................................................. 6! The Rise of the Unaffiliated .................................................................................................... 6! Religious Affiliation by Age ................................................................................................... 7! Regional Differences .............................................................................................................. 8! Ethnic Representation ............................................................................................................. 9! Defining the “Nones,” “Dones,” and “SBNRs” ............................................................ 9! The “Nones” ............................................................................................................................ 9! The Spiritual-But-Not-Religious (SBNRs): .......................................................................... 10! The “Dones” .......................................................................................................................... 11! Perceptions of Christianity ........................................................................................... 13! Understanding Iowa and the City of Dubuque ............................................................. 13! Dubuque Stories .................................................................................................................... 14! Implications and Call .................................................................................................... 16! QUESTION TWO: WHAT IS THE UNIQUE NATURE OF A NEW COMMUNITY WPC IS CALLED TO FORM? .................................................................................................................. 18! 3 Examples of Unique Christian Communities in the United States ............................... 18! Examples of Unique Christian Communities in Dubuque ............................................ 19! Westminster Presbyterian Church: A Two-Fold Proposal ........................................... 21! What is a Missional Community? ......................................................................................... 21! What will be the rhythms of life together? ........................................................................... 22! Who would lead the Missional Community? ........................................................................ 22! What would the Missional Community cost? ....................................................................... 23! Where would the funds for the Missional Community come from? .................................... 23! How would the Missional Community Participate in Westminster Pres.? ........................... 23! A Timeline of Goals and Objectives .............................................................................. 25! Next Steps ...................................................................................................................... 26! *This is a shortened version of the full report. The full report includes responses to the following questions: How might the missional community serve the city? What other financial supports are available? How might be a teaching learning community? What other connections such as University of Dubuque might we serve? Are there including response to the following. See Pastor Hal or Pastor Lindsay for a copy of the full report. 4 INTRODUCTION You have in your hands a conversation; a conversation between observations, theology, and specific proposals. Although, it will take some stamina to read through it all, my hope is that somewhere in the midst of its pages you will encounter God. However, before we enter into specifics, let’s first form a shared understanding of “church” and “mission.” An Ecclesiological Framework: What is Church? When discerning “new forms” of church, it is helpful to think about what “church” is. The term “ecclesia” refers to those people that God has called together into a new relationship with Godself and into a new way of living in relationship to one another and to the world. You may have heard many metaphors to describe the relationship between God and God’s people, and the relationship between one another, such as: Body of Christ, People of God, Temple of the Holy Spirit, Bride of Christ, brother and sister, household, beloved community, and new humanity… While there are many rich meanings in these and the other metaphors of Scripture, it can be helpful to boil down the basic relationships between the church and God, one another, and the world as relationships of love. The people of the are church are loved by God, and love God; the people of the church love one another; the people of the church love the world. Each of the church’s basic “loves” shape what the church does. •! The church loves God in worship not just Sunday morning, but in offering their whole, daily lives as “living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is [our] spiritual worship” (Romans 12:1). •! The church loves one another in its practice of fellowship: relating to one another as brothers and sisters in God’s family. •! The church loves the world in its practice of mission: loving our neighbors and joining God in the renewal of all things. These three practices—worship, fellowship, and mission—are the way of life that demonstrate that a church is, in fact, a church. 5 While churches don’t all look the same, these are the common practices that are supposed to characterize all churches and Christian communities. To put it another way, the church is the people who strive to find ways to live shared lives of worship, fellowship, and mission. Traditionally, churches have invited new people to join them by inviting them to church services (which are one important way that Christians practice worship). This can be a helpful practice for connecting with those people who have positive associations with ‘church’ but are not currently attending. However, these days, fewer and fewer people fit into this group. Fewer and fewer people are interested in or open to attending church services, especially as a ‘first- step’ on their spiritual journey. Some changes can usually be made to church services that help to make them more welcoming to the unchurched. These sometimes include changing styles of music and preaching, or the use of technology and new liturgies. But regardless of whatever changes might be made, there are still many, many people who will never step foot in a church as a first step. Making church services “contemporary” or “relevant” with style changes or a big screen may not help churches to connect with this growing slice of the population. It is with these people in mind that we explore what it might look like for Westminster Presbyterian Church to form “new” ways of being church. A Missiological Framework: Paying Attention and Joining God The mission of the church is not, as we sometimes think, to do something for God like saving souls or fixing the broken world. The mission of the church is to pay attention to what God is already doing and to join in this work. So, the mission of the church is not to do something for God, but to do all things with God. But in order to join in what God is doing, the church has to put some serious spiritual energy and time into discerning just what it is that God is doing. In fact, this isn’t just a one-time project every now and then, but a never-ending process of discernment that takes place not only in prayer and study and committee meetings, but through the church’s engagement with the world and their prayerful reflections on what these experiences might mean. For the past three months I have been intentionally paying attention, with hopes of discerning, just what it is that God is up to in the city of Dubuque, and the life of Westminster Presbyterian Church. Through the asking the series of questions outlined for me in my job contract, I have discovered that God is on the move! Below are my observations and insights to each of these questions. 6 QUESTION ONE: WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM OUR MISSIONAL CONTEXT? Understanding the Unchurched For some time, the church in North America has been in steady decline. Many churches have been forced to close their doors and sell their properties. What looks like a church on the outside may now be an apartment complex, a community center or a yoga studio. Recent decades have seen nationwide declines in religious participation and religious affiliation. Below are several graphs that help us identify the changing religious landscape: Religious Service Attendance The General Social Survey
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