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What Makes a Congregation a Real Faith Community

Written by Chris van Wyk

Concept Art by Nico Simpson

Adapted from The Hidden Life of Congregations: Discerning Church

Dynamics, © 2004 by the Alban Institute.

All rights reserved.

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.comWhat Makes a Congregation a Real

Faith Community

They shape the faith of its members primarily through communal, not administrative or programmatic,

means.

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.comWhat Makes a Congregation a Real

Faith Community

Congregations center their life together on rituals of meaning and confession - modified over time

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.comWhat Makes a Congregation a Real

Faith Community

Joining a congregation has to do with meeting the needs people believe can be provided only through

the shared, grounding religious experiences.

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The community’s idiom—consisting of its vocabulary, patterns of speech, spoken rituals and rites—functions in

ways that shape the faith of its members.

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For idioms to be formative, the language that is used by a local congregation must have two

components:it must be grounded in shared experiences; and

it must remain sufficiently religiously distinctive as to express the community’s peculiar identity.

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.comShared experiences

The shared experiences may include part of the language of a larger faith tradition; but must include the localized story of the particular faith tradition.

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Creating opportunities for congregational members to do this by “telling our story” must be both valued

and implemented as a critical educational function.

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The distinctiveness of the congregational language is also essential for faith formation.

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.comBeing Together

Congregations provide spaces to gather around activities and events that allow people to spend time together doing things they find meaningful.

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.comBeing Together

The tension between the separateness and togetherness forces so prevalent in the culture.

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.comBeing Together

“Defining community down” The “only members who are alike” or

The “community-as-support-group” approach.

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A gathering that enlarges, challenges, and completes the individual’s personal vision by providing a place that can

move members to action in the public square

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.comFundamental questions:

What is the major purpose of this group? What is its mission and vision?How fully are members involved in the life of the church community?

Is intimacy encouraged?Is the leadership function shared or is it delegated to one person or position?

How effective is the community in teaching, sharing, and perpetuating its values and beliefs?

How are group behavior and norms regulated?How obligated do members feel to each other and to the group?

How are group members evaluated as to their Christian discipleship, growth, and participation?

How effective is the community in inviting and assimilating new members?What does it mean to belong to this community? How does it happen and what is

assumed and expected?

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.comFundamental questions:

Become aware of the ways that the hidden lives of congregations are actively operating under the

surface.

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.comFundamental questions:

Internal and external ends (a movement inward and a movement outward).

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The congregation’s mission is that of the Church: to witness to the world the saving presence of God

among us.