Welcome to Church!
Welcome to Church!
You have a place here.
Maybe churches make you uncomfortable.
You're divorced. Or you're single. Both.
You cohabitate.
In other churches, older members look at your baby with irritation.
You're a recent immigrant and ambivalent about your inherited traditions, but don't want to abandon them completely.
You're gay or lesbian.
You have ideas about God and religion that offend your atheist friends, but don't seem to have a place in any church you can think of.
You have a sense of irony or satire that other Christians might not find funny.
You like a beer or two or three or four. Sometimes.
You barely call yourself a Christian. Perhaps a "friend of God" or a "follower of Jesus" but even the idea of a Christian identity offends you.
You've been hurt by the church.
That's who many of us are. Alongside your traditional families.
We can be your home.
We are becoming a new sort of church. One of radical welcome.
We want to begin where you are in your journey into a life brimming with confidence and enthusiasm and hope.
We're not here to wag our fingers at you. Other traditions do that very well.
We seek to enable you in your choices; to help you manage those parts of your life that are outside your control.
As rector, I can't make any promises about how you'll feel when you arrive. We're small and struggling, but hopeful. If you decide to become a regular "guest" great - you get the occasional email and newsletter! If you want to attend and participate in our mutual life and struggle, great! If you think you want to take the leap and become a full fledged Episcopalian, lovely! Go at your own pace. We might nudge and encourage, but you'll know what you need.
A warning: when you enter the church - it will change.
You will change us, and we may change you. You'll have to enter a dialogue, a conversation, a place where your life is important to people who have just met you.
You want to know what we think about God and Jesus? We'll ask you first, "what do YOU think."
We will slowly change each others mind, disagree in some places, agree on others, and then do the work of sharing our lives, working to advocate for the less fortunate, connecting and entangling ourselves in this glorious world that we have - that God has given us.
We'll tell you a story about an innocent victim, a victim who a group of followers met again, and returned not out of resentment or fear or hate, but in reconciliation, forgiveness and peace. You might not imagine him, but we retell his story of those who have.
If this is your first time in a church, we understand.
For a variety of reasons “the church” seems like a relic, a museum, a place that testifies to a different generation. Since we’re in an age skeptical of religious authority, aware of ecclesial hypocrisy, many people stay away from church. For a while they may seek an intelligent faith, but in the end, they give up because there never seems to be a critical mass of people eager to share such a spiritual journey.
Here at St. Barts we want to help people begin such a journey, in the footsteps of the pilgrim, Jesus Christ. Together, in his tradition, we seek an intelligent and intelligible faith. At the very least, Church is a place where we explore the poetry of encountering the natural world through the imagination of a joyful company of people.
But what does a church do?
Well, the church benefits the everyday world in many quiet ways.
The Church builds trust among its diverse members:
It does this, also, by being trustworthy.
It advocates for the less fortunate;
It cares for those who do not get care;
It harnesses the highest cultural ideas, even if it does so imperfectly, calling people to live lives of a higher calling.
It is a place where people gather out of mutual affection rather than necessity or profit;
It fosters ideas, talents and relationships of intrinsic, rather than extrinsic, worth;
It provides down time;
It deepens and encourages reverence, which is then taken into society;
It teaches that there is power in numbers;
It also reveres the limits of our individual power;
It contains the madness of individuals in the culture
It engages in conflict in a safe and manageable way.
Churches also ease the burdens of people who aren’t its members. We want people to build reliable and strong hearts. To this end we believe that we can, in small steps, change the world for the better, through the inspired cultivation of life skills, reinforcing an appreciation for the world.
You might have fallen out of your own faith or be open to other denominations. In this case, consider how St. Barts can help you build your affections and spiritual strength for the journey ahead. We're small and struggling, but we have a vision and dreams for a relevant church.
Do you think Jesus the Only Way?
We do believe that actions have consequences; we are realistic about human fallibility. We choose to have open conversations with other faiths as a way of learning about our own. We believe that “the way, the truth and the life” means that we must feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, visit the sick and the imprisoned, offer drink to the thirsty. As we are unfamiliar with other journeys, it is difficult for us to judge them without having taken them ourselves. Poetically speaking, it may be that at the end of time, the good people of other traditions will find they have been following Jesus all along. Surely, if religions do follow the path of gratitude and peace and survive, they have. If they continue fighting each other, then perhaps they haven't. We don't believe people of other faiths are going to hell.
Do you believe in evolution?
Yes. Science does change the nature of our understanding scripture and God's work. It may explain the way God works in the world. Clearly God is a part of nature and works through nature. We do not think evolution offers the last word about meaning, but it can help us understand our instincts and desires. I do believe that "geological time" and recent cosmological discoveries have forced us to interpret scripture in ways we had not previously. The rector, for example, does not believe in a hell that exists in the afterlife to damn souls for eternity.
What is the role of women in the church?
Women participate in all levels of the church.
What is the role of faith and government?
Christians can challenge government policies, but as citizens. The government is properly agnostic about supernatural claims, but Christians should participate in the practical mechanisms that promote happiness and mitigate collective suffering.
A few sentences about scripture.
Here at St. Barts, we read scripture as a part of the Sunday mass. It inspires, teaches, corrects and trains. We believe that it was written by human beings, but inspired by God, so we read the scripture diligently, discerning in its cultural context and its universal message of Loving God and serving our neighbors. Since John Mills first compilation of scriptural variations three hundred years ago, we’ve learned both to be critical and empathetic to the church’s founding document.