Social groups at church…?
I wrote this about a month ago, and forgot to post it. I welcome people’s thoughts about this…
Over the last 2 months, Keith and I have been thinking about social groups at church. Those that you might hang out with outside of church time just for social reasons (not planned socials, or for meetings). It seems to me that having a bunch of friends like this can be pretty hard sometimes if you don’t live close by…
At church we are called to love one another, not to stick to our cliques, to get to know someone that you have not spoken to before. Whereas there are our ‘friends’ with whom we share the same interests, those whom we live close to and hang out with, those who may have gone to school with us, those people that we generally feel comfortable to hang around with outside of church time.
So is the goal of getting to know ‘new people’ then trying to ‘make’ them a part of a social groups? How feasible is this? In this day and age, there’s a certain tendency for the depth of relationships to be sacrificed by the number of relationships you have. Does that mean that getting to know more people at church mean that we have more superficial relationships? How can we balance high number of people with depth of relationship? How can we talk to people without each chat being a ‘catch up’ after several weeks rather than a ‘hanging out?’
This is still something that I’m struggling to think about. Perhaps if I lived closer to church I wouldn’t have so much of an issue. But then, I might get too comfortable with a ‘group’ and start being cliquey. I mean, isn’t the idea of being less ‘cliquey’ assuming that you do have a clique? What if you don’t? Or what if you do have a bunch of people you know well and you need to catch up with them otherwise you don’t have support…?
Would appreciate some thought on this! I’m still thinking it through (in my spare time :p)
As a newcomer to CCC (and someone quite used to the cliquey relationships at a small church) I have found that (unfortunately) I am missing the closeness of relationship that I have with people. It’s easier to develop deep relationship with people without being cliquey because there just aren’t that many people there, and so it is possible to develop some sort of relationship with everyone.
Now that I’m church-hopping, my “spiritual life” is a lot less about developing relationships and encouraging others (or being encouraged) but more about a liturgy (church on Sundays), due to circumstances beyond my control.
In terms of looking at this issue, I think you can take the positive/normative (go economics!) approach to this. You can either strive to have relationships with everyone, and then have no time to develop them fully or no time for yourself. The other alternative is to be pragmatic and accept that there’s just no way you can develop relationships with everyone, and so to just “select” a few friends to be closer to.
I think we all try to be case 1, but as we grow older we see reality and slowly drift towards case 2.
I don’t think that case 2 (developing cliques) is “bad” according to the teachings of Jesus (case in point: Jesus restricted his physical ministry to Galilee and Jerusalem. He just didn’t have the time to minister to the whole world). It only becomes bad if the cliques go against one another to compete for people/status/domination in a larger social context (eg. at the local church).
I think case 1 is just simply not realistic. I don’t know anybody (and this includes pastors) who can say they develop deep relationships with everybody. In order to develop meaningful relationships, it is necessary to form smaller groups and to focus our attention on this subset.
House/Cell/Small groups are effective because it allows its members to spend time to focus their attentions on a smaller group of people. From my experience, the relationships that I have with members in my group are much closer than with others.
I agree with Bill that forming cliques is not necessarily ‘bad’ per se. Yes, it’s bad when there is ‘competition’ between cliques — church is not about being popular and self-promotion. However, it’s equally bad when people in cliques think “we’re so cool, we don’t associate with you”.
For me, it’s inevitable that I’m going to be cliquey in the way that I relate to people, to some extent. However, I also aim to move around different cliques and encourage groups of people to associate with others outside of their social circles.
One can think of it as heating food in a microwave. If the food just sits there and doesn’t move, there’s going to be hot spots and cold spots. However, if you move the food around and stir it every so often, then you get a much more homogenous distribution.
Similarly, I aim to seek to develop a relationship with some people, then with some others, and with some more, a few at a time.
Just a short comment (written in my copious spare time). I agree that cliques are not bad per se. They become bad when they interfere with the spiritual growth of church members. Other than competing for status/popularity thing (which you guys have already addressed), I think a big issue is that people who are not part of a clique may feel excluded from the church community. This is probably more significant for smaller churches where there is only one “clique” and anyone who isn’t part of it feels like an outsider.
Random food for thought: can heresies develop within cliques?
“… I think a big issue is that people who are not part of a clique may feel excluded from the church community.”
I think what needs to be addressed is the underlying issue of why that scenario arises in the first place, particularly within a church community. I can think of the following scenarios:
Each scenario has its own etiology and intrinsic problems. None of these can really be “fixed” in the sense of finding a solution to the problem.
As for whether it’s possible for heresies to develop within cliques, I strongly believe that it can (and does) happen. Heresies can pop up anywhere (even with no ill intentions/motives) and, if not shot down early, can then circulate around the group and understood to be “true”.
I think the word ‘cliques’ is about groups which exist to the exclusivity of other people which of course is not what you want happening in the body of Christ. That said, I don’t have a problem with social groups because it is just not realistic to be bosom buddies with everyone.
I also do not think that, as people in the body of Christ, we need to be continually making friends with more and more people, whether at a slow or fast pace. The fact is, we’re already united in a way far deeper than friendship. This doesn’t mean that we necessarily reflect this relationship in ultra meaningful conversations or even by spending loads of time together. Simply that we can share our lives and be vulnerable to each other and love deeply because we are already siblings, we are already one.
That’s theoretical. Practically I think time is definitely a factor in the depth of friendships. However, I have to say that I don’t have the chance to spend time with my close friends on a regular or frequent basis. Practically, I might have conversations that make an impact, with people I hardly speak to or have not even met until that night. Practically, I try to be welcoming and emulate God’s love to all that I come across. Though, the extent to which you can embrace others is dependant on the other party too. Practically, I don’t try to be everybody’s friend - that’s not the loving thing to do. There’s only so much of you that can go around. Practically, I don’t build relationships with people on my own, I always try to introduce them to other friends so they not only get to meet more people, but they can observe and be accepted into the wider group.
Anyway, I could talk about this all night, but those are just a couple of my thoughts. =)
I think there’s a general consensus that forming exclusive social groups is just something that shouldn’t happen amongst Christians. Of course, having exclusive ministry groups is an entirely different idea, and not really the intended topic of discussion, as it serves a different purpose.
As Sally-Ann has mentioned, people in the body of Christ are already united in a way far deeper than friendship. However, in our study of Ephesians 4 at housegroup, we discussed how the practical aspect of having full unity in Christ is something that is not fully attainable in a fallen world.
There will always be times when the outward expression of unity will mean that it will require you to get out of your comfort zone. Developing relationship requires sacrifice — be it time, money, etc. As such, people often get into the mindset of: “if I put in this much cost into this relationship, how much potential gain will I get?”
I think that this evaluation is something that is fairly automatic. As Christians, we get nudged to “manually override” this automatic evaluation in order to consider putting effort in for no foreseeable return. Of course, this takes us out of our comfort zone and I must admit that I’m prone to just ignore the override (with some lame justification) and to pursue something with greater perceivable returns.