Just to clarify something about the concept of 'clan' churches I described yesterday as the church of the future; I think there is a tendency to set the bar too low with what a church needs to be able to do.
People tend to judge churches like secular institutions; and therefore regard a church as successful if it can only survive and grow as an organisation; if it can elicit attendance and financial or other contributions.
But it has become clear in the birdemic crisis and its response that churches cannot create and sustain courage and deep motivation in the way that families so often do.
If the church is to be a true family of faith, as Jesus described in the later parts of the Fourth Gospel; we would expect far more of it than a mere institution!
We take it for granted that family members often (willingly) make substantial and irreversible commitments and huge self-sacrifices for each other - it is common to give-up work and move location in order to be near and care for a child or spouse.
Parents often spend half (not ten percent) of their income on their children. And do so voluntarily and from love. And this is quite normal and unremarked.
Do people routinely do the same for an unrelated church member in the large institutional churches? No they do not; and never have done - except sometimes (and unstably) in a monastic setting.
Yet a successful Clan Church would need to be able to elicit similar levels of voluntary and loving commitment from its members - because it is a faith family.
Two thousand years of institutional Christian churches shows that such a level commitment cannot be imposed or elicited top down with large numbers of people; no matter what levels of education, propaganda or coercion.
(And anyway these churches have voluntarily destroyed themselves in recent weeks.)
Commitment and courage must come from the same depths of spontaneity and naturalness as in the family - and depends on individuals and circumstances in the same way. Otherwise, the unit of Christian activity will necessarily be the individual.
