Four spaces

A couple of you have reminded me that I should read The Search to Belong by Joe Myers. Until I buy my own, or Ed lends me his copy, I'm going to have to settle for Jordon's review. Jordon writes:

Much of The Search to Belong is based on the work of Edward T. Hall. Hall identified four types of social space: public, social, personal, and intimate. Building on Hall's research on the four spaces, Myers suggests that far too much time and energy has been directed on promoting intimate space as the ideal. Churches and organizations need to stop equating intimacy with significance and more efforts need to spent appreciating the value of public space, and promoting opportunities for social and personal space. This runs counter to the conventional wisdom of most churches which see small groups as the way to church growth and a solution that is right for everyone in the church.

Is there a role for the big gathering? Myers seems to think so. More to come when I finally get to read this book.

Comments

[Dave]

I personally think both smaller and larger gatherings are useful for doing church within biblical guidelines and within our postmodern culture. My observation is that for postmodernity genuineness eclipses the size-of-group factor. If a large gathering is uncontrived and personal and not merely propositional much less programatic, postmoderns are attracted. If it's worship music and leadership is high-quality contemporary but there's no humility, frankness, openness, brokenness, transcendence then they're not impressed. So for me, it's not about where or how many meet together at a given time; it's about authenticity.

[ed]

I have read the book, and will pass it on to you. Here's what I know, the big gathering, in the tradition I've known it in (I think this is an issue) contributes little to relationship, growth and healthy Christians (those who have a whatever it takes mentality when it comes to following Jesus) if even fosters separateness. I think the big gathering could contribute more to doing church. I have experienced it in certain moments (even in a stadium with 70000 men. I think heaven is going to be a gathering, with all levels of gatherings from one on one to "all the nations" coming together. So, having read the book, I think we need to do more than just the small group thing, but we need to rethink the big gathering, make it less institutional and more, as Martoia calls it, "earthy" - I think he just means real and honest and frank as Dave mentioned. At certain moments I thought Myers has had one too many bad small group experiences. Although he kept saying he wasn't against sg's. Anyway, the book, if it was a movie, would be a wait for dvd. But that's just me. He does make a good point, I don't thing sg's are everything, and certainly we need to develop at more levels than just the intimate. I guess the point is more, how do we take what we have now in terms of church, and move it in that direction. I just think there's a danger of talking too much about it and not doing very much about it.

[Mike O]

I think part of the "pastoring" process is plugging people into spaces where they are likely to connect well. In other words, a pastor should have a handy knowledge of the types of people in the existing small groups, plus those looking for a group. Generally, small groups tend to "happen" when similar people find themselves together. If you have noticed, whenever a church makes a big push for small groups, some survive, while others whither. But, if you used some measuring tool (MBTI?) and tried to get similar people together, you might have greater success. No guarantees, but certainly a head start. In marriages, opposites tend to attract. So, often, a small group will have similar people of one sex (frequently women). While the spouses have a lot less in common. They are "opposites" of their spouses, but opposite in all different directions. Frequently, spouses differ on two MBTI letters, but agree on two. Since there are so many (16) MBTI types, and the less frequent types are only a percent or three of the total population, it is hard for a smaller church to find enough of one type to form critical mass - say five or six of one type. This is where parachurch ministries - like Promise Keepers or Bible Study Fellowship - come in handy. Those rare types can fellowship with like minded souls, only on a regional basis. I don't advocate Orwellian match-making, but a flexible, fuzzy pathway into group membership can be facilitated by testing. There's a lot of merit in keeping groups closed for a month or two, so they can gel. Even if ENFJ's are rare, you don't want their group experiencing a new person every three weeks. The group will never gel.