The Faithspring Community
Posted 4 years ago at 10:25 am. Add a comment
I started the Faithspring Community in October of 2001 with my wife Nancy, almost a year after leaving the Presbyterian Church (USA), where I was employed in a large suburban church as Pastor and Head of Staff. An informal community of spiritual searchers and religious refugees, Faithspring is one of the ways I’m looking for a new way of doing community. Of being community and for caring for those in community.
Over the last six years, we’ve held Faithspring meetings in two states involving nearly sixty people. Our meetings typically feature a come-as-you-are time of celebration, teaching, and discussion centered on a central text or concern of the day. They often occur as part of an afternoon or evening meal and have been, over the years, an opportunity for old friends to make new friends in a casual and supportive way.
You might be wondering if we’re a church. Strictly speaking, the Faithspring Community is. We’ve been working on our 501 c3 designation from the IRS for a couple of years now–clearly, we don’t spend enough time with such things and need to be better motivated–and some of our friends may have received mail from the Faithspring Community Church in times past. For a time, the Faithspring Community actually owned a church building off of Skyline Boulevard in Portland, Oregon, hoping to develop the building into a retreat center and a centerplace for community activities on the Skyline hill.
The church had been empty for years.
The first thing we did was to purchase two
baby grand pianos.
A couple or three years later–as members of our Portland fellowship moved or began to drift away–we sold the building to a performing artist who has a similar dream and is using the edifice as a gathering place for musicians and the whole community.
In the most liberal sense of the word, we don’t think of ourselves as a church. Frankly speaking, we’re a community. We gather because, for one reason or another, we haven’t found all that we want or need in a church.
Friends of mine have accused me, and the Faithspring Community, as being religious. Not hardly. Frankly, I can’t think of a spiritual teacher in the history of humankind who, if the full story were told, would be comfortable being accused of such. But make no mistake about it, I am and the community is interested in spiritual things. It enjoys thinking and talking about the things that matter most–perspectives, traditions, family and friendships–in the context of a caring and accepting community.
Some of the folks in our community are traditionally churched and some of are not. But pretty much everyone who attends is interested in knowing more about the mystery of what it means to be alive and human. What we do best is to invite and enjoy the great number of people don’t feel comfortable in traditional churches, mosques and synagogues, particularly those who are categorized and marginalized because of age, perspective, lifestyle and gender. We believe that open and affirming faith communities are an opportunity for both the spiritual seeker and the spiritually secure to explore their life’s questions and gifts together. In fact, we believe society is best served when people of diverse viewpoints learn to get along together.
You might ask if the Faithspring Community has a creed? Does it belong to any national organizations? Fact is, we’re a part of the Progressive Christian movement, which means that our ministers and officers personally celebrate Jesus as their path to the mystery of God, but recognize the value and worth of other spiritual paths and the people who walk them. Generally, Progressive Christians are known by certain perspectives:
1) They proclaim Jesus as their gateway to the realm of God, but recognize the faithfulness of people who practice and believe differently than themselves.
2) They invite all sorts and conditions of people to join in their common life as full partners.
3) Progressive Christians think that the way people treat each other is more important than the beliefs individuals express.
4) They find more grace in the search for meaning than in absolute certainty.
5) They see themselves as a safe and extended family in which to discover the resources required to live and work in the world.
6) People of the way, they recognize, as the Center for Progressive Christianity puts it, “that faith often entails costly discipleship, renunciation of privilege, and conscientious resistance to evil.”
Faithspring meetings have the capacity to deepen a person’s spiritual walk while widening one’s point of view, something practically unheard of in religious fellowships. Whatever your location or viewpoint–we currently meet once a month in northern Nevada; our Portland area Faithspring group has been inactive for a couple of years, but we’ve been thinking of starting something in Sherwood or Forest Grove– we hope you’ll be a part of our virtual community here on the web!