In one of Hartshorn's Sunday morning classes, Richard Peace (St. A's member, UCC minister and teacher at Fuller Seminary), threw out a statement that took a few of us back. He said, "In order to be a Christian, you have to be in a church community." So I decided to talk with him, for Ebb & Flow, to find out exactly what he meant. He demurred, saying that he probably shouldn't have said it that provocatively, but that, indeed, community is vital to Christianity. When I asked Hartshorn, in a separate interview, whether he agreed with Richard's comment, he said he would disagree: "I would say that it's not provocative enough. Community is at the heart of Christianity; we can't worship on our own."

Can't worship on our own? What does that mean? I have my own relationship with God. Yes, Hartshorn agrees, and personal prayer is absolutely important, but it's different from worship, which he defines as corporate. "Our corporate confession is for all of humanity," he says. "We confess that we have sinned against God. Racism is an example. Maybe we're not personally responsible for discrimination, but we're part of a culture that is. There is a corporateness to our identity, and personal transformation has to be linked to transformation of culture if we want to move closer to the kingdom of God. Otherwise, it's self-serving. Jesus said, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.' (Matthew 25:45)

"It's a world view that's countercultural today," Hartshorn says. To which Richard agrees: "Part of it is simply American individualism, but part of it is the times. Today, there is a split between religion and spirituality. Spirituality is about relationship with God and is considered good; then it gets institutionalized, organized, made into a bunch of rules and regulations, and that's what we call religion, which is seen to be bad. The Boomers were not so much against groups, but Generation X (those born between 1965 and 1980) is different."

So how, then, can we have a Christian community at St. Augustine's?

Richard talks about the search for truth. Unlike religious communities in the past, which held to a Truth (which if you didn't believe, meant you were out), he sees today's search to be for a truth with a small "t," which he sees as "inviting people into community to explore the truth of Christianity within the relationships of community life. That's what Judy and I love about St. A's, that there's the willingness to let people exist at different places, and to wrestle together with what it means to follow Jesus.

"But St. A's is not a community without definition," he continues. "We're defined by our creed, which could be summarized as ‘Jesus is Lord.' And we worship together, blending our voices around that creed, hearing others' voices down through the centuries, as we struggle to understand it, to believe it, and to live it out."

Hartshorn is eager to help us live it out. He put it this way: "My altar is the church. Yours (us parishioners) is the world, your desk becomes your altar, and if you're really trying to be Christ in the workplace, it's tough. You get beat up during the week, probably crucified at some point, and come to church on Sunday to be fed."

How are we fed? Richard answers, "By the worship that is central to our community, by praising God, celebrating the Eucharist, responding to the call to remember the great things God has done that have shaped us as a people." And others would add that they're fed by attending classes where we explore our beliefs and doubts, by sharing with their children the path of Jesus, and modeling for them what it means to think beyond themselves, by caring for our bodies through the practice of Yoga, and by giving support to—and getting it back from--fellow parishioners sharing our spiritual path, whether through healing prayer or in a conversation at coffee hour.

"We don't go to church, we gather to BE church," Hartshorn says. " ‘Church' means the called out ones, called out of the culture to be God's people."

Will we make a difference? Hartshorn points out that studies show that Christians don't behave any differently than anyone else, we only have different beliefs.

Can we change that? We will have to take seriously our countercultural posture. We have to know what we're against. Hartshorn remembers Martin Luther King Jr. asking,Why aren't all the churches marching for us? And the Berrigan brothers insisting that as a Christian you can't be part of war.

Hartshorn has hope that the threat of global warming and our planet's pollution may "pull the church out of its sleep. Maybe it's already too late. Maybe we can only mitigate the damage." But he's encouraged that even Rick Warren has said that maybe the gay issue isn't the most important, that perhaps AIDS in Africa and care of the planet matter more. Where am I in all this? Well, 15 years ago, when Peter and I attended St. A's for the first time, I had no interest in community (though I'm older than both the Boomers and the Gen Xers). I was charmed by the openness of the church, delighted to be able to ask all the questions I had—about God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit—but I saw my search as a solitary one. A child of the ‘50s, community meant conformity to me, and I wanted nothing to do with it. It's taken all this time to grow into agreement with Hartshorn and Richard—to recognize that the St. A's community hasn't been just a part of my spiritual journey, it has been the soil in which I've grown (to use a metaphor from Cultivating Wholeness,* a book by Margaret Kornfeld, about how to be a healthy faith community). To continue her gardening image, and to honor the direction both Hartshorn and Richard see for St. A's, it is important for all of us to act as gardeners, continuing to tend the rich soil that is St. Augustine's Church and to grow healthy Christians.

* Kornfeld, Margaret. Cultivating Wholeness. New York: The Continuum Publishing Company, 1998.