Ryan Ahlgrim - Sick Religion or Healthy Faith? Beliefs and Practices for Healing Christian Communities

I hate reading books like this one. Its so easy to read and understand that my eyes slide right over the words. But then what Ive just read suddenly hits me, and I have to stop and go back and ponder it. I hate reading books that make me think in deep and new ways when I wasnt expecting it.

For instance, I had to ponder this idea: a healthy faith community. Some would say thats a contradiction in terms. But what if the idea of a healthy faith community isnt a contradiction in terms, but a contradiction in expectations?

Like most people, my expectations of faith communities have been sorely tried! For example, for three of my undergraduate years I lived in my denominations campus ministry house. About fifteen undergraduate and graduate students from around the world (plus some Central American refugees), representing many Christian persuasions, resided there at any given time. In exchange for work around the adjoining church, we lived rent free.

Many of my hopes and expectations were met there. Our relationships grew so deep that we became not only friends but a family of choice who supported one another in debacle or celebration. No question was off the table about the Bible, the church, God, or science in our pursuit of faithful, intellectual honesty. We incorporated our diverse religious perspectives in our prayers together. We cared for peopleespecially the homelesseven when it was inconvenient and a little scary, and we publicly and actively upheld our common core conviction of justice, especially for the oppressed. Some of the leaders served the community with such selfless integrity, joy, respect, and trustworthiness that I pretended that their faith was my own... until it was.

But it wasnt all healthy. Simultaneously, I also experienced that communitys ills, and they were just as considerable. Were I to do go into detail, Im sure that those who believe that a healthy faith community is a contradiction in terms would feel bolstered in their conviction! Almost certainly they would shake their heads in wonder that I remained a member of a faith community at all, let alone became an Episcopal priest.

But that is what this all comes down to. This is the heart of the question of whether a healthy faith community is a contradiction in terms or a contradiction of expectations. Simply put, it was not, nor is it, my expectation that a faith community always chooses what is best. It is my hope, to be sure, but it is not my expectation. No community, family, or individual chooses wisely and compassionately every time. My expectation is that people continue to be people even within a faith community. That means that sometimes we choose well, and sometimes we dont.

Then why get involved? Because faith communities are unabashedly in the business of figuring out how the Holy can make the most of us. We deliberately, passionately, and unapologetically admit that we cant figure it out by ourselves, that we need Gods help, and that even when we accept that help we still make mistakes, sometimes even egregious ones.

What makes a faith community so remarkable is that even when we make our mistakeseven when we make egregious mistakeswe dont throw up our hands in despair, or shake our heads in cynicism, and say the faith community experiment has failed. It is just the opposite. Instead, the mistakes give us the chance to practice forgiveness. We learn to ask for, receive, and offer forgiveness, which keeps us together as a faith community. And then we start over. Together.

This is very hard work, and few faith communities have the will and courage to pursue it. But Ryan Ahlgrim shows us a path. He eloquently and profoundly describes twelve practical, doable characteristics of healthy faith communities. He shows us that a healthy faith community is not a contradiction, but a real possibility that grows out of a healthy faith. Wherever two or three are gathered together, figuring it out, God is in the midst of them.

If God is in the details, then, thankfully, Pastor Ahlgrim has filled those in.

The Reverend Lisa Cressman, DMin

Founder and steward, Backstory Preaching

December ,

Missouri City, Texas