Anglican's Messy Church, traditions and intergenerational solidarity

We can use the six dimensions of intergenerational solidarity to measure our own communities, without being too intrusive, or even take surveys, and see if the current intergenerational community will stand the test of time, inside the Jesus Christ's church.

What.

In 2004, a church in England started offering a congregational service called messy church which lacked apostolic liturgy in favour of meals and crafts. Messy church started as a deep desire to reintroduce children and family-units into the parish’s sphere. By 2019, one third of parishes in the Bay of Plenty are ‘using messy church.’

The Anglosphere has seen a drop in religiousness. Far less people attend church today, than 120 years ago, however the rate of church-attendance is probably better now amongst self-proclaimed Christians because in those days, it was a.o.k for  Christians to destroy all the endemic whales of the Mediterranean Sea, and destroy the Forests of New Zealand to grow tares for cows and sheep, destroy all the Bison of North America. They were even racist against Italians and made women wear whale-bone corsets to contort their bodies.   

A parish principally grows when people (who aren’t new-born babies of Christian families) join as church members. I’d say that evangelism seeks out apostate people, while missions seek out people who have never before experienced church or Christianity.[1]  But the two words: “evangelism” and “mission” are interchangeable synonyms where a church sought to grow in size.[2] The very first church that gathered was the apostate apostles who abandoned our Lord in his hour of suffering.

 In the holy bible’s chronology, we find missions declared between major eras such as that of: Abraham’s mission to be monotheistic; Moses’ mission to emancipate Israel and Christ’s ‘great commission’ to the whole world. [3] For the church to be good, like those creations in Genesis 1, they must not only fulfill their purpose to bear witness to Christ’s preserved truth, but also replicate themselves into future generations.  Thus God commissions our mission, so that as the Father sent Jesus, and risen Jesus sends disciples, we join God in God’s mission to the world.  

So, perhaps messy church is the church’s mission at the end of apostolic tradition’s era.

Why

Using microeconomics, if we view an Anglican church as a business, then its product is the liturgical event.  For a business to increase its customers, it would either sell different products or increase their product’s perceived value. Messy church poses as a second product. The two products don’t compete for parish resources, but they do compete for patrons since they target social groups.  

In macroeconomics, the church has formed its evangelism field into a horizontal market, which means they weekly compete with themselves, and in the long-run, the monopoly would provoke a boycott of the whole church.

Perhaps messy church and liturgical services need to be operated as a vertical market where both products are required by the same set of customers, and in this way the church provide liturgical and messy services as two complementary products.

If the implimenters of Messy church view the body corporate church as a family, then sociology may explain their motives.

We can look at the “Intergenerational stake hypothesis” in a thesis called “Generational difference and developmental stake,” where the younger generation rejects efforts by the elder generation to share and teach beliefs and behaviours.[4]   The elder generation hopes for intergenerational transmission of the behaviours and beliefs that they held dear, while the younger generation hopes to develop efficiently in order to enjoy profits in a capitalist world where the ‘invisible hand’ drives historic profits towards zero.  Intergenerational solidarity which is the unity between the elders and youth is the opposite of the intergenerational stake hypothesis. ‘Intergenerational solidarity’ is explored via six dimensions:[5]

1.       Construct 1: Frequency and variety of intergenerational interactions.

Messy church apparently runs monthly, while liturgical church gathers every Sunday. If a congregation attends both messy church and liturgical service events, then they would experience an increased variety of interactions than if attending only one.

2.       Construct 2: Sentiments and reciprocity of sentiments towards each other.

Unfortunately, congregants who boycott one event and attend the other will not have reciprocated sentiments towards those who attend both or the other one.

3.       Construct 3: Agreement of values and beliefs.

Unfortunately, liturgical service proponents hold that their theology is sourced in the liturgy. Some children gathered by their kin-keeper to messy church may solely enjoy fun meals.

4.       Construct 4: Equitable (reciprocal)  sharing of resources. 

Certainly messy church gives to its attendees.

5.       Construct 5: Normative (majority-wide) solidarity.

If congregants commit to both events then they score %100 in this measure of habitualness, but score %0 if not.

6.       Construct 6:   Structural (infrastructure-wise) solidarity.

Since one parish has one building to hold both ‘events,’ and one pool of talented priests, the structural solidarity is high, provided both events are attended.   

                                                                                                   

 Intergenerational Solidarity's six dimensions. 

It's miraculous coincidence that this secular american-snake sociologist would coin six 'dimensions' or axioms with which to gauge solidarity-relationship between older and younger generations. 

Six dimensions does describe the width and breadth of human accomplishment on planet earth, along with all futures of all possibilities. 

Axiom 1, frequency of interactions and the variety of interactions.

So , The purpose of the six measurements, spans far in time, and thus across multiple events and so even in a given singular 'arena'  (say an arena of family, or an arena of a club or church) we must have multiple events to measure Axiom 1. Axiom 1, is thus akin to the sixth dimension of multiple choices of sequentially stacked 5-dimensional futures. 
E.g: in a Family, the Family must interact multiple times, within a given space and time  , say on holiday or during a festive season, or during the week.  Ideally for solidarity's sake, the interactions should be higher in occurrences. So breakfast and meals could be spent together, as that increases the frequency of interactions. Doing something together is also included. 

Also the variety of interactions spent together should be varied, and not simply one or two routine interactions. Consider the situation of the family, it goes on holiday together, during the year. Or it travels together out of the home, or it participates in gardening together inside the home.   However the interactions are still measured by the other 5 intergenerational-solidarity dimensions also, so I can include as a test the interaction event of a family watching TV together.  

We can imagine from broken families , a family that doesn't spend time together, will feel estranged and even lonely in each other's company. 

Axiom 2. Sentiments and reciprocity of sentiments towards each other.

Now each interaction comprises two parties, the older and the younger. if the Younger or Older feel forced or obliged to participate, then the event's score is lower .
However the idea of human-sentiments spans across the life-time of each person, who may change their opinion about someone based on events or otherwise.  

It is a matter of instinctive emotions which are triggered by events and life in general,
and more importantly , it is a matter of the 'feelings' which each person/participant about the other person/participant. 

FEELINGS ARE HOW YOU INTERPRET AND REACT TO YOUR INSTINCTIVE EMOTIONS> Example:  When about to dive into the pool. You may be emotionally fearful of heights, but you feel brave. Or the plane door is open, and you may be emotionally fearful of heights, but you feel terrified. 

If the feelings or emotions are shared by both parties, then both parties are 'on the same wavelength.'
A wavelength may be love , joy peace, or worse anger fear or medially, accepting of situations. 

Imagine a Boxing match between parent and child, if the feelings and intents are mutual then we have a boxing match. If the feelings are not mutual and one is fighting and the other is not fighting, then we have a situation of abuse which requires police. 

Axiom 3. Agreement of Values and Beliefs. 

Can two people carry the same beliefs and get along well? yes.
Can two people carry different beliefs and get along well? yes. 

But can a child who holds no beliefs get along with an adult who holds many beliefs? not in today's society, the children are removed for schooling. 

Beliefs like laws, control behaviours, and as mentioned before in THIS BLOG and elsewhere, laws result in cohesive neighbourhoods.   But laws are only laws if they are shared. 

So community requires shared laws, shared values. 

In the case of Messy church, the elder generation simply loves the 2000 year old liturgical church style, and the younger generation are trained to mock the 1800s style of music and lack the insight about why the liturgical tradition is important. 

Axiom 4 Equitable (reciprocal ) sharing of resources

This is the measurement of how much money or time is spent helping one another, and how much money or time is received .  We can understand, with the concept of Jealousy, that having a low sense of jealousy or indebtedness, would result in free and liberally generous lives lived.

So Consider a Man with one wife, he spends %100 of time fixing the world around the wife,  and the wife spends %100 of time fixing the world around the husband.
Consider a man with two wives. The man spends %50 of time fixing the world around each wife. And the wives spend in total %200 of time, fixing world around the husband.  |
So Consider Abraham , Isaac and Jacob.
Success in life, a perfect life lived , is seen with Isaac, who had only one wife. He didn't struggle with his wife, his wife felt free to act on Husband's behalf,  and he didn't fight. Abraham and Jacob both fought wars, and had multiple wives, they grew very rich as individuals, but their children were left alone or entering into slavery of Egypt. 

So we see, that  equal giving and receiving must occur at the very least, by each participant in a relationship. 

Axiom 5 Normative Solidarity

This applies when counting the total number of interactions and and participants, it is really a bit like 3D volume , we look at each thing and all things . 

If the majority of interactions and participants share the Axioms 1, 2, 3, 4  affirmative values,  then solidarity is higher. Ideally %100 of interactions should be %100 affirmative in the other 'dimensions'. 

Axiom 6 shared structures or infrastructure. 

In the case of a club with two divisions, or a family with 2 generations, or a church with 2 styles of worship (as in Messy church 's case). 

The infrastructure should ideally be the same and shared rather than geographically isolated which would suggest two independent parties somehow linked by bureaucracy. 

Does the family live in the same place, or are they merely linked by government-sanctioned names.

Does the family meet together in the same place at the same time? or at least experience the same place at different times?  

Perhaps infrastructure is too constrictive a word, and structures are better such as the worship structure of liturgy. we can see a great commonality between Catholics, Orthodoxy, Lutherans and Anglicans, by the structure of worship liturgy.  

---

[1] David J. Bosch ed. Paul W. Chilcote and Laceye C. Warner.   “Evangelism: Theological Currents and Cross-Currents Today.” In The Study of Evangelism: Exploring a Missional Practice of the Church, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2008), 7.

[2] Ibid., 4.

[3]Walter Brueggemann  ed. Paul W. Chilcote and Laceye C. Warner “Evangelism and Discipleship: The God Who Calls, the God Who Sends.” In The Study of Evangelism: Exploring a Missional Practice of the Church. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2008), 224.

[4] Vern Bengston, Joseph Kuypers, Generational differences and the developmental stake , (CA, USA: Berkley, 1971),..

[5] Vern Bengston, Robert Roberts, Journal of Marriage and the Family 53 : Intergenerational Solidarity in Ageing Families: An Example of Formal Theory Construction ( CA, USA: National Council on Family Relations, 1991), Table 1.   http://www.suz.uzh.ch/dam/jcr:ffffffff-df42-7cac-0000-0000125afd0d/Bentson.pdf