Categories: uncategorized
Date: 10 June 2007 08:40:29
Segmentation in our churches, and elsewhere is becoming increasingly more common. The idea that you seek to meet the needs of people by providing something especially for a particular niche market is growing (youth congregations, senior alpha, lone parent groups, womens groups, etc, etc). I'm increasingly coming to the conclusion that on one hand that's great and really useful because it's providing user friendly safe spaces but on the other that it's a naff idea that is based upon certain dubious assumptions and leads to ghettoisation, segregation, exclusion, and a moving away from the whole thing church is meant to be about.
Let me explain where this contradiction comes from by taking a few examples from my own life:
I am a thirty something, female, divorced, lone parent (and that's just a selection of my social characteristics).
As a thirty something I sometimes find church not relevant to my generation and experience and more geared towards the 50+ age group. Therefore on one level I would really benefit from a congregation or group geared specificially towards my age group.
As a female I sometimes find that church is quite patriarchal and male centred in the way it operates and thinks. Having the chance to sit and have a space to look at stuff from a more female perspective may sometimes be useful.
As a divorced person I sometimes feel that I have not met the ideal and because I am not part of the norm in the middle some teaching in churches (particularly relating to relationships) can lack relevance to me. Therefore the chance to discuss the issues of losing and re-forming relationships could be useful to me, (although personally I can't think of anything more likely to make me want to run in the opposite direction very quickly).
As a lone parent again my experience is not that of the majority, who teaching has to relate to. So again it could be useful to be part of a group with other lone parents.
So these groups could be useful places to socialise, share experience and perhaps recieve targetted and relevant teaching which is not appropriate to be given elsewhere.
On the otherhand I only have a limited amount of time and a range of social characteristics (lots of which differ from the "typical" church goer who fits the profile that the church is geared up for - if that person actually exists). So with the segmented approach I would have to prioritise my social characteristics and pick and choose from the relevent activities accordingly, go mad trying to do everything and /or end up living in even more of a Christian bubble where there was no time to interact with people outside.
This approach is also based upon the idea that I would want to choose to own those social characteristics in a particular way, rather than saying yes this is makes up part of who I am but it's not who I am.
So what's the solution? Well, I would argue that the key is for us to be truly inclusive churches rejoicing in the rich mix of social characteristics that are blended together. They should be a hotch potch of things where everybody accepts there will be some bits which they will like and some bits they won't, and some bits which will be relevent and some bits which won't. They should be aimed towards the average, but with the recognition made that there will be people listening for whom the average doesn't apply.
Networking should be encouraged, so that rather than artificially created groups based around particular social characteristics natural friendships are built and opportunities to share over coffee happen because people choose to do this. This requires an awareness of peoples stories and the effort being made to introduce people to each other, not in a cheesy way, but in a "oh you might find it useful to chat to ..." way. It also requires a culture to be built up which does not focus on closed groups but rather open networks and wide friendship groups which are open to others joining. It requires us to have time to just "do coffee" without being tied into schedules of meetings and events. It requires us to go back to the idea of community rather than schedules and niche markets.
Just to clarify I am lucky enough to go to a church which engages in good practice and doesn't segment too much. I am aware though that this is a growing issue in our churches and society and so was just sounding off about it.