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Join Interfaith to hear Rev. Steve discuss Meeting People Where They Are and Radical Hospitality!

Mon, April 19th, 2021
6:00 pm
- 8:00 pm

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Come join an interfaith discussion on the concepts of Field Preaching and Radical Hospitality, facilitated by the experienced Pastor Steve, who started a worship community in a bar and continues this practice in the Berkshires!

Join us April 19th from 6 pm – 7:30 pm on Zoom:

https://williams.zoom.us/j/97661478741?pwd=R0FqOHR2YU1JY0UwVU44L2VYOC9LQT09

Meeting ID: 976 6147 8741 Passcode: 315302

Pastor Steve Dale:

 

“Once upon a time, faith was an important part of most families’ weeks. Worship was a place to encounter the divine, reflect on the week’s ending, and “recharge” for the coming week. Active participation in worship communities was 70% or higher from the 1930s through the 1970s. By 1990, it had dropped to 68%.

 

By 2019, it was under 50%.

 

While previous generations have had some broad exposure to faith, a large percentage of GenZ has had no exposure to faith or faith traditions at all, coming of age in families whose parents, and grandparents, have had declining relationships with religion in each successive generation.

 

It is no longer viable to sit in churches, or synagogues, or mosques and wait for new people to come in and fill the seats.

 

They. Aren’t. Coming.

 

And while those of us engaged in church work might lament the lack of shiny objects in the collection plates, there’s a far more serious issue here: increasingly, young women and men are not engaging in relationship with God.

 

I had the opportunity to try to start a church in Bennington, VT. Now, Bennington is the least religious part of the least religious state in the country, and it already has 24 Christian churches. This wasn’t a high-percentage project. Recognizing the likely futility of yet another Sunday morning worship experience among so many extant choices, I opted to start a worship community that met in a place where I could encounter people who were not, generally, engaged in a relationship with God.

 

I started a worship community.

 

In a bar.

 

Bennington AfterDark was an interesting experiment in many ways, but the most significant was what John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, would have called “field preaching.” Or, meeting people where they are.

AfterDark was an experiment in radical hospitality: going outside of our comfort zones to seek out people who had no relationship with faith, not to force faith on them, but to share faith with them, through honest conversation, compassionate support, intentional presence, and authenticity of word and action.

Come join me as we talk about what it means for us to reach outside our comfort zones to be with people where they are.”

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