Churches — Just Mechanisms for Community?

Supply preacher and freelance writer Jeff Gill had this to say last week, comparing shifts in public opinion about mainline churches and newspapers:

*  *  *  The core function of communicating to and between people is still
vital and necessary, but when the mechanism for doing it breaks down,
folk will find one that works, no matter what it looks like.

There is
no loyalty to the mechanism, not because loyalties changed, but because
they were never loyal to the mechanism in the first place. Their
connection is to the community that’s created, and the sentiments about
the delivery mechanism were no deeper than, well, sentiment.

This ties both newspapers and oldstyle programmatic, board/committee
driven churches together . . . .  It’s not that
they don’t "like" us or stopped "liking" us: they never "liked" us,
they liked and even love the community we helped to deliver and
maintain. Stop doing that, and they move to the light and warmth of
company and community somewhere else.

(Emphasis and extra paragraphing added; hat tip to TitusOneNine.)

This is one you really ought to read in its entirety.