Was involved in not wholly convincing discussion yesterday about " new patterns" of parish and local church organisation. The basic premise of the main contributer was that the mega-churches had simply learnt the lesson from supermarkets and that people want their faith commitment to be offered in similar ways - ie people have no local commitment and will travel to where they find what they want and therefore the days of the local parish church were past.
The analogy is however quite instructive:
a. Supermarkets /Mega-churches tend to draw the more mobile (and wealthy and educated?) from their local setting, and therefore leave the local (church/cornershop) struggling.
b. People are attracted by supermarkets/megachurches because they offer a "whole life" package - get everything you need in one place - choice of worship styles, fellowship, youth and childrens groups etc in the case of mega-churches.
But I suggested supermarkets don't offer everything and brand loyalty is noteably fickle! Are local shops (local churches?) are fighting back by offering real choice, quality, specialism, personal service, and not least eco-convenience.
I also had the instinctive question about whether I would buy something really special and important at a supermarket - would you buy a wedding ring at your local Tesco if it was offered?
As corner-shops make a comeback, are we moving into the time of local church?
Another facet of this is described on Gadgetvicar's blog on 23 November - church "loyalty cards" for tithers, volunteers and new visitors. http://www.gadgetvicar.typepad.com/
Posted by: Rachel HS | 23 November 2006 at 22:38