Using Both Wheels
September 24th, 2009 Posted in writingAccording to an article in this week’s New York Times Magazine, more people in the United States are praying today but fewer are going to church. Apparently, churchgoing doesn’t necessarily lead to prayer and prayer doesn’t necessarily lead to communal worship.
But shouldn’t there be a connection between them? If it’s the case that we are built to share our lives in community (Aristotle’s view) then isn’t faith meant to be lived out in a community, too?
The Second Vatican Council said as much when it taught that God wants to make people holy and save them “not merely as individuals, without bond or link between them, but by making them into a single people, a people which acknowledges Him in truth and serves Him in holiness.”
If we can make that connection, then, it can be like riding a bicycle with both wheels working instead of just one, and when they’re both working well, we’re a lot more likely to get somewhere.
One Response to “Using Both Wheels”
By Pat Ostrander on Oct 13, 2009
It would be interesting to me to know if more people are getting involved in “small ‘church’ communities,” in conjunction with the increase in prayer. Are people eschewing “parishes” and the church building, in favor of small group faith-sharing? Is it a reaction against the institutional “church,” with the beneficiary being these smaller, more intimate gatherings of community. If I remember correctly, while “church-going” has been on the decline, there has been a definite increase in small church communities, which actually might prove that prayer and community ARE tightly linked, and maybe we need to focus on drawing in, supporting and integrating those more informal communities.