Spirituality of Journey vs. Place
Gregg’s Reflection
Since my early adult years, I’ve been on a journey to find significance, to figure out who I was, and why I was here. I found myself seeking to find God. I did not grow up going to church, and in my early adult years, I could not see Christ for the Christians. I saw people get dressed up and go to church on Sunday, but could not see changes in their lives as a result of their church-going. I found people in church to hold the same beliefs, to pursue wealth and material goods in the same way as the unchurched people around them. I could not see witness of life-changing faith in their example. So, I rejected church for years.
God is in the Building. People acted as if God was in the sanctuary on Sunday morning, but He never seemed to leave the building. It seemed to me that to be a good Christian meant to dress up and go to church on Sunday, to make a donation, and to hang around with church friends. Dealing with social justice or the inequities of our system did not seem to be on the radar screen for many church-going folk I knew, growing up in the Bible Belt of the South after World War II. Neither did personal evangelism or witnessing even to friends and family.
So, I studied other pathways to God. I began with Native American belief systems, progressed through a look at various Eastern religions, even studied the Koran seeking truth. I found the Bible nearly impenetrable back then, so did not spend much time there.
Upon coming to Christ through the life and ministry of a faithful follower, Pr. Vernon Luckey, I entered into Christian community. Yet, for years I still felt the outcast, wandering through the halls of the American Protestant Church, wondering why my churched friends did not care more for my unchurched friends. I yearned for so much more than my fellow pew-sitters. I wanted to experience the life I heard about in the time of Acts. I wondered why people did not seem to really believe Jesus’ promises of power and kingdom flowing through his disciples. I did not even know what a disciple was, and no one I knew seemed to keen on finding out.
Robert Wuthnow’s book, After Heaven: Spirituality in America Since the 1950s, introduced to me the twin concepts of Spirituality of Place, and Spirituality of Journey. Wuthnow demonstrates an oscillation, as the people of God have moved from the notion of Spirituality of Journey to Spirituality of Place ever since the Exodus.
When Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt, they entered into a 40-year spiritual journey, seeking the promised land. Once they arrived in Israel, they built the Temple. They then moved to a Spirituality of Place, with the focus on God’s presence in the temple. When the temple was destroyed and the people went into exile, they were once again a Journey people.
Then they rebuilt the temple, then it was destroyed again. Back and forth they went along this continuum. Wuthnow says this trend continued right up into present time.
He brings us to the present by saying that for the last 50 years of the twentieth century, the American church has practiced Spirituality of Place. All of the church building since World War II has brought an emphasis on church as building, and the implication that God was in the building.
Postmoderns are a Journey People. Wuthnow concludes that the postmodern generation in this country has embraced the idea of Spirituality as Journey. This is why the attractional model of church is struggling.
The oldest Gen Y’ers turned 40 in 2020. They are done with school, they are marrying and starting families, but are not coming to church. I’ve read that up to 40% of people under 40 have no church background. So, these people are not coming back to church, they’ve never been there.
I’ve come to believe that God planted me as a Journey person a generation ahead. I’ve struggled my whole life to understand how the modern church matches up with the discipleship communities I read about in Acts and Paul’s letters.
Shifting Paradigms from Place to Journey. As we brought a class of younger Lutheran pastors together in a three-year learning journey, a major emphasis in the first year was helping their congregations understand the idea of spiritual journey. It was a completely foreign concept for most of their people. Until you get the idea of Spiritual Journey, it is hard to wrap your mind around creating a pathway in the congregation towards spiritual maturity.
Pastors, if you want to begin transformation towards authentic discipleship community, I suggest you consider planting this important concept in your leadership and your congregation. You will miss the great majority of the postmodern generation if you allow the idea of Spirituality of Place to continue to hold sway in your church. May the Spirit move you and your people to a Journey to deeper spirituality and maturity as a Christ-Followers.
Journaling Prompts
Brian McLaren taught us in the Living School about Indoor Theology versus Wild Theology. Has your spiritual journey primarily unfolded inside a church? Most of Jesus’ parables are nature references. How do you experience God beyond a church setting? What does your Spiritual Journey look like?
Scripture
When Pharaoh’s horses, chariots and horsemen went into the sea, the Lord brought the waters of the sea back over them, but the Israelites walked through the sea on dry ground.
Exodus 15:19 Israelites spend 40 years in the Wilderness: Journey
I intend, therefore, to build a temple for the Name of the Lord my God, as the Lord told my father David, when he said, ‘Your son whom I will put on the throne in your place will build the temple for my Name.’
1 Kings 5:5 Solomon Builds a Temple: Place
Nebuzaradan the commander of the guard carried into exile the people who remained in the city, along with the rest of the populace.
2 Kings 25:11 Israelites go into exile: Journey, temple is destroyed
This is what Cyrus king of Persia says: The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has appointed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah. Any of his people among you may go up to Jerusalem in Judah and build the temple of the Lord, the God of Israel, the God who is in Jerusalem, and may their God be with them.
Ezra1:2-3
“We are the servants of the God of heaven and earth, and we are rebuilding the temple that was built many years ago, one that a great king of Israel built and finished.
Extra 5:11 Israelites return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple: Place
Ancient Writing
Mankind only exiles the one whose large spirit rebels against injustice and tyranny. He who does not prefer exile to servility is not free in the true and necessary sense of freedom.
Modern Writing
Only the misfortune of exile can provide the in-depth understanding and the overview into the realities of the world.
If there is anything good about exile, it is that it teaches one humility. It accelerates one’s drift into isolation, an absolute perspective. Into the condition at which all one is left with is oneself and one’s language, with nobody or nothing in between. Exile brings you overnight where it would normally take a lifetime to go.
Exile (being where we don't want to be with people we don't want to be with) forces a decision: Will I focus my attention on what is wrong with the world and feel sorry for myself? Or will I focus my energies on how I can live at my best in this place I find myself?...'I will do my best with what is here.'
Eugene H. Peterson. While in exile in Babylon, God instructed his people to pray for the good of the city.
What we lose in our great human exodus from the land is a rooted sense, as deep and intangible as religious faith, of why we need to hold on to the wild and beautiful places that once surrounded us.
Exile is strangely compelling to think about but terrible to experience. It is the unhealable rift forced between a human being and a native place, between the self and its true home: its essential sadness can never be surmounted. And while it is true that literature and history contain heroic, romantic, glorious, even triumphant episodes in an exile’s life, these are no more than efforts meant to overcome the crippling sorrow of estrangement.”
Edward W. Said, Reflections on Exile and Other Essays
Exile is a dream of a glorious return. Exile is a vision of revolution: Elba, not St Helena. It is an endless paradox: looking forward by always looking back. The exile is a ball hurled high into the air. ”
Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses