At a recent Pink House meeting, we read an article about paradigm shifts for the Church. One was encouraging pastors to see their churches as parishes rather than congregations.
A congregation is everyone that shows up in the pews on Sunday: those who actually congregate, or gather. This is who most pastors probably think of when they think about their church. And it makes sense.
A parish is like a district. We have school districts and the kids in a given district go to its schools. We have congressional districts and the people in a given district vote for specific elected officials. The parish come from old French Catholocism mostly. In old times, everyone was expected to go to church and there was maybe one church in each small village. so the priest viewed his whole community as his church. he would go to people's homes to visit them when they were sick, etc.
What would it look like for not just our pastors, but our believing congregation to view our community as our parish? What would it look like for us to care for the people in our community in that way?
In many larger towns and cities across the U.S., many members of the congregation do not live near the church building. For example, most of the congregants at a church in my neighborhood do not live here. Most of them do not fit the socio-economic status of this neighborhood. Most are middle class and white. Some are very wealthy. Why is this and how did it come to be a pattern across the U.S.? "White Flight" is what some people call it. The reason is actually very complex in Fresno. But to simplify the American phenomenon, people of color started moving in to inner-city neighborhoods and white people started moving out to the suburbs. When they left, they did not always change churches. So what you see a lot is the complete opposite of a parish.
