Several years ago, when I was writing my thesis for my Master of Ministry degree, the subject that I chose was The Church is like a Shopping Mall. The idea was that I was trying to find a suitable metaphor to describe the North American church. Every time I go to visit Asia, I see again how different we are from the Eastern way of thinking. I guess there is both good and bad in our differences--kind of like our divergent family cultures.
One of those differences is The Eastern view of life as being group (family, tribe, or neighbourhood) orientated compared to our Western value of individualisation and independance. It affects our marriages, our families, churches and communities. The Shopping Mall concept is a picture of a family going to the Mall. They arrive at 10 AM, discuss their plans at the door and then divide up. Mom goes to the Department store to fill her list of to dos, daughter heads to the GAP to look at jeans, son hits the Video arcade and dad looks for the electronics store ;;;;; (actually I usually head for the food fair to find a quiet spot to read and drink a coffee)
On Thursday evening I was at the Church and remembered my paper that I'd written. I was there to teach my life Purpose class with an alert group of young adults, Our Computer Team were strategizing how to improve communications in another spot, the Grief group were in the Prayer room working through their challenges; there was a group meeting in the sanctuary learning some concepts of prayer as well as practising what they were teaching, the 12 step recovery groups were meeting downstairs and the Marriage course was going on in the other campus. It seems like every evening there is a full parking lot as different needs are being met in different ways. I'm not sure that I like this individuality as much as the more Jewish concept of family, but we have to meet our society where we are. That's the approach that Jesus took.
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