Sarx

The Praxis community meets on Saturday night: there is a huge potlock and, in the context of that Agape meal they celebrate something like the Eucharist recorded in the Didache. Unlike my past experiences with such meals the bread is not left on the table to be consumed with the meal: rather the members of Praxis gather it up and divide it among themselves. It is taken home for consumption during the week.

In the context of the meal the week’s Bible lessons are read. There is silence and meditation with each reading. It seems that some (most?) have read the readings before hand: everyone seems ready with some comment or question. The president of the assembly (who is not the founder or pastor of Praxis) simply facilitates the conversation. This conversation is the sermon. There is some disagreement in some places, there is much more agreement than not. I find out later that the children are having much the same discussion at “the kids’ table” in another room. There are hymns and psalms and prayers read at various times. I recognise some Orthodox customs such as facing east, mixed with Protestant/liberal customs (hands raised in the “orans” position by the laity). Some people cross themselves (and it’s about 50/50 left to right or right to left) while some do not. This meeting rotates from house to house each week - skipping only those members who don’t have enough room for everyrone to fit in one room. The host or hostess is, generally, the president of the Assembly.

Sunday morning Praxis meets at a local hall, rented from a food co-op. In the summer they may meet in an open field. There is much praise and worship music. The same Bible readings are read and the pastor gives a sermon. Surprisingly it seems more a recounting of the conversation from last night. She is not a teacher so much as a Rabbi recounting the assembly’s midrash. The sermon/commentary on the scripture is continued with feedback from the community. After the sermon there is more worshp music, more prayers. There are a lot more people here, guests, visitors, members who could not come last night or did not want to come. Clearly it was not a members-only function or secret in any way (see the content of this post!) But this one is publicised, posted on calendars. After the sermon there are more prayers, and there is more food: another pot luck, with a lot of last night’s leftovers.

The Praxis community has no permanent building. They meet here on Sunday morning and in a members house on Saturday night. During the week there are business meetings, small group meetings, youth group outings, etc. All of these happen in spaces offered for the purpose (a member’s basement or dining table) or else borrowed spaces (the Dripolator coffee shop on Biltmore, the meeting room at the food coop, the library). Originally the founder hosted a Bible study in her house every Wednesday, but that eventually started to feel like her time preaching… and that was discontinued.

They do have Bible study. The pastor teaches one (”Bible as English Literature”) as do several other members of the community. There are book discussion groups on non-Bible stuff as well. But they all function the same way, membership offering what they know. Generally these discussions serve as the “cell groups” of the Church. It’s possible to go to one (or two!) a night, although most folks seem to stay within one and not travel around group to group. In these small groups - just as they did on Saturday night - the entire community uses what might be recognised as the “African Bible Study” method. Sunday, however, the pastor uses a more traditional homiletic style mixed with the feedback and corrections she receives from the membership.

There are no full-community midweek services - the full community only gathers on Satuday and Sunday. This goes also for Christmas and other such holidays. If a family wishes to celebrate some midweek feast (if they wish to do a service for, say, St Patrick’s day or Epiphany) they simply invite the community to come for dinner: generally with an RSVP. Evidently on Christmas and other such “big” holidays, the families “have church” in their homes, sometimes meeting in larger groups. Communion is served from the materials reserved from Saturday night. I found this strange, especially with their lack of ordinations and universal lay-priesthood, that they did not just do a new communion service whenever they wanted one. I was told that the Communion service is what happens on Saturday night. The entire community is there: any such midweek event (some families do one every night at dinner!) was seen as an extension of the community’s gathering. Each house is a church, or chapel if you will, that functions as an extension of the Church gathering on Saturday/Sunday.

Although I did not get any resources to explore, I’m told that there are other such communities in other cities. Sometimes they will gather for huge meals - what we Americans will rightly recognise as cookouts! Again, the community gathers and has an Agape+Communion. I pictured the Greek Pascha with the community lambs roasting on spits or larger Jewish Passover celebrations.

The pastor was reserved about doctrine. She said they practised Believer baptism but, following the more liberal Protestants they didn’t require it. She was clear, however, that some families require it of their members. The same was true of other such things. Communion was not taken as the same thing by anyone in the community: is it the literal body of Jesus? is it only symbolic? She said she had her personal point of view on the matter but it was not the official view of Praxis. Everyone agreed it was important and, for the sake of not making anyone stumble, everyone agreed to use the same liturgy and treat the elements with the same respect.

I asked her about moral positions and she said that while Praxis was self-defined as a more “progressive” community there were also members who would reject that label for themselves. What do you do, I asked, when the weekly host for Saturday is a gay couple (for I knew of gay people in Praxis) and one doesn’t want “those kinds of people” in the Church? She said she imagined it might happen sooner or later, but “we’ve all agreed that we can pray the same prayers together”. So far no one that she knew of had stayed away on purpose on a Saturday Night because they didn’t like the host (for this or some other reason). This may be a product of the fact that it is so small a community within the small city of Asheville. I can imagine in a larger place where more people might come that such might get rather hairy after a while. In fact, she told me, no. In larger cities the size restrictions of members’ homes caused the communities to be smaller. They tend to self-select into networks of “their own kind” and pastors had to work hard at maintaining diversity. She imagined that, eventually, “parishes” might need to be geographically defined, at least to some degree, so as to have some way to avoid homogeneity this was not a problem here in Asheville as there were many other churches - including other emergent bodies - that one was free to join.

How did she become the pastor? Having been a member of Praxis in NYC, she moved here. There was no Praxis here. She started one: no ordination or schooling beyond what she had for her own job at the university (ok, that was a PhD, but in English Lit: Chaucer to be exact). Everyone had the same resources: Bible readings came from the RC lectionary (!!) as did the Psalms, etc. For music they used Taize and what ever else they could find. (I offered to let her make Xeroxes of my Music For Liturgy from St Greogry of Nyssa Church.)

I found them by through an invite to a wedding at work. It was held during one of the weekly group events. Working on Third Shift an invitation to a wedding at 6:30 PM on a Wednesday is a blessing! In the context of a meal the bride and groom were joined, hand in hand. The families sat together, everyone prayed and then the community had communion from the families’ “reserved sacrament”. The couple were sent away, after dinner, to their own apartment with their own box of the Holy Mysteries. It was the strangest wedding - and one of the most joyful - I’d ever seen. The pastor told me that night that sometimes they have to have more traditional ones - larger groups of people, a church (or rented hall) and playing “Here Comes the Bride” etc. But most of the members preferred these smaller, community events. In other places where the lack of ordination for Praxis pastors caused a problem with state marriage requirements, the couples got married at City Hall prior to coming to such a dinner in the church community. These civil weddings sometimes turned into huge deals as parents tried to run the show.

The wedded couple, friends of mine, told me that all members are encouraged to give ten percent of their money and time to charity - preferably in direct action. It didn’t matter what sort of charity or action was involved. Some might volunteer at the library, some might volunteer at a homeless shelter. Some gave to charities they could call “Christian” and some gave their money directly to poor people. The pastor was not paid for pastoring. She taught English Lit and had a pension, etc, through them. Eventually she expected to longer be the pastor - although she would still be a member.

I asked about accountability. She had a ready answer: all the groups were in contact with each other via email and the internet. All pastors were accountable to each other as well as to their own local groups. Each group was run by an assembly of all the adult members and while the pastor served (usually for 2 years) at their pleasure, she could be removed by a simple vote and replaced by an election - although she could run (again) in such an election. Their association with other groups was purely volitional. The organisation was not yet large enough to warrant “national meetings” in real life, but such were possible. Often when the groups visited each other (for their Summer BBQs!) there would be friction and “iron sharpens iron”, she said.

Did she have any pastoral duties, beyond preaching on Sunday? Well the membership deferred to her on certain matters that were seen to be her strong suits: she had been in such a church before so, it was assumed, she knew how things were “supposed” to run. But there were members of the community who were way more skilled at things like counselling or leading singing. She felt comfortable creating a “Digest” of the Saturday conversation as the sermon on Sunday. She knew not many others felt comfortable with that process yet. Eventually she imagined that they might move beyond her preaching all the time - even on Sundays. She saw the purpose of Praxis as celebrating all the skills of all the members - all as gifts given to the body of Christ.

Personally, I would have liked more robes and candles. But I’m a church geek. One of the cool things about St Gregory of Nyssa Church was the tie-dye. I know that drove some people up the wall! But I’d have at least dressed the president of each Assembly (including the Pastor on Sunday AM) in more colourful robes and stoles. You may be only presiding over an Agape Meal, but it’s still intended to be fun! Festive! I’d also like to teach them how to do the “Gospel Procession”. Especially for their Sunday morning service I think something modelled on Simchat Torah might make it all that more festive. This especially since the Sunday AM service seems to be sort of a synagogue service anyway. They could also have used some incense in a stationary burner. But then again, I’m a geek about these things. If X works, why not X to the 17th power?