Located in the heart of Central Indiana in Indianapolis, The Garden’s mission is simple: sharing in the journey of spiritual exploration through creativity, compassion and care. Planted in 1995, it became independent from its parent organization, St. Luke’s UMC, in 2016, and is pastored by Rev. Dr. Carolyn Scanlan-Holmes. Officially chartered in June 2017, The Garden is now The Garden Community Church. This post was authored by Betty Brandt, Program Director.
Navigating building the bonds of community, especially when a congregation or faith space may include multiple groups with different backgrounds, can be difficult. In this fantastic guest blog, Betty Brandt, Program Director for the congregation, details the impact of a workshop by Charles Vogl that helped guide the work of the congregation’s Community Building Team.
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Imagine a traditional brick church with columns and a steeple. Imagine that this church is nestled into one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Indianapolis. Imagine that two congregations share this church. One is the First Congregational Church who owns the building and has been worshipping there since 1957. The other is a 30-year-old United Methodist congregation who has never owned a building and pays rent. Imagine that these two congregations have embarked on a journey to build community internally and then extend that community to the surrounding neighborhood. Finally, imagine that the Center for Congregation offers The Art of Community Workshop featuring Charles Vogl.
The team working on building community decided to experience the Charles Vogl workshop “in community”, rather than each person logging in individually at home. Both a noon and an evening session were offered. Each had a meal thirty minutes before the workshop began for people to meet each other and share in conversation. A total of twenty-seven people from both congregations participated in the two sessions. They had their own break-out sessions separate from the on-line folks. Each of the triads for the breakouts consisted of people from both congregations. All of the participants reported that they learned valuable skills that they could put into practice immediately.
The workshops were followed up with an opportunity to hear the Garden’s Senior Pastor, Rev. Dr Carolyn Scanlan-Holmes, who had attended both workshop sessions, preach on “The Art of Community.” She used stories from Vogl’s book to introduce his basic definition of community: a group of people with a common purpose who share mutual concern for one another. The volunteer who prayed that morning, shared a personal story about how the Garden Community had surrounded her with love & action after a recent automobile accident. It was the perfect illustration of Vogl’s definition.
In order to dig deeper into Vogl’s ideas, the class following the service viewed “Why Crowds Do Not Create Real Community,” an 11-minute video featuring a Charles Vogl interview on the Center for Congregations’ podcast. Some of the people in class had attended the workshop and others were new to Vogl’s ideas. Everyone received a handout with basic information from “The Art of Community.”
The Community Building Team then invited both congregations to a Wednesday evening catered dinner. The purpose was to give both congregations an opportunity to share a meal and get to know each other. Twenty-two people from each congregation attended. Conversation prompts were provided for folks to get beyond “data collection.” There was lots of energy and laughter in the room. Hopefully people came away knowing more names and caring about the well-being of others.
The Garden and First Congregational Churches are grateful to the Center for Congregations for introducing us to the work of Charles Vogl. His ideas will inform the programs we design and the way we build community both internally and externally.
