[Parish] BBQ and A Long Email

[Malcolm Young]

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

I wanted to remind you that Wednesday night (August 26) we'll be  
having another summer BBQ from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m. (perhaps the last of  
the year unless someone new volunteers to organize another one).  It  
will be a delightful evening on the lower lawn and I really hope that  
you will be able to join us.

Most of you have heard about The Third Place.  Started by some  
passionate Christ Church faithful, it is a series of programs and  
ways of supporting families in our neighborhood through speakers,  
panels, a parenting library and fellowship.  It is a very successful  
ministry that reaches out to people who really need help.  I am  
enclosing an article that uses the language of "The Third place" to  
describe how Jewish synagogues might come to terms with recent social  
changes. I think it might be helpful for us as we embark on a  
planning process that will help direct how we use our energies in the  
future.  It is a lot to read, but it may help you both to understand  
how society is changing and how you will respond to it in your future  
ministries.

Anyway, I am praying for you tonight as I hear the crickets outside  
my window.  God is blessing us.  We are becoming Jesus' disciples in  
great company with each other.

Love,

Malcolm


PS:  Last week in my email I mentioned that we would be experimenting  
with a sermon discussion last Sunday.  We had this discussion at the  
8:00 a.m. service and all of us there agreed that it wouldn't be very  
effective at the 10:00 a.m. service (we thought that it would leave  
too many voices out).  I hope that you 10:00 a.m. people don't feel  
that you missed too much.  If you came up with some thoughts about  
Eucharist that you can share, I'd like to hear them...



The Third Place



by Hayim Herring

We live in a time of tremendous societal upheaval. While history is  
often cyclical, showing both change and continuity, there are times  
when change is so systemic and deep that we enter a fundamentally new  
era. These changes are of such profound magnitude that they are  
redefining how life is lived in many areas we assumed were unyielding  
givens. In broad terms, we might think about boundary shifting,  
permeability, and cross-religious and cultural appropriation as the  
motifs that characterize this age. Culture, economics, history,  
biology, technology—all areas of life are up for reassessment or  
revision because of these forces. Whether we in the Jewish community  
view our current era as essentially more of the same or fundamentally  
different is not a moot issue. Rather, it influences whether we apply  
current models of thinking about all aspects of our world or if we  
need different ones.

For shorthand, I refer to our contemporary era as the Age of Four  
A's: anything, anyone, anytime, anywhere. It is in this crucible that  
Jewish life is being recast today. This shorthand description of our  
times captures well-described attributes of daily life, if not  
precisely for boomers, then increasingly so for Gen Xers and  
Millennials:

Anything (almost)—products or services—can be modified, or if  
nonexistent, can be created with relative ease.

Anyone, regardless of credentials or pedigree, can be his or her own  
expert in many fields that were typically reserved for specialists  
(for example, we can be our own stock brokers, financial planners,  
publishing houses, filmmakers, business consultants, and educators).

Anytime, we increasingly demand that goods and services be available  
to us at our convenience.

Anywhere, in real time or virtually, at home or abroad, we can  
experience different cultures on a global scale.

The good news is that the age of anything, anyone, anytime, anywhere  
raises profound issues of meaning, making existential questions about  
life more insistent:

If I live in an age when I can get whatever I want, how do I decide  
what is ultimately most important?
If I have unlimited control over my life, how do I exercise it wisely?
If I can choose to be a part of any community, which one is most  
desirable for me to join?
If I live in a world that is always "on," how can I ensure that I  
find ways to disconnect so that I do not lose my soul?
If I live in an age of unlimited power, how do I remain humble, not  
exploit others, and work to ensure that all people are treated with  
basic human dignity?
If I live in a world where I can keep taking, do I have a  
responsibility to give something back?

These big questions—which most people eventually have to face—are  
exciting for those who believe that the religious core of Judaism  
provides an invaluable resource for grappling with them. While  
individuals have maximized their ability to choose, they often have  
doubts about their ability to choose wisely. They are therefore open  
to seeking guidance from religious traditions of all kinds, provided  
that they do not lose control over how they live their lives. In this  
environment, religion loses its ability to coerce (a good thing) but  
gains an opportunity to influence (also a good thing)—if it is relevant.
By unshackling synagogues from leftover views about how they do their  
work, by creating stronger points of connection between Jewish values  
and the real life concerns of individuals, and by reimagining the  
synagogue as a venue where people are empowered to find and create  
community on their terms, synagogues may become places of greater  
vision, inspiration, and relevance.

Urban sociology literature has a concept called the "third place," as  
distinct from the first place (home) and the second place (work).  
According to sociologist Ray Oldenberg, third places "host the  
regular, voluntary, informal, and happily anticipated gatherings of  
individuals beyond the realms of home and work." Oldenburg suggests  
that main streets, coffeehouses, and other third places are the heart  
of a community's social vitality and the foundation of a functioning  
democracy. They promote social equality by leveling the status of  
guests, creating habits of public association, and offering  
psychological support to individuals and communities.

More simply conceived, the third place is the informal public space  
between home and work that connects people to each other, allows them  
to recharge, pause, and then reengage the world. They are places in  
which participants feel strong, positive emotional ties because they  
are creating rewarding, meaningful social experiences and a warm  
community environment. That is why successful third places do not  
have to engage in gimmicks to stimulate participation; they are  
places that individuals voluntarily choose to visit.

Starbucks is an example of a highly successful corporation that  
recognized the vacuum of third places in American culture. They  
modeled their coffeehouses after the traditional European coffee shop  
as a third place between home and office, one that leveled class and  
economic differences. Though Starbucks has lost some of its luster,  
initially consumers perceived the third place nature of Starbucks,  
viewing it as a place for individuals to relax between a hectic work  
schedule and a frenzied home life and to connect with people who  
sought these same goals. Starbucks did not invent coffee, but  
reinvented the experience of drinking coffee by providing relaxation,  
wisdom in a cup, and culture.

They also joined the effort to provide fair trade coffee (making a  
values statement about the environment), and they invested heavily in  
training and benefits for their employees (making a values statement  
that they care most about the people who create the experience for  
customers). Whoever thought a venue that sells a stimulant at a price  
few could not long ago imagine as sustainable could come to symbolize  
relaxation?* As the Starbucks experience shows, even a for-profit  
corporation can leverage a social vacuum and become relevant by  
selling not just products and services, but also values and meaning.

The synagogue has a history that is more than two thousand years old— 
a rather impressive track record for an institution! However, its  
origins are also sources of its current weakness. As a venue, it  
derives some of its functions and inspiration from the Second Temple  
period. On a local level, the synagogue was supposed to replicate  
some of those functions (a centralized location with prayer and study  
as replacements for sacrifice; a place to which people were supposed  
to show lifetime allegiance through ongoing financial contributions  
and visits, supporting a greater religious and national cause,  
sustained by a class of professionals that attended to its ongoing  
business). The values of this venue, which still express themselves  
in today's synagogues, are in conflict with the notion of third  
places in that third places are spaces where individuals can find  
community on their terms and receive individual benefits for their  
participation. A new mental map of the synagogue as a third place  
would be much more in tune with the age of anything, anyone, anytime,  
anywhere in which individuals focus on personal meaning, autonomy,  
and a search for community on personal terms.

If synagogues can reconceptualize their venue as a third place, they  
can feel more like a welcoming home in all aspects of their  
operations. This shift in thinking could cause profound changes in  
how synagogues relate to people on an individual level, how they  
approach the diversity of today's Jewish community, and how they seek  
to relate to their broader environment.

By understanding what people seek today that can help them navigate  
work and home; by developing leaders who use the language of Jewish  
values to speak in ways that inspire and engage them; by changing the  
organizational thinking of synagogues so that they can develop into a  
third place—we can turn more synagogues into venues of relevance,  
inspiration, and Jewish character formation.

*Observations made at a presentation by former Starbucks chief  
marketing officer, Scott Bedbury, Nov. 14, 2006, in Chicago,  
sponsored by BMO Capital Markets.