Copyright: © 2002 Paul F. Bosch.
This document may be freely reproduced for non-commercial purposes with credit to the author and mention of the Lift Up Your Hearts web site http://www.worship.ca/ as the source.

In the late '60's (1968-1969) I received a Danforth Campus Ministry Grant that took me and my family to Europe for a year. For the first seven and a half months I studied at the Graduate School of Ecumenical Studies at the Ecumenical Institute of the World Council of Churches at Bossey, Switzerland. And for the next three and a half months, thanks to connections at Geneva's Lutheran World Federation, I served a kind of "house-church" in Leeds, Yorkshire, England, where the parish was made up largely of Scandinavian refugees from World War 2 who had fled to England, married English spouses, and were rearing English families, but who still thought of themselves as Lutheran.

Down the street from our little apartment-and-worship space in our working-class neighbourhood was the local Anglican parish; every morning we could watch the parish priest walk to his church building, dressed in his cassock. On several occasions we attended worship there. It was everything a "catholic" parish ought to be: vibrant worship, Gospel-centred preaching, and a congregation of rich and poor, old and young, brown faces and white. We got to know the priest, and it became clear to us, in conversation, that he regarded our little ethnic Lutheran congregation as part of his flock, part of his responsibility.

At first that thought annoyed me; it sounded presumptuous and paternalistic. We were Lutherans, after all, not Anglicans. But it became clear soon enough, in conversation, that he regarded not only the Lutherans within his parish as part of his responsibility, but also the Pakistani Muslims down the street, the unchurched --presumably also the atheists and the visitors. He apparently had a sense of the geographic boundaries of his parish, and every human being within those boundaries was part of his, and his parish's, responsibility.

I got to liking the idea, and in due course embracing it with enthusiasm --taking comfort from it, even. Here was a man, and a group of people, dedicated to their own neighbourhood, to all the people there, and to all the problems of that place --to whether, for example, the garbage on those streets got collected. What a marvellous witness, I came to believe.

The whole experience converted me enthusiastically to another of my (you may say) lost causes: the concept of the geographic parish. It convinced me that what we have in North American church life are not truly parishes at all, but commuter clubs, with "parishioners" (read "club members") driving past six other churches to attend the church of their choice, for its preaching, for its youth ministry, for its music program, for its whatever.

Now that ain't the "catholic" church, I have come to believe. In contrast, that Anglican parish on Roundhay Road in Leeds, UK, is. I'm straying from my assigned responsibility (liturgy and worship) in these pages, I realise, but it's become a favourite crusade of mine, and the issue does indeed press upon worship and liturgy, ultimately.

And so I ask: Is there any way for North American Lutherans (North American Christians!) to recapture that sense of geography that came so naturally to that Anglican parish in Leeds? There's certainly no way you can prevent people from driving across three counties to search out your specific parish: frankly, it's kind of flattering when they do. But in preaching and teaching and general assumptions about ministry and mission, can you make it clear that your allegiance, your commitment, your devotion as a parish is directed first of all to this particular piece of real estate: the people and problems within your specific geographic neighbourhood?

Of course the automobile is to blame for the mess we're in. It's given people unprecedented mobility, including the ability to escape from the problems --and the people!-- next door. And I'm aware there are some reading these words who will say I'm a Medievalist, still living in an age long past. But I firmly believe our neighbourhoods are doomed to even further decay unless churches --among other institutions-- begin to take responsibility for the geographic area around the turf their buildings occupy.

Can neighbouring congregations come together and actually map out geographic parish boundaries? Can all the congregations in a major metropolitan area begin to think of themselves as a kind of "diocese"? With a cathedral, even, maybe even an existing Anglican cathedral, in this day of Lutheran-Anglican solidarity?

The old system of providing the pastor with a parsonage next to or near the parish church, as part of her compensation package -- rather than, as often now, a "housing allowance" -- surely had its drawbacks. 1) The pastor and the pastor's family were not given opportunity to, as they say on Bay Street, accumulate equity. And perhaps more seriously, 2) it became yet another subversion of the principle of the "priesthood of all believers" (See Essay 27 above). That is, the pastor and the pastor's family were once more set apart from the laity, and spared the problem all laypeople face, that of paying a monthly mortgage.

But the old parsonage system had at least one virtue: It guaranteed that the pastor would live within her parish boundaries. One recalls in this respect the high-profile Lutheran congregation in Manhattan, NYC, whose high-profile pastor lived, in those days, across the Hudson River, in New Jersey! In such a situation, how can the pastor possibly relate to the problems in her parish neighbourhood?

Finally, a word about ecclesial taxonomy. Taxonomy, you remember, is the science or study of classification: genus, species, that kind of thing. And I'd be willing to argue that it's useful to apply its principles to church life.

So, for example, with our marvellous Lutheran definition of the church ("where the Gospel is preached...and the sacraments administered..." Augustana 8) we can construct a taxonomy where the local geographic congregation is itself part of a larger body --what I called two paragraphs above a "diocese"-- which is itself part of a still larger grouping: the national church. Which, in turn, etc.... Of course there are smaller groupings within each congregation, as well.

And alongside the local geographic parish are yet other non- geographic "churches", such as campus ministries, outdoor/camping ministries, specialized chaplaincies, such as in hospitals and prisons and the military: wherever "the Gospel is preached...and the sacraments administered...". These last might be thought of as "time-contingent" rather than "geography-contingent".

Well, I feel better, having got this off my chest.