Some thoughts for the day from Prior Scott Elliott and New Seeds Priory:

One thing that I feel contributes to the collapse/implosion of traditional models of “church”, is that traditional forms of “church” have consistently failed to understand the difference between “nurturing” and “programing”.

Living organisms like plants, animals and people require nurturing…nurturing including individual love and attention, spiritual nutrition, support, etc.  Soul-less, inanimate objects on the other hand, such as machines and computers, are “programmed”.  Programming is easier than nurturing, because programming only requires mindlessness and obedience.  Spirituality requires mindfulness, religion requires mindlessness.  As long as institutional, traditional “churches” remain focused on religious “programming”, then naturally they will fail to yield properly cultivated, spirit filled people.

So if your “church” has a constant focus on religious “programs”, then it is not nurturing anyone and will inevitably die a slow, painful death of starvation…and it will desperately ask you to cling to it and starve you to death, too.