From the desk of Dean Harold W. Attridge

As this issue goes to press, Yale Divinity School is hosting several visitors – Brian McLaren, well
known for his work in the emerging church movement; Sister Nancy Schram, a Franciscan who has been working among the poor in Brazil for thirty-one years; and Robert Sackel, a member of the L’Arche community movement. These guests dramatically exemplify the variety of ways that a religious commitment works itself out in today’s world, and this issue of Reflections attempts to capture some of that variety.

The focus of the issue is on the venue in which most believers find their religious home, the local congregation. Last spring, in a conference supported by a generous gift from George Bauer, a member of our Board of Advisors, we asked author Tony Robinson and two panels of alums, recent grads and seasoned veterans, to tell us about the lives of the congregations in which they serve. What they told us, and what this issue of Reflections reports, is a tale of diverse ways in which congregations of different denominations, sizes, ethnicities, and polities engage the world from a ground of faith. Among many of them there is anxiety about the future as the demographic and cultural shape of the Church changes.

The contributors to this issue offer both reports about the past and meditations on what the “firm foundation” of the future might look like. Martin Copenhaver insists on the importance of recovering tradition; John Lindner focuses our attention on the larger cultural shifts that have affected American Protestantism; Dwight Andrews highlights the unique power of church community; Tony Robinson offers a framework for thinking about future trajectories; and Nora Gallagher provides a searching meditation from the pew.

Some offer some practical hints for immediate application – Tom Troeger on rediscovering beauty in worship, Nora Tubbs Tisdale on the perennial principles of good preaching, Peter Marty on Biblical hospitality, Lillian Daniel on the practice of
testimony. Alternative church movements are the focus of Becky Garrison’s essay, and Kimberly Knight takes us into the even more extraordinary space of cyber worship.

If there is a theme that runs through these essays, it is a confidence in the resilience of congregations in these challenging times. That lively hope rings clear in the interview about Marquand Chapel, and those of us who attend it regularly can attest to its extraordinary vitality. Confident hope also marks the voices of the YDS grads, the panelists from the spring conference, who here provide their own vivid comments on the elusive, urgent matter of the future
of congregational life.

Special thanks go to the Rev. Martin Copenhaver ’80 M.Div. and member of our Board of Advisors,
who helped to organize the spring conference and served as guest editor for this issue.