In an era of curt sound bites, too many catch phrases and a plethora of options, why would you choose a word like liminal to entice people to give up a Saturday in the Texas summer heat to be with people they don't know to discuss something they never heard of?
The answer: Because it is one of the best words we can find to describe the status of mainline denominational churches.
Author Phyllis Tickle, speaking at the Associated Church Press Convention in 2008, described the cyclical upheaval of the church as a "semi-millennial giant rummage sale."
"About every 500 years, the Christian church feels inclined to throw everyting up in the air and see what happens," she said. Those of us who are in ministry in mainline denominational churches, both lay and clergy, know that we are not what we were. According to William Willimon, a UMC Bishop in Alabama, the average age of both a United Methodist and UMC clergy is older than the national average and our denomination has been decreasing in size for 40 years. The question is, will we lament or will we labor? And if we labor, where do we begin?
For me, I had to begin by defining where we find ourselves. I needed a word, an idea or a theory that could become a foundation for me, and I wanted it to represent hope. Liminality is my choice.
The Latin word limina means threshold. Father Richard Rohr, a Franciscan friar who founded the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, N.M., defines liminality as "a special psychic and spiritual space where all trasformation happens."
It is when we are betwixt and between, when we are not in control, a place where quesions are plentiful and answers elusive. Some have said liminality is the most teachable space and othes say it seems that God intentionally led people, one after another, to similar threshold experiences.
If what is taking shape is going to endure into the next 500 years, we would be wise to get together form time to time to talk about it. That includes those active in church and those who aren't, as well as those who are hopeful and those who aren't, to discuss our faith, and our fear, our dreams and our emptiness, our past, present and future.
Please join us. You can register on the home page by choosing "Liminal Christianity ....." on the right.