The purpose of the Clearstory Collective is to recover the lost intimacy and unqualified commitment that was fostered amongst Jesus's followers, and in the process, to be part of a movement that continues to change the course of history.
The Rev. Christopher Carlisle, shown here in front of St. John's Episcopal Church in Northampton, has helped knit together communities within the Episcopal Diocese of Western Massachusetts in a technology-based ministry called Clearstory Collective.
A new ministry of the Episcopal Diocese of Western Massachusetts is described as "an eclectic expression of church that is as cutting edge as the moment and as ancient as first-century Palestine."
The ministry, Clearstory Collective, says it seeks to reach out to college students and other young adults, homeless and otherwise marginalized people of faith who have become disaffected by the institutional church and who seek informal and often spontaneous faith communities. It is doing so through technology.
However, the collective is conceived to be more than email communication. Containing blogs, descriptions of the various communities comprised of photographs, video clips and radio interviews as well as key people and community contacts, the churched and unchurched alike can become and remain connected to these communities and their members.
Participation in the various communities varies.
For example, at the Northampton street community, Cathedral in the Night, numbers about 40 to 70 on any given Sunday night throughout the year.
The Midnight Breakfast at Smith College in Northampton and Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley each semester during finals week draws about 500 in each location.
The servant leadership classes number between about eight and 15, while scores of people, young and old, are involved in the Gideon's Garden farm project as the community harvests crops, provides fresh produce for the hungry and stocks food pantries in the Berkshires.
"In all these communities, involvement is not about 'filling the pews' but filling the need," said the Rev. Christopher A.E. Carlisle, who, as director of ministry to higher education for the diocese, is responsible for Episcopal ministry on college and university campuses.
"As Jesus testified, this happens whenever two or three are gathered together in his name."
In the spirit of the first century "Jesus Movement," the ministry is described as a loose confederation of communities.
"Rather than being embodied by institutional structures, these communities strive to incarnate the life and spirit of Jesus in the world - in the streets, in bars, in cafes, on farms - wherever two or three are gathered together by the unqualified love of the Christ," Carlisle said.
Rather than attempting to contain what he call "this miraculous abundance," the collective strives to minimize institutional control and maximize the spiritual.
"From outdoor communities, to pub churches, to farms, to educational experiences about money, the collective is an eclectic expression of church that is as cutting edge as the moment, and as ancient as first century Palestine," he said.
He added it is the time for such ministry.
"Unencumbered by institutional structures that don't work anymore, ministers of the Gospel have been given the gift of unprecedented freedom to live into the radical possibilities of God," he said, adding,
"How can we lament a return to the excitement and passion of that first century Palestine experience?" Carlisle was the Episcopal chaplain to the University of Massachusetts in Amherst for 25 years.
From contemplative worship to poetry readings, from art exhibits to an undergraduate course titled, "Belief," to the God and science project from which he wrote "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Understanding Intelligent Design," he said he has long been aware that the church needs to change if it is to remain relevant.
As Carlisle was struggling to figure out how he could move from being a single-campus chaplain in a free-standing building to being the director of higher education ministry for his diocese throughout Western Massachusetts, he decided to use technology.
"It was then I realized that a network comprised of intentionally small, authentic, passionate communities of faith mapped onto my own long-standing vision for the church as a counter-conventional body that subverted the existing order for the sake of divine justice and human fulfillment," he said.
The purpose of collective is to recover the lost intimacy and unqualified commitment that was fostered amongst Jesus's followers, and in the process, to be part of a movement that continues to change the course of history.
Carlisle earned an undergraduate degree from New York's Columbia University in political science and economics, a master's in theological studies from Harvard Divinity School and a master of divinity degree from Yale Divinity School in New Haven.
He was an associate rector at St. Andrew Episcopal Church in Longmeadow before serving as Episcopal chaplain to the University of Massachusetts.
"Insofar as we, as Christians, have been disestablished from a once-established 'religious' culture into the secular world, we are living in such a circumstance," he said.
"What is intriguing about this time however, is that the fracturing between communities and people that necessarily took place when the Jews were physically scattered from Jerusalem and the Temple, can be mitigated by electronic forms of relationship - specifically, the Internet."
Other communities include Taize at Smith College; Church Without Walls, Springfield; The Empty Bell on-line community; and Beyond Belief at Smith College.
"There are spare few settings in our deeply segregated American culture that bring people together across the often gaping demographic divides Clearstory Collective is one of these," Carlisle said.
"If there is a single commonality however, it is the spirit of those who want an alternative experience of 'church' - many of whom are young people."
The collective is not ecumenical in the sense of separate denominations working with one another, Carlisle noted, but is post-denominational, that is, people come together from all denominational and non-denominational walks of life to be a unified people of God.
"I find the fruits of this Clearstory Collective initiative abundant, everywhere, and long from being fully realized. Exploring one's faith out in the world - on the street, in living rooms, on farms, in pubs - offers an exciting adventure that I believe many people long for in their lives."
The main challenge to the ministry is dissimilar to that which confronts those who aspire to maintain the traditional institutional church.
"Recent attempts to stem the decline in church attendance has often been to convince people to do something they really don't want to do: to go to church on Sunday morning," Carlisle said.
"While for many, the Sunday morning experience will continue to be the preferred expression of 'church'-- and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that -- for most in the coming decade, I suspect it will not."
Thus, he said the greatest challenge of all may be for the church to find the courage to "leave old institutional forms that no longer work on our demographic landscape and to boldly re-imagine new forms of community in the spontaneous and ancient Judaic spirit of Jesus."
For more information email christopheraecarlisle@gmail.com.