Dear Safe-Distance Congregators: 

In college I had a friend from Brooklyn, New York. Her father worked as an administrator for NY Public Housing, having come up through the ranks after starting as a maintenance man. While his daughter went on to complete a PhD in Sociology at the University of Chicago and become a prominent demographer at Johns Hopkins University, her first lessons in sociology were taught by her dad, Buck.

The son of Estonian immigrants, Buck had a keen understanding of social capital long before the term’s renewed popularity in the 1990’s. Buck learned the complex principles of social dynamics on the streets of Brooklyn, where “it wasn’t what you knew that mattered; it was who you knew.” A sense of formal and informal social obligation drove the neighborhood. The guy down the block owed Buck’s dad a favor from years back, and because the guy worked for the NY Department of Public Housing, when a job mopping floors opened, the guy made sure Buck got it. In fact, it didn’t take long for the guy to find employment for every kid on his block. He moved from social debtor to precinct powerbroker in less than a decade.

Buck’s understanding of how communities worked also gave him insight into the mechanisms of social breakdown. Buck had three theories regarding church attendance that I’ve thought about many times. Buck was Roman Catholic and felt that the expansion of the Saturday Mass was the first crack in congregational cohesion. Buck understood the Catholic priority for receiving the Eucharist providing for multiple seatings for Mass; if you require something, you have to make it available. But mostly younger parish members came on Saturdays, cutting them off from meeting other members who came on Sundays. While there were several Sunday Masses back in the day, they were timed sequentially so that those coming to one would meet others leaving the previous service, not unlike our first and second service members meeting each other in the Narthex during the time between services. But Buck witnessed a loss of cohesion in the community between Saturday and Sunday worshipers. As the Saturday Mass was low-budget and low-key, its younger participants didn’t feel a connection to the community and cost invested in the more elaborate Sunday services. Over time, their support declined, as did their attendance. 

The second explanation for community breakdown had to do with Sunday newspapers and brunch. After Mass one Sunday, Buck noted that the restaurant where they had gone for brunch buffet was fuller than church. He was also frustrated because they had attended an early Mass in order to be sure the buffet was fresh by the time they arrived for brunch; as a result, he hadn’t finished his weekly read of the Sunday New York Times. It was summer, and he knew by the time he got home the Mets game would have started and he wasn’t sure when he would get back to the paper. That was when he realized that the powerful pull of Sunday papers, brunch reservations and the Mets created a temptation to drop church attendance as part of the Sunday schedule.

Buck’s third theory was perhaps the most intriguing. Buck blamed air conditioning for American urban breakdown, including the destruction of church community. Before air conditioning, folks opened their windows and sat on their porches. With windows wide open, folks in Brooklyn needed to hold down their arguments because the neighbors would hear. Winter disagreements were thawed by nosy neighbors as the close listening quarters of summer required a more civilized tone. Additionally, as people sat on their porches (or stoops in the case of Brooklyn apartment buildings), they saw each other, they greeted each other, they learned the names of the kids, they found out which teenagers needed jobs mopping floors. They also asked each other which Mass they were going to attend, or observed who hadn’t been seen at Mass.

I thought of Buck the other day while I was walking through my neighborhood. Folks were outside, talking with neighbors at a safe social distance. But they were actually talking with people who, before sheltering in place, had been strangers. Fortunately, it’s been cool enough that the AC hasn’t driven us inside, but in this brief moment, because we have an abundance of time, folks are spending some of that time greeting each other.

Here’s what our circumstances and Buck’s wisdom helped me observe; I’m writing it down, hoping I will remember:  

1. Church is not a time or a spiritual event; it is a connection to people.

2. Comfort and routine are barriers to community; discomfort and disruption bring people together.

3. It turns out the porch can be so much more than a landing-pad for Amazon packages.

Missing you but making friends, I remain,

With Love,
Jonathan Krogh
Your Pastor