I’m not always sure I’ve done a very good job to telling WildWood’s story.

For a long time we were new and didn’t have much of a story, but now we’re 10 years old and I don’t know how that happened. When I talk about this community I often say that we’re a quirky and queer church-ish community and while we’re 10 years old we’ve lived several lives, several iterations, and each one has felt like starting over again, and again, and again. It’s not a bad thing, I don’t think. Exhausting, for sure, but it’s giving us a malleability that even new churches don’t always have.

 

I think we straddle the chasm between what was and what is coming. Politically, religiously, culturally, family systems, all of it. In so many ways I think that’s the story of this generation, and in the church world it feels especially true. I grew up going to church every Sunday, Wednesday youth group, good Sunday shoes. All of the good things, and the bad, and the outdated, and the hard. 

 

But, what the theologians call post-Christendom, hasn’t given shape yet. We inherited a world, a church, old institutions, and we said, “no thank you, let’s burn it down.” And while we’re very much still "burning it down," we’re also coming into the absence space. It’s cliche to say, the now but not yet, but it’s very true too. There isn’t a roadmap here, we really are making it up as we go along. 

 

And so what wildWood has been able to do in this now but not yet space is create something fluid, messy, playful, creative.

 

When we started in 2016, there were a lot of new churches beginning around the same time. “Progressive Evangelical” was the up and coming thing, "ex-vangelical" churches that were progressive, queer, and reimagining their theology.  But, while there were things that changed in these emerging communities, what I’ve realized is that they still held on to much the same model and structure of traditional churches. I think in some ways, that’s what I imagined this community would become or maybe that was the "easy" model to follow because there were books about it and a clear path forward.

 

But we also outgrew that model pretty quick. I remember attending a conference in 2016 or 2017 where a church planting pastor from the Denver area said that if a new church didn't have 500 members in 5 years it wasn’t going to make it. Even then I knew that is not what we would, or wanted to, become.

 

Then the pandemic obliterated that model. And now, many of the new churches that started alongside WildWood have closed. In 2015/2016 the projection was that it would take 5-7 years for a new church to become "successful," meaning financially self sufficient, by 2018/2019 that had become 7-10 years. And here we are at 10, but no where near financially independent. 

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But I’m not sure that’s the goal anymore. I’m not sure that is a reasonable expectation.

 

So what then?

I don’t know.

But each time I feel like I don’t know what’s next for this community I’m reminded to let go of one more thing, one more “supposed to.” 

 

And so, at 10 years old it feels a bit like we’re about reimagine again. 

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In parenting lingo, kids, particularly babies in the first year, go through developmental leaps. Cutely called "The Wonder Weeks," the leap is preceded by a week (or weeks) of discontent, crying, not sleeping, and then all of the sudden the baby starts to crawl, or babble, or finds their toes. The discontent and struggle is the development stage, the brain rewiring, preparing for the leap. It’s a full system upgrade, and for infants it’s happening at a rapid rate, but it continues all the way through adolescence, into teenage years and early 20’s. And it happens at other stages in our adult lives too, but over these 10 years I’ve felt the WildWood community go through some leaps too. Sometimes it feels like a natural progression, moving from the bookshop, to the art gallery, to the Little Church on North St. Other times it felt forced on us, like the pandemic and the move from the Little Church to the big church. Sometimes it comes from a transition of people, some people move away, others join. With each leap the interest of the community shift too, sometimes leaning more into theology, or art, nature and eco spirituality. 

 

In the car this week I saw I guy on a walk with his kid and dog, he wore a shirt that said “community is a verb.” I wanted to pull over and ask where it got the shirt because it is perfect. Community isn’t something we have, it’s not a thing, community is something that we are, that we do. 

 

We’ve been conditioned to see community as a fixed entity - a neighborhood, or a group of people sharing a common space, identity, or interest. But in reality, community is not something that simply exists; it is something that has to be actively and proactively built, nurtured, and sustained through continuous action. It is reciprocal care, collaboration, and love in action.

 

It requires risk, trust, bravery, and at times, discomfort. An Instagram hot-take said,

"everyone wants the village but no one wants to be a villager."

Meaning, everyone wants the benefits of community without the responsibility, the discomfort, the commitment, the vulnerability it requires.

 

To community requires a commitment, it can be hard, frustrating, and draining at times – it doesn’t always feel good, but we're commuited to showing up and figuring it out together. Without consistent engagement, what we call a community becomes a collection of individuals with a surface connection to one another. Community is an action word, built through mutual support and shared responsibility over time, even if and when it’s inconvenient.  

 

And this is not to critique healthy boundaries, but there must be a balance. If we put up too many boundaries then we end up isolated. And the world is hard, and we’re pulled in too many direction, and on the good days we’re barely treading water, but when we community, as an action word, what is available to us and what is possible can become powerful and limitless. 

 

And maybe that is a reasonable expectation.

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Thanks for being part of these 10 years of WildWood. We truely woun't be here without our community of support near and far.