Every Thursday night all summer long, dozens of people bring their lawn chairs and gather around a hand-built porch outside of the Clarissa UMC parsonage to build relationships with each other and hear speakers share their perspectives on a variety of important topics.
Clarissa United Methodist Church is a part of the Minnesota Annual Conference.
Rev. Kali Christensen started “Porch Ponderings” seven years ago with the simple goal of helping people get to know their neighbors. They were so popular that she’s brought them back every year since.
Speakers have run the gamut.
Rev. Kali Christensen got the idea for “The Porch” when she saw a similar structure on Facebook. Several people brought her vision to life by placing various doors on a slab of concrete and putting a tin roof on top. This is the backdrop for the weekly gatherings. One of the most well-attended gatherings featured a local farmer and father of three, who has supported his wife as she has taken risks as an entrepreneur. He talked about their partnership as husband and wife, how farm life has changed since he was a child, and how innovations in farming have freed him up to make his own yogurt and be the dad he’s always wanted to be.
Christensen serves Communities of Faith Parish—Clarissa, Clotho, and Eagle Bend UMCs—along with Peace UMC in Long Prairie. Porch Ponderings is a ministry of all four of them.
Individual gatherings have drawn anywhere between 18 and 72 people—especially significant given that each of the four congregations worship between 20 and 60 on a given Sunday.
Porch Ponderings is an example of a fresh expression, a new type of being church that is gaining traction in the Minnesota Conference. Fresh expressions gather in various community venues and public spaces around shared interests and hobbies. This is a movement of Christian communities where people with no connection to the church are finding life and encountering Christ.
The Porch Ponderings gatherings meet people where they are at and provide an opportunity to think about big topics in new ways.
There’s significant buy-in from the community, and in fact, the gatherings typically draw more people from outside of Christensen’s congregations than from within them. It’s not the same crowd each week either; many people come to hear a particular speaker they know or to learn about topic that particularly interests them.
In this season of polarization and division in our nation and our world, Porch Ponderings provide attendees an opportunity to hear from people whose perspectives differ from their own.
“So often, my vantage point is because of my life experience,” said Christensen. “We don’t have to treat each other poorly to have a difference of opinion.”
She pointed out that it’s easy to judge people who use drugs or have eating disorders or are alcoholics.
“When I’m in the pulpit and I say, ‘I’ve been sober for 28 years,’ if they can love me, they can probably love the guy who is not yet sober,” said Christensen, referencing her own experience with alcoholism.
What the Porch Ponderings gatherings teach us: “I can hear you without having to judge you,” she said. “If we can do that, we will have fewer arguments with one another, less rigid opinions, and more graciousness for those who differ…We all want to be affirmed, seen, and cared for.”
excerpt from a story by Christa Meland, director of communications for the Minnesota Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church.
This story represents how United Methodist local churches through their Annual Conferences are living as Vital Congregations. A vital congregation is the body of Christ making and engaging disciples for the transformation of the world. Vital congregations are shaped by and witnessed through four focus areas: calling and shaping principled Christian leaders; creating and sustaining new places for new people; ministries with poor people and communities; and abundant health for all.
