Laboratory for the Future

Many Protestant theologians are convinced that the conventional parish is no longer suited to the missionary needs of the modern city. But what should take its place? One answer is provided by Chicago's Ecumenical Institute--a cooperative community of laymen and ministers that regards itself as a "research and training center" for the church of the future.

Founded in 1957, the Ecumenical Institute now operates out of a former Church of the Brethren seminary on Chicago's West Side. It has a resident community of 185--105 adults, the rest children and teen-agers--who live together in apartment buildings belonging to the institute. Each couple is given two rooms, plus another room for every two children. The core of the institute is its 20 "permanent members," mostly Protestant clergymen, who have banded together into a corporate ministry. The rest of the community consists of "interns," who spend a year at the institute, and "fellows," who have no definite terms of residence.

Meals in Common. The institute community forms a kind of interfaith family monastery, worshiping together, eating in common, and pursuing community actions and study projects. While most members of the community work full time at the institute, several have daytime secular jobs. They turn over their salaries to the institute, which in turn provides them with a living allowance based on marital status and family size. A portion of the funds is set aside for the college education of members' children. There is also a travel fund, which enables two couples to travel abroad for three months each year.

Life at the institute revolves around a balanced union of work, study and prayer. Members of the community are involved in trying to improve the Negro slum neighborhood. Backed by a $170,000 federal grant, the institute operates a nursery school for the benefit of both its members and neighborhood families. It has also created a club for neighborhood kids called the Jets and offers legal aid to area residents.

The institute seeks to stimulate creative Christian thinking on urban problems through weekend seminars that are open to outsiders. The seminars are larded with the institute's particular jargon--mind-set and imaginal education are favorite words--and faculty members rely on shock tactics to make listeners aware of the church's crisis situation. "When are you going to stop prettying up the heroes of the church so that people will know what kind of men they were?" demanded Lay Faculty Member Joe Pierce at one seminar. "Martin Luther? He was three sheets to the wind on German beer a good part of the time. John Wesley? You'd be sexually frustrated if you had a wife like his." Religious irreverence, insists the institute's dean, Joseph Mathews, helps "retool the minds of clergymen" to secular realities.

Since its founding, more than 7,000 ministers and laymen have attended seminars at the institute, while 250 have shared its life as interns and fellows. Many of them agree with Mathews that the institute is able to "articulate the mood, style and pattern of the post-modern world view" in ways that conventional churches cannot. Members of the institute, says Pierce, are "guinea pigs" who offer themselves in experiments that seek to discover "what new life style and structures are necessary" for Christianity's years ahead.

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