Tuesday, 30 June 2009
Tuesday, 30 June 2009
Tuesday, 30 June 2009
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Navigating nostalgia inthe congregation<strong>Tuesday</strong>, <strong>30</strong> <strong>June</strong> <strong>2009</strong>
<strong>Tuesday</strong>, <strong>30</strong> <strong>June</strong> <strong>2009</strong>What are you nostalgic for?
Definitions of nostalgia• Homesickness (Hofer 1668)• A yearning for an unrecoverable past• Intellectual deficiency (Kant, Hegel, Marx)• Abdication of memory (Jameson 1992)<strong>Tuesday</strong>, <strong>30</strong> <strong>June</strong> <strong>2009</strong>
About nostalgia• Universally present across the age-range• A ‘complex’ emotion• Differs from straightforward rememberingdue to bittersweet affect• Helps to maintain self-identity and feeling ofself-continuance• Combats loneliness<strong>Tuesday</strong>, <strong>30</strong> <strong>June</strong> <strong>2009</strong>
About nostalgia• ‘Nostalgics are past oriented, such that theirlonging for the past matches their dislike ofthe present and their dread of the future.’Pietro Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1980)<strong>Tuesday</strong>, <strong>30</strong> <strong>June</strong> <strong>2009</strong>
<strong>Tuesday</strong>, <strong>30</strong> <strong>June</strong> <strong>2009</strong>
Some more definitions ofnostalgia• A means of destabilizing the collectivememories of minority communities(Fentress 1992)• A way of designating whose memories areworthwhile (Smith 2000)• An alternative way of seeing (Fritzsche 2001)• Preservation of self-identity/continuity(Sedikides 2006)<strong>Tuesday</strong>, <strong>30</strong> <strong>June</strong> <strong>2009</strong>
What triggers nostalgia?• Disjunction/discontinuity events• Innovation/change• Major life events• Ageing process• Loneliness• Beauty<strong>Tuesday</strong>, <strong>30</strong> <strong>June</strong> <strong>2009</strong>
Triggers for nostalgia inthe congregation• Innovation: new approaches to worship andmission, new curates, vicars, alterations tobuildings, new attitudes and approachesamongst younger members• Loss: death, friends moving away, pastoralreorganization, church closure• Music, stories, festivals All Soulsremembrance<strong>Tuesday</strong>, <strong>30</strong> <strong>June</strong> <strong>2009</strong>
What can nostalgia, inturn, trigger?• Unwillingness to adapt to new surroundings• Insistence on continuously reliving the past• Resistance to change<strong>Tuesday</strong>, <strong>30</strong> <strong>June</strong> <strong>2009</strong>
The progressivecleric......meets thenostalgiccongregation<strong>Tuesday</strong>, <strong>30</strong> <strong>June</strong> <strong>2009</strong>
Clerical time andcongregational time• Clergy tend to speak in terms of progressand transformational planning• Clergy increasingly see themselves asmanagers and innovators• Clergy use ‘change talk’• Clergy invoke past and future to define andframe situations for the congregation<strong>Tuesday</strong>, <strong>30</strong> <strong>June</strong> <strong>2009</strong>
Clerical time andcongregational time• Congregations tend to speak in terms ofpersonal meaning and remembrance• Congregations see church as a sanctuaryaway from change over which they have nocontrol• Congregations use ‘nostalgia talk’• Congregations invoke past and present todefine and frame situations for the clergy<strong>Tuesday</strong>, <strong>30</strong> <strong>June</strong> <strong>2009</strong>
Church congregations as‘sanctuaries of meaning’• Churches can act as refuges from difficultor hostile social conditions (along withWMC, allotments, pubs, clubs)• Through shared memories meaning isregained as an antidote to threats toindividual and shared identity• Places of strong emotional reactions andresistance to change<strong>Tuesday</strong>, <strong>30</strong> <strong>June</strong> <strong>2009</strong>
Nostalgia’s positive side• promotes personal significance and worth• connectedness with others• regenerates and sustains a sense ofmeaning• promotes psychological/physical well-being• has a bearing on goals and actions<strong>Tuesday</strong>, <strong>30</strong> <strong>June</strong> <strong>2009</strong>
Caring for the nostalgiccongregation• Pastoral response• Get to know more about the content ofyour congregation’s nostalgia• Take the content of nostalgia seriously -treat it as a critique of planned change• Is there a way feeding nostalgia’s values intochange?<strong>Tuesday</strong>, <strong>30</strong> <strong>June</strong> <strong>2009</strong>
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