This weekend we drove to Tennessee and worshipped at The Belonging Co. This is a huge church in Nashville, a city that is experiencing a great deal of growth these days. We had a great time at The Belonging Co.
This weekend was a celebration of the church's eighth anniversary. This weekend is called Vision Weekend 2022 / Taking Ground. As a result, we did not hear a message (sermon) at The Belonging Co., but we did hear a great deal about what makes an influential and growing church like The Belonging Co. tick.
It was really insightful.
We got into Nashville late on Saturday night, after an eight-hour drive. We fell asleep quickly and woke up early. Our hotel was about one mile from the church, so we easily made the 9 am service.
Like so many contemporary churches, The Belonging Co. does not have the appearance of a traditional church. The church is located in a large and non-descript white warehouse in an industrial section of Nashville. As we drove in, we saw a veritable sea of cars lined up to go into the church.
We parked in the back of the building and walked around to the front. A significant number of people were walking into the church, but it was only a minor fraction of people who would enter the church in the subsequent twenty minutes.
Once the doors to the auditorium were opened, we found seats close to the stage. There was a subtle haze in the air, an effect from an out-of-sight fog machine. The lighting was subdued throughout the auditorium, with the exception of the brightly lit stage. People were milling around the auditorium and chatting with each other, always a great sign in a church. While The Belonging Co. is a very large church, it is not so large that people can't form community and friendships. There was a palpable sense of human connectedness in the place.
Hundreds of people started to come into the auditorium as the band came out and did their thing. The music was very solid.
Among thriving contemporary churches like the Belonging Co., the band is a major focal point of the experience. A church that writes its own songs is relatively rare and is also a big differentiator. We observed that The Belonging Co. performed their own songs.
It was a great performance.
You can see from the pictures and videos that by the time the band started, the auditorium was filled to the brim.
As always, the ubiquitous purple background lights were behind the band. These lights have been in all of the contemporary churches that we've visited.
After the music, Henry and Alex Seeley came onto the stage. These are the founders of The Belonging Co.
Henry and Alex are Australians who were told by the Lord ten years ago to open a church in Nashville, which instigated them to pick up their lives on the other side of the planet and do just that. Upon arriving in Nashville, Henry and Alex started a small worship meeting at their home. At that time, their home church ministered to people in the music industry who spent a great deal of time on tour.
As time passed, their modest home church gained momentum and now The Belonging Co. gathers thousands of people every Sunday in two locations in the Nashville metro area.
When we dug deeper into the background of the Seeleys, we found out that they have a long history of building the Body of Christ. In Australia, they were part of Planetshakers, a massive church in Adelaide, Australia (now named Influencers Church). From our brief research on Planetshakers, we discovered that one of its pastors falsely claimed that he was dying of cancer. His deceit included writing a song named "Healer," as well as performing on stage with an oxygen tank.
Whatever happened back then, I am sure it was hurtful. It sounds pretty terrible.
During the overview of Vision Weekend 2022 / Taking Ground, Henry and Alex took turns on the stage. They both spoke compellingly about what had been accomplished in the prior eight year, but they gave more focus on where they saw The Belonging Co. going in coming years.
It was multi-faceted presentation and really quite interesting.
Henry started by talking about the Book of Joshua, which helps explain the name Vision Weekend 2022 / Taking Ground. Joshua was the famed warrior who led Israel into multiple battles that yielded territory to the Israelites across the Promised Land. The theme of Joshua's expanding Israel's territory seemed a good match for the aspirations of this church.
Take a look at how they presented the Bible verses, this one being Joshua 10:25:
Much of the presentation was dedicated to explaining how The Belonging Co. spent $870K in 2021. Next year, they aspire to give away more than $1M in their efforts on outreach, evangelism and just plain old helping people in need.
Here are some of the pictures and videos of that segment of the presentation:
An example of how The Belonging Co. helps people involvess their partnership with Charity:water, an organization that works to provide clean water to villages throughout East Africa. The Belonging Co. also has a program named We Love Nashville, which helps the homeless and hungry of Nashville. The church also has an afterschool program for children in the neighboring community, which is one of the most incarcerated zip codes in the US. In addition to all of that, The Belonging Co. has launched Southeastern University, an accredited college that is part of the church.
On and on, the list of programs, alliances and accomplishments was considerable.
This is a very active church.
From the presentation, two things stood out in particular to us.
First, the way that The Belonging Co. manages their young people.
Second, the way The Belonging Co. is talking about the inequities in American society.
The Belonging Co. Kids [link] is a ministry that runs on the phrase "There is No Junior Holy Spirit." In the videos that we saw, we witnessed young kids enthusiastically worship God together. They had their hands in the air, they were praying over each other, and there was even reference to some of the kids getting their prayer language. This particular reference to prayer languages made it apparent to us that there is a stripe of charismatic practice in The Belonging Co.
The Belonging Co.'s focus on young people starts with newborns and continues on to college students. It really was exceptional to see what they are doing. This was an inspiring part of the presentation.
At one point, there was a video of a young guy, maybe twelve years old, explaining how he received his prayer language during summer camp at the church. Wow!
Then there was a section where they gave a presentation on racial reconciliation. I want to be clear that they did not use the term "racial reconciliation." That is just the term that came to mind for me.
On the question of race, I rarely comment on the racial makeup of a church that we visit, but I always notice it.
The Belonging Co. is a very white congregation. The non-white people in attendance were almost all Hispanic. While there were some black people at The Belonging Co., it was no more than five percent. That is a pretty small percentage in a city that is twenty-five percent black.
This focus on race was noteworthy. Many of the large, contemporary churches that we have visited are deeply integrated already. Freedom House, Elevation Church and UPPERROOM are all examples of churches that we have visited where white, black and brown people worship together. And none of these churches have an internal program to achieve that level of integration, it just happens naturally for them.
That a mostly white church headed up by Australians (a very white nation, especially when Henry and Alex were growing up) is seeking to get involved in this question of integration is noteworthy.
The Belonging Co.'s leadership made clear that anything they would do on this front would be theology-led. They stated outright that they would ask for the Holy Spirit's guidance through the process.
Since Black Lives Matter is so front-and-center on this question in the society around us, it will be important for The Belonging Co. not to make alliances with that organization or any organization like it. If they get that wrong, it will almost certainly result in a decline of The Belonging Co. That would be a real shame.
With all of that said, every church should look like heaven looks, and digging into why white and black people still mostly worship separately does deserve the Body of Christ's attention.
On our way out, the people going to the 11 o'clock service were coming in. The picture below shows but a small part of the sea of humanity in the lobby of The Belonging Co.
Look at the size of the crowd!
If we were to sum up the whole experience of visiting The Belong Co., it would be this - The Belonging Co. is a church that puts human connections front and center in everything they do. This starts with the people connecting with God, and is quickly followed by vital connections with each other, as well as the world around them.
I listened to a podcast episode from The Belonging Co. where they had a panel of people speaking about their experience in the church's "Co Groups." There are all sorts of Co Groups, including one for single mothers, men's groups, women's groups, groups for newly married couples, groups for new parents, and even one for people who prefer to connect online with one another (which is international).
It was really inspiring to hear about the myriad of ways that people are getting connected at The Belonging Co. Why the church has the name that it does was very evident to us.
We hope and pray that The Belonging Co. continues to grow and flourish. It is an important place. Keep going!
