More Than a Bouncy Castle

Reclaiming the Church as a Moral Community

By the time we reached the top of the hill overlooking Aberedw, our boots dusty from the uncommonly dry ground and the wind catching on our breath, we were well into a conversation about children, smartphones, and the slow unravelling of meaning. It was our annual retreat—three priests from the Church in Wales, though two of us Southerners. We gather every year at my cottage near Hay-on-Wye: 52 hours of prayer, walking, and talking with more than a touch of the Catholic Boys Club about it.

The hills of Radnorshire have a way of making you feel ancient and small at the same time. They press your thoughts inward and upward. That’s where the podcast came in. One of the others mentioned a recent episode of The Ezra Klein Show, an interview with the psychologist Jonathan Haidt, whose new book The Anxious Generation explores why today’s kids are not alright.

The title alone was enough to pique my curiosity. But it wasn’t the statistics on mental health that struck me most, but their conversation, 19-minutes in, about moral frameworks.

Haidt observed that children today are adrift because they lack what every human being once took for granted: a shared moral order, formed in the context of a stable moral community.

“Morality,” he said, “only works like language. You can't have your own language, and you can't have your own morality. It only works as a shared system.”

The problem, he argues, is that Gen Z has been raised in a world where that system has shattered. Social media has replaced communal norms with "a million little fragments of nonsense." Without a shared moral order - without the "friction" of embodied community - kids are drowning in freedom but starving for meaning. The result? An epidemic of anxiety, depression, and existential drift.

And then it hit me: This isn't just about teenagers. It's about the Church.

The Final Orthodoxy

Since entering ministry in the Church in Wales—and earlier in the Church of England—I’ve often encountered a kind of ecclesiological orthodoxy. It goes like this: because we are (or were) established churches, our primary identity is not as congregations, but as parishes. That is, we exist for everyone in a geographic area, whether they attend church or not. In theory, the vicar is shepherd to all 8,000+ souls in the parish, whether they darken the church door or not. In practice, of course, 98% of those souls wouldn’t recognize their shepherd if he knocked on their door wearing a cassock and wielding a copy of Common Worship.

Once upon a time, I would have loved that idea of a geographical parish. It fits beautifully with a certain theological vision of the Church as a sign and sacrament to the nation. But here’s the problem: that vision bears little resemblance to reality.

In most of our parishes or ministry areas, the vast majority of the population has no meaningful connection to the Church. Some may pop in for a christening, wedding, funeral or perhaps a school service. Many care about the building. But when it comes to the Gospel? To prayer? To discipleship? There’s little interest—and even less expectation.

Yet we cling to the ecclesiological orthodoxy. We measure success by building traffic—how many people come through the doors for christenings, concerts, or the annual "Murder Mystery in the Nave." (A triumph! Seventy people saw the stained glass!) We behave as though sacred real estate were the point, as if St. Paul had written, "You are the Airbnb of the Spirit."

Now, I’m all for community engagement. But here’s the thing: none of it seems to lead to what we actually want. If it did, places like St Paul’s Cathedral or Westminster Abbey would be producing Christians by the hundreds of thousands. My own church welcomes more than 1,000 people through the doors every week to enjoy our café. And yet, even though we’re growing, our congregation falls well short of a thousand worshippers.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: The building isn’t the church and visitors aren’t a community. And bringing people in for scones and jazz does nothing to form them in the way of Christ.

All of this reminded me, strangely, of the parenting model Haidt critiques—a well-meaning, individualistic approach that tries (largely in vain) to equip kids to survive the modern world but fails to form them deeply. In the same way, many churches today see themselves as moral service providers: here to equip individuals for the world “out there.” What they often lack is the life of a community shaped together by a moral vision.

A Church Without Friction

Part of the problem is that life in late modernity offers less and less “friction”—those little moments of resistance that once helped shape character and give meaning to lives. In fact, the very ease of our free lives makes it all the harder to sustain a moral framework. For example, until recently in America, if you wanted to do sports gambling, you had to drive to somewhere like Vegas. Now, you can place a bet from your phone in bed. Subsequently, gambling addiction is skyrocketing among young men. No friction, more vice.

The Church is experiencing something similar. When we reduce it to a venue or a dispenser of religious services, we remove the friction that once came from belonging to a moral community. Everything becomes optional. Formation becomes (at most) a confirmation class. Membership becomes an email list. Discipleship becomes "try to be nice."

This is not to say that our churches are full of immoral people. Far from it. Many are extraordinarily generous, devoted, and kind. But they’re also exhausted—and often spiritually lonely.

Because without the strong ties of shared commitment, church life becomes transactional. You show up when you can. You help out if you have time. The deeper demands of discipleship—confession, reconciliation, sacrificial love—become rare, even quaint.

And we wonder why the faith feels thin.

Reimagining the Church as a Moral Community

What if, instead of asking whether we are congregations or parishes, we asked a different question: Are we moral communities?

Not moralistic, mind you. Not puritan enclaves or ideological clubs. But communities where a shared life shapes shared character. Communities defined not by the events we host, but by the habits we form together.

This isn’t a new idea. It’s the New Testament vision. Paul doesn’t describe the church as a venue or a platform. He calls it a “household,” a “temple,” a “body.” He spends less time on the structures of worship and more on the practices of life: forgiving enemies, sharing possessions, bearing burdens, submitting to one another in love, building each other up in love.

To recover that vision, we’ll need to take some risks.

First, we need clear boundaries. A moral community must have the courage to say, “This is what it means to flourish as a human being formed in the image of Christ.” Not in a harsh or exclusionary way, but as an act of love and integrity. If everything is permitted, nothing is formed. But, boundaries aren’t set around individuals but around communities—this is the moral framework—one might say the gospel framework—on which the church as a moral community is built.

Second, we need intentional discipleship. We can’t rely on an eight-week course to shape people into saints. Formation must be lifelong, embodied, and intergenerational. It happens in small groups, shared meals, conversations over a cup of coffee or tea, one-on-one mentorship, and consistent worship.

Third, we need a countercultural witness. Our society prizes autonomy and self-expression. The Church must offer something more compelling: a life together. Radical forgiveness. Economic sharing. Patient hope. In a lonely world, community itself becomes evangelism.

And finally, we need a culture of grace. Without grace, none of this is sustainable. We will hurt each other. We will fail. But a moral community that knows how to repent, to forgive, to rejoice—that is a sign of the kingdom.

A New Equilibrium

Near the end of the podcast, Haidt makes a striking observation. For much of the 20th century, the forces of capitalism and individualism were counterbalanced by religious moral communities. But now, he says, “the religious counterforces have weakened so much that the system fell out of equilibrium.” The result? A society that prizes expression over formation, choice over commitment, and anxiety over peace.

The Church cannot compete with that by hosting more events or offering nicer coffee. Our task isn’t to be more appealing. It’s to be more different—to embody a kind of life together that the world has forgotten it needs.

This isn’t romanticism. It’s realism rooted in hope.

If we want to see the Church flourish—not as an institution, but as a witness—we must recover the idea that the local church is not a building or a programme or a loose affiliation of well-meaning individuals. It’s a people. A moral community. A family formed by the Spirit, gathered around Word and Sacrament, and sent out in love.

Because in the end, the Church isn’t just where we go but who we are called to become—together.

And the world doesn’t need another place to visit. It needs a people, redeemed by love, who remember who they are.