Why Interfaith Centers fail
For fourteen years I was the manager of a large interfaith center in Columbia, Maryland. During my tenure there, at the high point of the “interfaith movement” we had seven congregations. A large Roman Catholic church, three protestant churches, Lutheran, Methodist and Baptist. We also had three Jewish congregations. In the beginning of the interfaith center there was a atmosphere of cooperation and unity. After the first few years as the congregations grew in size conflicts started arising. The priests, ministers and rabbis all came from other congregations in other parts of the country. For most of the clergy this placement was a promotion…but in some ways it was also a demotion. A minister, priest or rabbi of a small rural congregation has much more authority over the day to day management of the facility. By being part of a interfaith center that control that the minister, priest or rabbi had was lost. We had three worship spaces and seven congregations, so that meant that the service could not run over or start late. Often there were other services before and after each service, not counting weddings, receptions and funerals. In addition to the services we also rented out the space to other groups especially on the weekdays. It would not be unusual to have a wedding, a funeral and a business conference along with a AA meeting all happening at the same time, followed by a church service, a church board meeting, a business conference and a zoning hearing.
Congregations, despite all the good words and all the good intentions, are basically competitors. Each one thinks their brand is the best, their interpretation more accurate, their founders more devote. Oddly in fourteen years I never heard of one member leaving their congregation for another within the interfaith center. Despite being so close together, sharing parking lots and bathrooms, there was not much fellowship between them. One older man, who still believed in the original ideal of having interfaith services from time to time would try to shame others to join him and a handful would sing a tune or two, with lukewarm interest and then return back to where they belonged.
After fourteen years of trying to smooth over all the arguments between the minsters, fourteen years of trying to manage fifty events per week, I called it quits and moved on to another career.
To my surprise the interfaith center organization collapsed after I left. Somehow I was the lubricant that made the system work, the mediator that dealt with the oversized egos and swollen sense of self importance that is all to common among the clergy.
I had managed the center with tight fiscal constraints and after I left the next manager went on a spending spree that ruined the finances. As a result two congregations left. It is still called an interfaith center, but now it is in name only.
The fighting stopped since each remaining congregation had there own territory now, no need to share space or bother to work with each other.
Perhaps it was doomed from the beginning. In America the idea of cooperation, was just always just that, an idea.
It was a noble experiment, an effort to get congregations to share and cooperate. But if a society cannot share or cooperate, how can a congregation?
