New Spokane Faith Group, Commoners, To Host ‘A Blue Christmas’ to Address Holiday Struggles
By Mia Gallegos | FāVS News
Commoners, a new spiritual group formed by Joseph and Nicole Peterson, will be having their first event — A Blue Christmas — on Thursday. The event is focused around the heaviness that sometimes comes with the holiday season, which many people avoid confronting or discussing.
The Blue Christmas event aligns with Commoners’ mission to foster difficult, but necessary conversations in the Spokane community. The group aims to create spaces where people can be vulnerable while working toward collective healing, particularly focusing on those who have felt marginalized by traditional religious institutions.
Joseph Peterson, who was formerly a pastor at several churches throughout the county, began forming this idea for a new religious group when he and his family were living in Canada. Presiding at what he referred to as a Canadian megachurch in Vancouver, British Columbia, Peterson realized that his own faith journey and progressive ideas surrounding theology may no longer be suited for the church community where he was preaching.
Finding a New Path in Spokane
“Being a pastor in that community didn’t really make sense for me anymore. There were some theological differences and it just wasn’t a good match anymore,” he said.
Joseph Peterson and his family moved back to the U.S., where he began having doubts of whether or not ministry was for him, as his progressive views surrounding religion and traditionality in the church didn’t seem like they would resonate or be accepted.
“I didn’t know if there was a place where I could be myself and also hold true to these views that I have,” he said.
Their family ended up in Spokane, where he began working at New Community Church. One of his friends was the pastor there. While having a great experience within this community, Joseph Peterson still felt called in a different direction that would be more in line with those progressive ideologies that he held. He knew he was passionate about the Christian faith, but wanted to build a community that existed outside of traditional Christian structures, he said.
Reimagining Faith Beyond Traditional Structures
“Commoners was kind of the brainchild of the ideas around what it would look like to reimagine faith and community and church outside of the systems and structures that it currently exists in, a lot of which are really harmful, toxic and problematic,” he said.
Joseph Peterson explained some of the progressive church communities he has been a part of throughout the years that inspired him to take the leap and form this sort of a community, including Launchpad, Faith and Justice and New Wine. He wanted to create a community but not an established church that had a Sunday gathering, children’s ministry and the other things that are included in more traditional Christian faith organizations.
“I want to do something more accessible and inviting for people who have deconstructed or are deconstructing their faith. Or those people who grew up in conservative white evangelicalism and are trying to navigate what their faith looks like outside of these systems of patriarchy, heteronormativity, colonialism and all the things that are baked into the DNA of what we think of as the church,” Joseph Peterson said.
This idea of including people who may feel like traditional Christianity no longer applies to their stage of life is one that Nicole Peterson agreed with. She explained how this group does feel like it will cater to a public need that is not currently being met with traditional faith structures.
“Every time I meet someone, somehow the conversation forms around faith. They talk about how their faith systems don’t fit where they are at now. It feels like there’s such a need for something that looks so different. But that makes it hard to jump on board,” Nicole Peterson said.
Liberation and Love at the Center of Commoners’ Mission
The main idea behind Commoners is that advancement toward love and liberation for all. While these are some large themes to be tackling, Joseph Peterson shared how he streamlines the definition of liberation in today’s context.
“Our view of liberation is rooted in a sense of what we would say is an idea of heaven on Earth, which is less spiritual and way more practical, political and ethical. This is when people have their needs met and everyone has the resources they need to live an authentic expression of their identity, where people are free to choose how they do family and community,” he said.
A goal Commoners has is centering those groups of people who have been pushed to the outskirts of traditional models of Christianity, including homosexual, trangender, abortion needing and homeless members or society. The church seems to focus on the struggles of white, middle class, practicing Chrisitans rather than those in these other communities, Joseph Peterson said. Commoners is seeking to change that.
Breaking Barriers to Reconnect with Spirituality
Eugene Kim has been involved with the pastoral ministry and traditional structures of the church for more than 25 years. While he is currently located in Boston, he has functioned as a coach and spiritual mentor to Joseph Peterson for the past few years via Zoom calls and phone communication. He shared the shift he’s seen in religion over his years of observation of the church and how this sort of community may serve as a very necessary avenue for these sorts of individuals to reconnect with their spirituality.
“My conviction is that we have made access to the spiritual community more difficult than it ought to be. We’ve sort of created a lot of unnecessary barriers. There’s a lot of people walking away from organized religion and the one size fits all to the spiritual needs people have and they’ve begun looking for things elsewhere. There aren’t a lot of organized ways people are figuring out how to create community,” Kim said.
Kim feels as though what has been lost sight of within some of these organized religious communities is the tight-knit nature and relational growth that people seek within communities. He believes that creating an emphasis on smaller, relational gatherings allows space for those vulnerable and centering conversations for people who may have been historically pushed to the edges of the spiritual community.
Redefining Leadership
A challenge the Petersons have faced in the formation of this religious group is how to navigate what their relationship functions as, being the two “leaders” of this sort of a round-table community.
“For a long time I was a support role while he functioned as the leader. So coming off of the coattails of patriarchy forced us to learn to adapt. I was a stay-at-home mom, which was great while he was out working. The challenge has been figuring out how our relationship functions while demonstrating what we’re spreading with the community,” Nicole Peterson said.
Another challenge that the group has faced has been getting new people interested and on board with such a reformed identity for Christianity. In addition to this, entering a forum where you may be asked to share vulnerable ideas or emotions that you’ve experienced with strangers can be intimidating, or even as a deterrent for people.
However, Joseph Peterson shared that the numeric turnout of this group is not of importance to him or his co-leader.
“I’m just trying to create a resource and touchpoint for the community. If it’s six people great, if it’s 600 people, also great,” he said.
Building Community Through Accessibility and Trust
What Commoners is seeking to provide to the community is not a group where weekly attendance and participation is mandatory, rather, a community that is low commitment and highly accessible.
Kim feels that the traditional metrics for success in the formation of a religious cohort such as this one may prove to be a bit difficult to measure, as there has been no conventional blueprint for a group like this and one that isn’t focused on growth, monetary gain and traction.
“When you’re working with more organic, grassroots spiritual communities, your metrics are a bit different like trust, safety, connection and belonging. Growing will be slower because you’re growing at the speed of relationships. Even asking questions like ‘are we standing beside those who are vulnerable and marginalized?’ Maybe those are some of the markers of success,” Kim said.
He has all total faith that the Peterson’s will be asking the right questions to advance this group to a forum that will be very effective, by whatever metrics they choose to measure that success by.
A Blue Christmas is Commoners’ first official meeting, and it will be held on Dec. 19 at 5:30 p.m in the Event Room of the Shadle Park Community Library. Virtual accessibility to the event is available through the Commoners’ newsletter.
