One thing I recall about growing up churchy in the 1980s and 1990s was that church was typically nearby, part of the community, and, broadly speaking, a family of families.

I grew up in the Greater Tried Stone Baptist Church in the Columbia Heights section of Northwest Washington, DC. Established over a hundred years ago, Tried Stone was one of the few buildings in Columbia Heights that didn’t burn during the 1968 riots. The women and men who had lived through those years had become the matriarchs and patriarchs of their families, and the elders of the church.

At one point, I lived so close to the church that all I had to do was hang a right at my front door, another right at the alley, and be at the church steps in 30 seconds. The people in my age group usually went to my schools or neighboring schools—or sometimes rival schools. What fun it was to run into church friends at football games.

As I grew older, I noticed that this sense of closeness—geographically and relationally—was part of what made church strong. But in recent decades, church attendance has declined across the United States, and Quaker meetings are generally no exception to this trend. In addition, some of those who might once have felt most welcome in church spaces now feel unsafe, especially in the wake of houses of worship once again becoming targets for ICE raids.

The best part of being “churchy,” for me, was the community service Tried Stone offered. We fed the hungry, visited the sick and clothed those in need. The service aspects of Friends Meeting of Washington, where I now worship, are similarly meaningful and impactful—many people in this community serve others in organized ways, particularly the unhoused population of DC. Yet my meeting does not resemble its neighborhood the way Tried Stone once did.

If my meeting reflected Dupont Circle’s demographics, there would be more men, more Hispanic/Latinx people and more Asian people. Over half would have a master’s degree or higher, and the median age would be much younger. This is not a criticism, just a comparison.

Tried Stone is now a much smaller congregation, and it too no longer mirrors its neighborhood, which today includes thousands more Spanish-speaking immigrants. The children of the older families have moved away, worshiping now in larger churches with ample parking. The love of God remains, but the loyalty to the home church has shifted toward nostalgia.

I can’t help but wonder if this is how it is supposed to be—or if all faith communities are dealing with a collective unpreparedness. When the world changes around us, we often don’t know how to respond. We forget how to welcome the stranger when the stranger no longer looks like us.

How should we respond? Stand by and open next week’s Vitality for some answers.

In Friendship,

Rashid Darden

Associate Secretary for Communications and Outreach