Church of Friends

Praised be!!! This photo is from my adult bat-mitzvah at age 25, but I have a similar enthusiasm for starting Church of Friends!

The title of this blog post may seem bizarre coming from a Jewish girl, but allow me to explain:

For the last few months I have been dreaming up this idea called THE CHURCH OF FRIENDS (or Synagogue of Friends for my fellow Jews, I just didn’t want to confuse non-jews).

Basically, after having a kid, I realized that a very valuable part of real Church/Temple is that you have a standing date with your friends (and God!) every single Sunday. You don’t have to organize anything, or let anyone know one week if you can’t make it. It’s a weekly check in, with no hassle. It’s community in real life. And I realized I WANT THAT IN MY LIFE (but not necessarily the Judeo-Christian organized religion part of it at this exact moment in time). And we were pretty good at the community thang when we had a baby, but now that we are in toddler-ville we have kind of fallen off any facebook groups/group texting/communal hangs.

Here’s how it works: I set up C.O.F as a listserv, so every Friday or Saturday the parishioners receive an email saying where “worship” is happening on Sunday. (In an ideal world we’d have a giant house to meet every Sunday to make it super easy and convenient, but sadly we live in a small apartment so our house of worship changes every week – one weekend it’s in a park, next at the beach, and it continues to rotate). And the BEST PART IS: No one is allowed to respond! I don’t get 30 people saying why they can’t make it, or half BC bailing on the day of, and most of all, no one feels any pressure to come.

We are only a few weeks into the experiment of starting this new cult, and here are my two favourite things about it:

#1 – PARENTING IS JUST MORE FUN WHEN DOING IT WITH OTHERS. I consider this a holy truth.

#2 – EVEN NON-PARENTS WANT TO BE ON THE LIST! Our pals without kids have told me that we don’t invite them enough to morning hangs (because we assume they want to be sleeping or brunching!), but they would like the OPTION to come hang! And I couldn’t agree more, and ultimately, it means getting to see more of the people we love.

So want to be like me and John Oliver and start YOUR own Church in your area!? HALLELUJAH! DO IT!! Make a newsletter (it takes 5 seconds) or just pick a park for the hangout to happen every Sunday! It may just become the happiest and holiest time of your week.