You can find me speaking about the Sunday Assembly and it’s success here in Leeds on their website, where they’re just giving it away (so consider subscribing)!

I’ll probably end up submitting a few more bits in the future but for now, I’m just proud of being part of such a great show.

We’ve had over 200 RSVPs and confirmation that BBC Look North will be filming live on location and BBC Radio will be doing a segment as well. Over the past week, we’ve had coverage in the Yorkshire Evening Post, Real Radio Leeds, and BBC Radio Leeds. And that’s in addition to the international attention that The Sunday Assembly continues to attract.

It should go well and we have a great team of volunteers working on this. With luck this community will grow and thrive and live up to its motto of getting people to live better, help often, and wonder more.

Tomorrow afternoon I head to Barcelona for a few days, so I may not be able to post an update right away but I’ll try to write a follow up.

For now, read Harrogate Skeptic’s founder Michelle’s take on what value this type of community has had for her.

The benefits of singing in groups, even if you’re bad at it, are well established in literature. The release of endorphins during such exercises is linked to lower stress and anxiety, which ultimately lead to longer and happier lives. It seems fairly uncontroversial and like exercise, the more you sing, the better it is for you.

Traditional hymns are falling in popularity and the stereotypical image of mainline Protestant Christian churches include dry, uninspiring songs. So the advantage for secular groups is that we can bring music in from any and all sources, including 80s and 90s pop and rock music. No song is going to appeal to everyone but the act of getting together and singing seems like a good thing to do.

The next link, between secular meditation and wellbeing, is equally established and is endorsed strongly by New Atheist Sam Harris (among others). Discussion of meditation can definitely move into the quasi-religious and spiritual woo domains but it doesn’t have to. Meditation and silent reflection can begin with little more than clearing your mind of thoughts for a few minutes a day. Having a group that reminds you to do that only strengthens the habit.

This leaves what I think is my personal strongest drive to build secular communities: the correlation between religious activity and political participation. A growing number of papers are identifying a correlation between religious activity and civic engagement. This leads to the strength of the religious right

Specifically, it’s not religious identity that matters but the engagement in a local moral community. Getting to know your neighbours names and to care about their lives is what makes people start to care about things outside their own lives. This leads to people wanting to donate to charity, volunteer, vote, get involved in politics, and build better communities.

My hypothesis is that it is not belief in god driving people to become politically active but the act of knowing your neighbours (and more than a token ‘hi’ at a monthly pub meeting) that makes people care. In this regard, we should see secular communities and godless congregations as a way to build social capital to affect change (which doesn’t have to come from the ‘pulpit’ as these things will spontaneously happen, as evidenced by The Sunday Assembly London’s new charitable initiatives that grew out of local demand).

Couple this social capital with the overwhelmingly progressive values of the non-religious as a demographic and godless congregations become a tool to engage progressive politics. In an era of rising inequality, continued deregulation, rising un(der)employment, rising student debt, and coming environmental catastrophes, this movement is desperately needed.

I watched from Leeds and saw people on Twitter watching it bright and early in America and late in the evening in Australia. Conway Hall looked near capacity and many groups held get-togethers so it’s hard to know how many people saw the service, which featured two speakers and several pop anthems (ending with Meatloaf’s I would do anything for love).

You can re-watch the event online if you want to get an idea of what The Sunday Assembly looks like (note: you’ll need to register for the site or link with Facebook).

During the service, they introduced their crowdfunding campaign with their snazzy video:

Basically, the goal is to raise £500,000 to build an interactive website platform that helps establish future Sunday Assemblies. It also provides a barebones salary for Sanderson and Pippa, who up until now have been working full-time for free on this project (and actually throwing tons of their own money into it).

In just a few hours since launching, they’ve already raised over £3000 and you can help by donating in exchange for some sweet prizes.

Every pound raised over the first 24 hours is also being matched generously by Sanderson (up to £20,000).

While watching this video I realized what has attracted me to Sunday Assembly since it’s beginning: It is more ambitious than any other freethought group.

The video is slick, well-produced, and sets high expectations while still being fun.

It’s this attitude that’s lacking from many other groups that are content, or even excited, to see 30 or 40 people show up at an event. It’s lacking from the British Humanist Association when they have staff going on record as saying it merely reaches a “younger demographic” (thereby implying that Humanism is just for old people).

It’s that ambition and drive that have built the momentum behind Sunday Assembly. Momentum that includes 35 new Assemblies being launched in the next 40 days and likely more in very short order after that. Sanderson and Pippa receive thousands of emails from people wanting to start new groups in every corner of the globe.

Compare that with the well established Humanist, Atheist, and Skeptic groups that struggle to grow to a few new cities or campuses a year. The Secular Student Alliance is perhaps the only organization with comparable momentum (growing over the past decade from a handful to a few hundred university and high school campuses).

We’ll have to see how well this momentum keeps up. It’s always important to keep in mind that only a year ago, the Sunday Assembly was little more than the dream of a couple comedians on a road-trip.

Nevertheless, it’s an exciting movement that is doing a lot to reach out to audiences and demographics that have seemingly been abandoned by many freethought groups. We’ll have to see how long they take to catch up.

It sounds mostly amicable, with a difference in emphasis being the primary difference. The Sunday Assembly is moving slightly away from the atheist brand, while the New York contingent is hoping to play up atheism and mock religion a bit more.

…we have [had] our first organizational division and it is at Sunday Assembly New York. The chief split is between those who are more on the atheist side of the fence, and then those who want to have a more inclusive message. This division has meant that the inclusive contingent resigned from the board. This then led the remaining gang to start a new group called The Godless Revival.

In the non-religious marketplace of ideas, the more the merrier. I’m happy to keep working with Sanderson and Pippa’s model that has evidence for its appeal (at least in secular Britain) but will wish well to the Godless Revivalists.

Sanderson will still be visiting the New York Ethical Culture Society (who have an incredible building that I hope to one day visit) to (re-)launch Sunday Assembly New York, and I look forward to hearing of their success.

One thing worth noting is that Sanderson is quite supportive of each group going their own way and the web-based infrastructure that will be crowd funded for later this month will eventually be used to help build godless congregations of all sorts (not just Sunday Assemblies).

Nevertheless, I guess one characteristic of churches I missed earlier was the tendency to schism over (a)theological differences.

One of the key ingredients to the early success of The Sunday Assembly, in my mind, is the use of the paradoxical phrase “Atheist Church.”

It simultaneously describes exactly what the event is trying to do – host a church-like service for those who don’t believe in god – while also drawing attention by way of the oxymoron.

However, given the number of pedants and the psychological baggage of various terms, people have complained about the usage of the phrase. Atheism is not a religion, so there isn’t really such thing as an atheist church. Furthermore, although non-belief in god is upfront, The Sunday Assembly is open to everyone and many agnostics or spiritual people find enjoyment in the services.

This has lead to Sanderson Jones and Pippa Evans distancing The Sunday Assembly from the word atheist.

But that leaves the question about the other word: How much church is there in the atheist church?

Atheists are rightly critical of churches tendency to rely the top-down authority, blind adherence to dogmatism and faith, and doctrine that is frequently opposed to science and evidence. However, church can also be a place where a community comes together, where neighbours know one another’s names and care about how you are doing, and where food and song is used to unify and inspire.

While some atheists are prone to absolute knee-jerk rejection of anything that smells faintly religious, there are clearly strengths and weaknesses– and a lot of variation – in what we understand as churches. For many ex-religious, church culture leaves deep scars, while others miss the ritual. For those never raised in religion like myself, there is potentially some value in creating close secular communities.

Looking at The Sunday Assembly, it has already taken some steps to avoid the pitfalls and dangers of authoritarian religions (while potentially missing others, due to the incredible speed at which this has all erupted).

From the Public Charter of The Sunday Assembly:

The Sunday Assembly…

2. Has no doctrine. We have no set texts so we can make use of wisdom from all sources.

…

7. Is independent. We do not accept sponsorship or promote outside businesses, organisations or services

…

9. We won’t won’t tell you how to live, but will try to help you do it as well as you can

New groups, as part of the Sunday Assemblies Everywhere accreditation process, are prohibited from allowing any one person to host (or lead) more than 50% of their services. Each event also features multiple voices, with invited speakers and readers, to diversify the voices. These efforts reduce the tendency for any Sunday Assembly to become a cult of personality.

On the other hand, The Sunday Assembly format has borrowed a lot from successful Evangelical Christian mega-churches. Books like The Purpose Driven Church are used as inspiration on how to improve the movement. Sanderson Jones and Pippa Evans are also quite recognizable as the faces of the organization and their comedy background has been attributed as the success of the Sunday Assembly in London.

Overall, church may not be the best description for The Sunday Assembly (notice that they self-describe mostly as a “godless congregation,” similar to Greg Epstein and James Croft’s upcoming book). Perhaps the best solution is to just give it a try and see if it’s something that can add to your life.

What really got my attention was how successful they were in such a short period of time. The paradoxical marketing as an “atheist church” clearly had legs and was picked up by media around the world. The coverage created curiosity and a crowd of a couple hundred started to grow and spawn interest in America and Australia for more of these things.

Now, with several hundred attending The Sunday Assembly in London each month and new Sunday Assemblies across the UK, USA, Australia, and Canada each attracting the attention of hundreds of people – Brighton hosted 230 at its first event, Vancouver has nearly 300 interested, and Los Angeles is looking for a venue to accommodate over 400 – the evidence is fairly clear: There’s something to Sanderson and Pippa’s secret formula.

I was fairly on board with the idea from my first hearing of idea in late 2012/early 2013 and stepped up to get Vancouver and Leeds on board for the upcoming #40Dates tour that will be used to launch Sunday Assemblies across the planet. The BC Humanists have taken on the Vancouver event, which will be held on November 13th, while I’ve met some great new friends here in Leeds who I’m working with to launch ours on October 29th.

We’ve got a good start going but things are really going to pick up soon as our event is just over a month away.

We have a website www.sundayassemblyleeds.com and social media links (EventBrite – for registrations, Facebook Event, Twitter, Facebook Page, Facebook group, and MeetUp.com) and our next organizers meeting is Sunday at 10 AM (over brunch) at Stick or Twist in Leeds City Centre.

Our tentative venue (which will hopefully be confirmed by Monday or else a couple of us will be making some frantic calls early next week) is the gorgeous Church of St John the Evangelist, the oldest church in Leeds. I shot some pictures of it last week:

It was built in 1634 and was deemed redundant by the Church of England in 1975. Since 1977 it has been part of The Churches Conservation Trust, which seeks to preserve the heritage of old English churches.

While a great venue, we unfortunately won’t be able to use it throughout the winter, as it has no heating (and we can’t use space heaters because of the liability and potential stress to the wood).

Nevertheless, hopefully we’ll be able to put on an exciting first night (albeit, probably a bit chilly) and move to a warmer venue for the subsequent months (when our Sunday Assembly will actually happen on Sundays).

I’ll keep you up to date with how our event goes and I’ll also try to follow this post with a few addressing the debates around whether it really is a “church for atheists.”