As I sat at a Christmas party with some of my closest friends and loved ones I could not help but feel at home. The feeling was not because I was in a current town I had once known as home or because the smell or song reminded me of a pastime, instead I felt at home because of the people I was with, my friends. In the book Urban Tribes: Are Friends The New Family?, author Ethan Watters discusses a social trend that emerged sometime around the early 1990s, one he has experienced, as well as studied, and refers to as “Urban Tribes.” While this phenomenon has gone almost unidentified by anyone within the Institutional Church, it has been well recognized by the rest of our culture. In fact, the church has done little to nothing to respond to it, so much as that many within urban tribes who will call themselves Christians, do not want to be in anything that looks like an Institutional Church because they feel their needs go unmet by the church community. Instead, “church” for many of them is within their tribal community because they believe this type of community looks a lot more like the New Testament Church than any Institutional Church they have been to. This is because it is in urban tribes, not in the church, that individuals are finding acceptance, meaning, and community.
So what is an urban tribe and what does this trend mean for the Church in the coming decade? (As a side note: anyone who is in ministry of any kind, especially youth and adult ministry needs to pick up this book, read it, and ponder how this social trend might affect his or her own ministry) urban tribes as Watters describes them are communities of “single-friends” who live in different urban communities around the world. How urban tribes form is unknown, their beginning seems to be more like a game of connecting the dots where friends connect with friends, who connect with even more friends, until a core group of friends is constructed. While some friends connect through work, others connect through college or living together. Not all members of one tribe are defined by one activity or trait, but many tribe members are living between post-college life and pre-family life, delaying marriage into their late twenties, thirties, and forties. It is impossible to simplify what urban tribes are, since their size, composition, rules and rituals vary radically. Tribe members seem to live in a constant pursuit of the future, living without an identity, stuck between childhood and marriage. Members of urban tribes are asking many of life’s big questions, as well as living unsure of or even without their own metanarrative while wanting to know there are others in similar circumstances.
As it relates to marriage and family, members of urban tribes do not have strong enough ties to their families to continue living within proximity to relatives. Instead, they are waiting to start families of their own having lived outside the home for six to seven years by the time they are 25. Members cannot point to one reason why they have chosen to postpone family life, and neither can Watters. Some people believe that many have postponed family life because they have seen how their parents’ generation fell apart, setting records in divorces rates, drugs use, adultery, and other forms of self-destructive behavior. Therefore, urban tribe members distrust the adult community and are trying to create a new adult self, distant from their parents’ generation. Others point to the fact that individuals have more free time now, that some have found themselves divorced at an unexpectedly early age, or even that women are freer to work in whatever field they choose, instead of being limited to working in the home. A more reasonable catalyst would be a combination of all of the above, almost as a type of stained glass mirror that individually brings different colors to the picture, yet when assembled together presents a larger piece of art.
Community and friendship rule all for those in urban tribes. Watters argues that the moral values of urban tribes are contained within the friendships and support groups that members create around them. He noticed that urban tribes have high clustering coefficients, which are found by dividing the number of people who know each other by the total number of people who could possibly know each other. A high clustering coefficient allows for reciprocal, positive relationships, which are entered freely. This high bond allows each member to support every other member of their tribe, as well as give each member of the tribe their own freedom to accomplish whatever they wish. Watters believes urban tribes are most like families in their expression of love during activities that carry meaning. It is a tribe’s friendship history that helps the group maintain a group identity; this history also helps the tribe to introduce new members into the tribe, as over time a new member becomes a part of the history of the tribe. Friendship in tribes may be broken down into friendship or personality roles such as the advice giver, the comedian, the deal negotiator, the ones in need, the mother like figure, and the social director yet, all friends are on a level playing field and bring an equal amount of importance to the group. During group functions individuals will separate off into smaller clusters of three to four people and gossip about their lives. Watters believes that these small groups of gossiping clusters allow for group members not only to pass along important information, which allows members to get to know each other, but that gossip is an act of expressing alliance to the membership of the group.
In urban tribes friendship plays an essential role in defining an individual. They see their selves in their friends and they see themselves in each other. Watters argues that friends do not necessarily reflect one’s true self, but an idealized notion of who a person is; therefore, friends are good at encouraging one another, but not as helpful at promoting needed change. Unlike many peoples' experiences within their family lives, tribes provide a positive environment for members at their current juncture in life by challenging one's self-loathing and providing the support necessary for a person to further discover who they are. For instance, while mom and/or dad might be asking why one is not married at 30, urban tribes do not ask this question, but care for the individual and support them for where they are in life. urban tribes bring something to the table that many families do not, acceptance. Therefore instead of traditional family relationships, it is through their tribe friendships that members learn to be comfortable in their own skin. The devotion that tribe members show one another helps teach members the devotion they want or believe they should give to their future significant other, if they even chose to marry.
Urban tribe communities help to connect tribes to their city through social responsibilities. Unlike the traditional “American way” of belonging to one organization, such as the Boy Scouts or the local PTA, urban tribes participate in social action through a “society of friendship.” Through the a society of friendship tribe members connect to one another spreading the word of need through existing networks and are then motivated to participate in social action through their strong friendship ties.
Many members of urban tribes are in a constant cycle of dating, moving from one person to the next, yet always staying true to their tribes. While many members find value in the institution of marriage, not many are moving quickly to get there. Tribe members are no longer idealistic about marriage, but have started questioning the marriage practices of the generation before them, feeling that many of their parents jumped into marriage too quickly. Many members are therefore looking for their “soul mates,” or at least someone that will provide as much support to them as their tribe has. If a member is dating someone, the approval of tribe members holds greater value than that of their family. Once a member marries s/he will then leave the tribe for their new mate. Even though it was not intentional, most tribes realize that a married person’s attention turns from the tribe to their new mate and their free time is spent with their significant other, rather than with the tribe. Even if tribes last for decades, they eventually will significantly change or break apart as members get married. Sociologists as well as many people still believe that many of these “never-marrieds” will one day be married. There has been a recent shift in tribal communities where marrieds are trying to extend tribal relationships into married life. Marrieds have also begun to form married urban tribes where majorities of people within the tribes are married. Now the larger destroyer of urban tribes seems to be location and children instead of marriage.
Next week we will explore Urban Tribes through a cultural theological lens in order to see what the Church can learn from these communities, as well as bring to these communities. Until next week.
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