Beyond sacred and secular: where missionary discipleship begins

By Fr Donald Chambers

This Carnival season in Trinidad and Tobago has stirred deep theological and pastoral reflection about the kind of Church we are called to be in the Caribbean today.

In recent weeks, I have listened carefully to conversations among Christians and non-practising Christians alike. Among some believers, there is strong resistance to Carnival. They highlight its hedonistic and sensual dimensions and insist they will never attend certain events, especially fetes. “That is not a place for Christians,” some say.

On the other hand, some revellers move from Carnival into Lent as if the two worlds have nothing to do with each other. Ash Wednesday arrives, but the sacred does not enter their horizon.

Listening to both groups, I realised they shared the assumption that the sacred and the secular belong to separate worlds. One group withdraws from culture to protect the sacred; the other leaves the sacred behind to enjoy culture. Both operate within a rigid either—or imagination.

Yet my recent experiences have unsettled this way of thinking. During Carnival, I attended a fete. Amid music and celebration, someone recognised me and gently pulled me aside.

With sincerity, they asked to celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation. There, in a space many would consider profane, a sacred moment unfolded. A heart sought God. Grace was present.

Later that evening, another person spoke of struggles in their faith, including doubts, questions, and a longing for meaning. They did not see the fete as a barrier to spiritual conversation. For them, it was simply where life was happening.

I left that night with a quiet conviction that even in spaces we label ‘profane’, the sacred is already present. People are spiritually hungry, searching and open. What they need is not a Church waiting for them to return to our buildings, but disciples willing to meet them where they are.

This raises an important question for the Caribbean Church: what does it mean to be a missionary disciple in our cultural context? One of the greatest obstacles may be the inherited separation between sacred and secular within our Christian imagination.

Over time, many believers have come to associate holiness primarily with explicitly religious spaces. Faith becomes confined to church buildings and private devotion, while public and cultural life unfolds in a separate sphere. The result is a divided Christian life. Some withdraw from cultural spaces perceived as morally ambiguous. Others immerse themselves in those spaces but leave faith behind. Many oscillate between the two, unsure how to live an integrated spirituality.

Yet the Gospel presents a different vision. Jesus did not confine His ministry to strictly religious settings. He met people at tables, along roads, by the sea, in homes and marketplaces. He revealed that God is not absent from ordinary life but present within it.

The Incarnation itself affirms that grace is mediated through the material and cultural fabric of human existence. In our contemporary world, this integration is even more necessary.

Philosopher Charles Taylor has described modern society as shaped by an ‘immanent frame’ in which belief in God becomes one option among many and religion is often privatised.

In such a context, many believers feel hesitant to express faith in public spaces, while society assumes spirituality belongs primarily within institutional settings.

For the Caribbean Church, this poses a pastoral challenge. If missionary discipleship is confined to ecclesial spaces, it will fail to engage the lived reality of many whose spiritual searching occurs outside them. But if disciples are formed to recognise and respond to God’s presence in everyday cultural life, new possibilities for encounter emerge.

Our Caribbean context is uniquely suited to this approach. We live in societies marked by creativity, strong communal bonds, and deep spiritual resilience. Cultural spaces where people gather, whether at the pan yard, the doubles line, a football match, or even a fete, are places where relationships form and conversations unfold naturally. These spaces can become sites of genuine encounter when approached with humility and discernment.

This does not mean uncritically embracing everything in our culture. Discernment remains essential. But it does mean moving beyond a rigid separation between the sacred and the secular toward a more integrated vision of faith and life.

The change I hope to see in our Church is a shift from an either/or imagination to a both/and vision: from sacred versus secular to sacred within secular life; from withdrawal to presence; from maintaining boundaries to building bridges; from producing Mass attenders to forming missionary disciples.

I am discovering that the sacred and the secular are not sealed off from one another. They meet in conversation, friendship, and unexpected requests for prayer.

They meet wherever people seek meaning and hope. If we are willing to be present and attentive, we may find that God is already at work in the very spaces we once thought beyond the reach of grace.

Fr Donald Chambers of the Archdiocese of Kingston, Jamaica is the General Secretary of the Antilles Episcopal Conference.