Most of us would be satisfied by joining a book club.
Or meet on someones porch and have a sunday morning jam session, when the weather's good

WTF is a Secular Church/Religion any way?
Any system of Belief/Religion REQUIRES a Focal point/ subject upon which that system/belief MUST be founded and adhered to.
Atheism, for example, is NOT a system of belief, it IS an understanding, given the complete LACK of tangible, empirical EVIDENCE that "there is NO Supreme Being/Deity/God/Gods and NONE have ever existed except in the fevered minds of earlier humans."
Secular- (Oxford English ( NOT American English) Dictionary, 1, adj. Concerned with the affairs of this world, temporal, profane, lay, not distinctively sacred or ecclesiastical, not monastic, etc, etc,
2, one of the secular Clergy; a layman,
3 -Secularism, - doctrine that the basis of morality should be non-religious, policy of excluding religious teachings from schools under State/Government control.
So under WHICH definition do secular churches decide to place themselves, are they 1 or 2?

Good article, thanks for that.

The thing that gets missed is you can come together and yet not feel that bond that people are missing. Church isn't just community, it's shared practices and beliefs. Something deeper that binds people. So how do those of us who reject the nonsense of God's and supernatural bullshit build or find that without them?

I personally am a Satanist. Satanism is an atheistic religion. Unlike atheism, it has shared culture, values etc. I have a Satanic altar set up in my home, it brings me happiness and calm. Atheism says what I don't believe but says nothing about what I do believe. Satanism is that part.

Clearly there needs to be numerous different solutions. Satanism isn't the right answer for most people, each of us needs to find our path that works for us. Mine is the left hand path

I've long said that atheism is such a narrow opinion on a single question that it can't possibly serve as a shared belief or experience to hold a cohesive social group together.

I think this sentence is key: "Woodhead believes that communities can be hugely important to people, of course—but you can’t just meet for the sake of community itself. You need a very powerful motivating element to keep people coming, something that attendees have in common."

I'd put it a little differently though. In my experience and observation, most modern church-goers really don't enjoy the experience that much. The dogma that says you "ought to" attend ("forsake not the assembling of yourselves together, as the manner of some is" ). That places certain obligations on you ... to care about "the things of God", to worship him, to live according to his word ... this keeps you going even when, if you'd be honest with yourself, you're not really into it. Indeed, despite those negative motivators, many actual churches struggle to keep people interested and the doors open and the coffers at least adequately full.

Still, we humans ARE hyper-social creatures. So why is it so hard to form such groups?

Churches used to prosper in small communities, especially rural ones, where people had to get along and cooperate effectively to survive, both physically and emotionally. People overcame their natural tendency to fight and compete because to be a social outcast in that setting was to greatly increase your chance of not surviving. In many areas the church also was the mediator of what today are government-run social services. A local church was basically a bunch of like-minded families banding together for common good, to help and comfort each other through the ups and downs of life.

Today you don't even have to leave your house to have nominal interaction with the outside world via the Internet, maybe not even to do paying work. The government takes care (however imperfectly) of basic needs. There is no immediate threat to band together against (bitter cold winters, drought and crop failures, storm damage) that won't be handled by FEMA and similar. Education is too complex and specialized to be done at home or church. Division of labor has been taken to extreme. Young people have little experience getting along with people they're not thrilled with; it's considered lame to do so in fact. Hook up with friends or find impromptu events through phone apps. Ghost people you lose interest in. It's a different world.

And of course there are so many superficial distractions and entertainments -- binge watching TV shows, playing video games, even watching porn I guess for many. You can distract yourself and have superficial and even exciting interactions, but always with a high degree of anonymity and minimal actual commitment.

I thought my wife and I were going to find friends and common cause in our little neighborhood, where the houses are like 25 feet apart and everyone has a front porch. People respond to that by not sitting on their front porch and pulling the shades on the sides facing their neighbor. Their human contact is all from work or professional sources.

Our kids, like everyone else's, are scattered to the four winds. Our grandchildren are hundreds of miles away. My stepdaughter has actually told her mother not to even ask for help if she ever becomes infirm and incapable of caring for herself, as she doesn't want to be burdened like that. And this isn't unusual today.

In practice my community is a handful of other old men who get together for superficial conversation and to play cards on Saturday mornings. Also, my wife found a fellow writer who she gets along with, and I like that woman's husband, and we're starting to do things socially with them.

Frankly that's enough for we two introverts, but it's rather tenuous. I'm not saying none of those people will ever extend themselves to us at all in a pinch, but there's certainly no implicit agreement that we're going to rally around someone who is sick or in pain, either. All the contact is for the purpose of low-drama, low-expectation enjoyment. If we can't go on a dinner date with that other couple, then nothing else happens. They don't come to us with a bowl of soup and do our housework for us. If some guy doesn't show up for cards, after a couple of weeks we'll probably call and ask if he's okay, but if he's not, I'm not sure anyone is going to do much beyond offer condolences.

This is what Western society has evolved into -- no one has any experience or expectation of getting down in the trenches with friends or even family. Instead you pick up the phone and hire an in home care specialist and you call in Meals on Wheels, etc. You can get the practical help, but not anyone who actually CARES about you. Alienation is the order of the day. I don't know what to do about it, in practical terms.

I think the best bet is to be involved in several casual, low-touch things like my game of cards and hope for the best. For all the reasons stated above, I don't miss church, as it would be another stilted attempt to simulate meaningful community, but it's really just conditional acceptance from that quarter too now, for the most part.

Frankly part of the reason I post in places like this is to have someone to exchange ideas with now and then, to be ever so slightly missed if I disappear. That's another part of how I keep my sanity.

Won't work

Matt Dillihunty said it best: Go and preach the banana.

I think this may apply.

I am not surprised. When I left religion, I never felt the need for any kind of a church or congregation.

What a load of crap, secular is the antithesis of a church, are the founders morons???

If I were younger and forced to live in a city I’d join a soccer club, a bicycle club, and some sort of philosophical discussion group. Taking college courses can be very rewarding and provides social contact. I think that to mean much social contact has to be incidental to the main interest.

Being a non-believer is not enough to draw people together. Actually believing is not what holds churches together either. Some churches require no belief and do not stress belief. What holds them together is awareness, appreciation, and reverence. Sharing those things, they then engage in artistic expressions such as rituals, ceremonies, prayers, meditation, etc.

Religion does not need a god, just a wolf in shepherds clothing, a set of rules on who to hate and a flock of mindless sheep willing to be lead to the slaughter.

Isn't secular and church an oxymoron?

I am completely against atheist churches....it only gives ammunition to our critics who label us as a religion without gods. We are not. We do not preach, have priests or try to convert others, in fact we are not an organised group at all. What we are, are individuals who have left behind (or never had) a collective mindset, but use our brains to think for ourselves.