Participation in a community means to share successes and sufferings.
Participation is the attitude leading a community to liveliness even in the situation of shrinking, but to tolerance even in the situation of growth. Through bringing inside the community the life realities of many many different individual situations it protects against authoritarianism in cases of succesfull expansion.
Such, in my opinion, participation should also release energies for keep the community on living, even if one member (eventual the “leader”) misses. My questions before this conference is: How to strengthen the participation inside a congregation, in order to not become inwardly extinct, while from outside (f.i. from a community´s fan club through “online services”) comes a lot of ensurement and compliment but no kind of spiritual cohesion and support?