Went to a church service like none I've ever been to this morning. The service was held in the foyer section, much to mine and K's surprise – we were hoping to slink in to a back pew somewhere, unnoticed. Instead, we walked straight into a room full of people. Hung around near the entrance for a while, before we realised that was a dumb spot to stand for a couple of new people trying to blend in – we accidentally became the welcoming team for a few minutes there. Quickly went to find a seat at one of the tables in case someone tried to pin a 'Hi, I'm Rebecca!' badge on my front, and sign me up to chair the welcoming team's committee meetings on the penultimate Tuesday of every month.
While we were waiting for the service to start, I flicked through a church bulletin I'd found on the table in front of me. Most of it was the usual yada yada – what's on this week, tithe targets, praise and prayer points, and the ubiquitous hall of fame on the back cover. But there was one article that particularly caught my eye. I hope the author doesn't mind if I copy the article here. This is what it said:
"Is This A Sign Of A Dying Church???
I write this editorial with a heavy heart, burdened with a sense that all is not well in [this church]. Take a look around and count how many of you are here in church today? Where have all the others gone? Why are they not here?
I cannot try to offer reasons for their absences except that I can only hope that they have not chosen to
I will confess that I have been rather disillusioned by what has been talked about in church over the past few weeks. I was not impressed by a visiting speaker telling me that church is no longer sacred, and we should be thinking "Outreach, Outreach, Outreach!" While I acknowledge that as Christians, we should not be an exclusive group and shun the non-believers, I take offence to the suggestion that it is better to outreach than to attend church on Sunday. If that is the case, I shall be looking for a nice shady tree in a park next Sunday, bringing a large picnic rug and lunch, and inviting some stranger in the park to come share my rug, my lunch & do "outreach". "Nothing wrong with that", I hear some of you remark, but the bottom-line here is not all of us are cut out to do outreach, or want to do outreach. Some of us prefer to come to church to worship the Lord, be inspired, motivated, and encouraged by a Biblical message and cherish our time of being able to be in the Lord's temple. After all, is not the church the "Body of Christ"?
What are you getting out of church these days? Have you made your thoughts or expectations known to the Elders, your Home Group, your spouse, your fellow brother or sister in church? Or will you just slip quietly away to another church to find more meaningful worship & hope things will improve at [this church]? Are you losing your church before your very eyes? Can you afford not to say or do anything and let [this church] meet her inevitable demise? I sensed that these are troubled times at [this church]…
(Disclaimer: Views expressed in this editorial are not necessarily a representation of the views of other members in [this church]. This editorial is meant to generate discussion, reflection, and quiet meditation before the Lord.) – EDITOR"
Felt a bit like a rabbit that had accidentally hopped onto a shooting range. Didn't have much time to contemplate the article before a guy with a microphone started ahem-ing and shuffling papers up the front. Didn't hear much of what he said for the first few minutes, because all I could think about was his ENORMOUS BEARD. I've never seen a beard that big. Soon snapped out of my beard fixation when I realised that he was introducing what was to be a very serious time of discussion.
Pastor Beard went on to outline some feedback he'd been getting from people in the church lately, and told us he was about to set a few things straight. He drew a diagram on the white board that looked like this:
He explained that he believed that most Christians had a tendency to separate the different components of their lives into sections – work, church, God, family, marriage, social life, etc. It wasn't often that the components intersected. Church and God in particular are not often seen as having anything in common with the world, but rather as a refuge from it. Then he drew a different diagram, one that looked like this:
The dark grey area, he explained, was the goal – that was the ideal place to be. He urged the congregation to view their lives holistically, and not in separate, irreconcilable sections. He wasn't saying to embrace the world, but rather accept that we are all a part of it, and to see all aspects of our lives as a part of our walk with God, and not just the churchy stuff. He said that in
This was all very interesting as an outsider. The thing that struck me the most about the whole thing was that this church (or the pastor at least) wasn't afraid to admit, even in the presence of visitors, that things weren't as great as they could be. Nobody was pretending that things were perfect. Nobody seemed afraid to be themselves, or to say what they thought. Some might have seen it as division in the ranks – I saw it as a place where it was okay to be where you were at. It made me want to be a part of it. Mainly because the thing that puts me off church the most are the people/congregations that pretend they have it all together. I don't want to be a part of a church that has it all together! I'd only come along and wreck it. The sort of service that I attended today was, in my opinion, the real thing. People being vulnerable. Leadership being vulnerable. Not pretending to know all the answers, but willing to be open to whatever those answers might be. Sign me up, I say. Am I climbing aboard a sinking ship? I'm not sure. I guess time will tell.
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