Some thoughts on the Church Going Forward (Are we the primary home of spiritual nourishment?)

The Church is a bit like the family farm that is now surrounded by subdivisions. We may still serve the "family" well, but we're now disconnected from the community around us. Those outside see value in what we have, but more often they just pass by wondering about the old family that seems out of place, or maybe complaining about the old broken down tractors (programs) that they see in our front yard. We keep going along living life the way we do because it seems to work “for us” but with a call to the world as well as each other, we have to realize that our neighbors, who we used to chase cows with or who provided the fire wood that we now have to cut ourselves in exchange for veggies aren't there anymore. The community of the world we are part of has changed and we have to change as well.

Think if you will of when your neighbors move, the new neighbors still fill the same “position” but they most likely serve in different roles within the community. As such, the community changes, if the person who mowed the lawns moves away and the new neighbor doesn't own a lawnmower, someone steps into that role, or everyone has to figure out a way to accomplish what the need. You don't have to be the person to mow lawns, but at minimum you have to now mow your own or hire someone else.

So how does this apply back to the church? Well let's go back to the farm analogy: If we as the church began as a place that supplied the local community with a needed service, but have as time has changed become disconnected from the changing needs of our community, we need to consider what the community currently sees us as. If we are the now “family farm” taking care of itself mainly and seen a place filled with things from a time gone by, we're no longer doing what we originally aimed to do. We have stopped being part of the community, so how can we take what we have and better be what our communities now need?

I think of farms in the area where I grew up, some fenced themselves off more in order to avoid having people complain about escaping cows and will live as long as the family does and then certainly die out (if not before). They aim to maintain for themselves. This is certainly not our call as the church. Some others have sold off much of their land, using profits to try to become something new, or just living out their lives still separate from the community that has grown around them. Also, does not line up with the churches call. But there is one other way I've seen that seems to maybe have lessons we as the church can learn from.

Some of these farms have found themselves just like the one I started this article with: A family farm with rusted tractors and old barns surrounded by subdivisions and planned communities. They heard the mumbling of the neighbors, they saw that they weren't connected, and they looked for ways to be part of the world surrounding them. This meant getting rid of some tractors, cleaning up some barns, and repurposing themselves to continue to serve the community that they were now part of. Some became homes to farmer markets and auction houses. Some found their space to be in great demand for community carnivals, concerts, and other entertainment and slowly repurposed buildings and land to be more and more formal entertainment space. In both these cases there's still some working family farm land attached, but the family is also connected to the community through the other things it does, and in doing so the community for the family has increased. We as the church have many things a community needs, but we must first take the time to look and hear what our specific context needs and try to fill in that void IF we can. Regardless, the process of being neighbor begins by our willingness to go out, be aware of need, and offer help.

We are not just here to take care of ourselves or those who come to us, and we are not a business selling God. We are a neighbor helping here to help and serve. A neighbor who needs to get back out and see that needs have changed and stand in those places of need just like we each were created to do from the beginning. The world sees us as behind, but we don't have to catch up, we just have to reconnect.

Growing or Transforming

I will not forget the words of my late seminary professor Cecil, he would always say: "Your job as pastor is to take care of the church, and taking care of the church is assuring it's health and long life.  You do this by bringing in young families.  Those are the most important people to a church."  I thought then it was a bunch of bull, and I still do.  Yes, that is now, has been, and will probably continue to be the way to assure that the church goes on functioning for yet another generation, but it misses the importance of actually being church. 

The congregation I work with is undergoing a revisioning process, and it has been hard to stop the talk of "how do we grow the church" within that conversation.  I agree we shouldn't just focus on what our church is but on a picture of what it could become in this process, but really transforming the church is different than just growing the church.  Cecil is right, if you want to grow a church get focused on your youth, children, and families, but if you want to transform a church, then everyone is involved. 

I was talking with one of the children at the church recently and asked the question "What is church here for?"  Her answer: "To take care of those who can't take care of themselves."  Do to the nature of the conversation we didn't get much deeper than that, but it is true, we are here to be community, to carry one another in a way that is healing and creative.  We're not just here to bring other people in, we're here to be part of what goes out and changes the world.  We must then focus not on those who can help us, but on helping those who can't help themselves.  We are transformed by interacting, and I would hope that we're trying to be transformed into people with a larger vision.  That means discovering new things about God, the world around us, and ourselves through relational experiences. 

I took a group of youth this summer on their first mission trip.  I watched them put together thoughts about inequality, human rights, and God's plan for all creation in ways that I'd never heard before.  They connected with people, and then made bigger connections.  We so often miss this in our normal church lives.  We disconnect what we're up to in a building or through our programs from the bigger picture.  Yet I truly believe that the reason it is essential for us to gather together is so that we can be transformed by one another. 

This then extends to the church as a whole.  If the church is going to be transformed it has to truly interact with the world around it.  It can't be just a bubble with programs to draw in, it has to be a living moving creation that goes out and interacts with the world around it.  It has to take care of those who are part of it that can't take care of themselves in order to be able to take care of all.  It has to visit, it has to love, it has to be with the world,  walking with the world and hearing the issues, and then working to help those who hurt, who are unable to help themselves, just as Jesus did. 

We are the hands and feet of Christ.  If we believe this, believe ourselves to be God's body, we need to be about God's work.  Jesus did not worry about washing himself, he served and washed others.  It was not about how many people were following him, but about what he could do for those who did.  Jesus transformed the world by doing the work of God.  The children came to him not because he created an environment that was child friendly, but because children recognize true friendliness and are attracted to it naturally.  If we want our churches to be transformed, to continue to be relevant in generations to come, we must act as friends to the world.  We must go and do God's work, and trust that God's love and grace is truly as irresistible as we claim it to be.