Relevant Church
My entry into full time ministry was a bit of a surprise to me. I had considered it for some time as a kid, but had gone a different way as an adult. It wasn’t until my volunteer ministry started to overtake my personal and professional life did I realize that full time ministry was where God was directing me.
Because of my experiences and gifts, I had always shied away from being a traditional “preacher”. I was interested in leadership and organization, especially outreach and church growth. I’ve had the pleasure of working with national leaders in these areas and get all sorts of tickled when I get to plunge into the sticky mess of organizational health.
Several churches have brought me to work with them for the very purpose of helping them grow. By growth, they invariably meant “have larger Sunday a.m. worship attendance”. Some of these are full time, on site gigs, others are short term consults and evaluations. Nearly all of the churches that I’ve worked with have seen significant growth. With the exceptions of a few that had serious internal sicknesses, the other churches saw attendance increases in the range of 50-125%. All size congregations are included in this, from 30-800 in attendance.
I’ve gotten to a place, though, that wonders if I actually did a good thing by helping churches. Even now, I wonder if trying to grow a church is a good idea. The truth is, it is really easy to grow a church. God designed the church knowing that it depended on human beings to manage and lead it, which means he factored in a great margin of error for getting it right. It really doesn’t take anything dramatic to grow a congregation numerically, and that comes as a surprise to some people.
The reason I’m wondering if this is a good thing is because of the quality of the growth that is taking place. In growing numerically, we typically sacrifice in the area of growing spiritually. We make adjustments in our worship services to reach a younger, hipper, crowd. We add programs to attract families with children, families that speak languages other than English, families facing financial crisis, families recovering from divorce/drugs/relocation/death, and on and on and on. We say that we want to be relevant to our communities, but the truth looks more like a commercialized attempt at selling a product we’re afraid that people don’t want.
Take instrumental worship, for example. When I was a kid, anyone mentioning the idea of using instrumental worship would have earned a one-way ticket to the elders’ office. Now, it seems that more and more churches are advocating instrumental worship as a way of reaching out to our communities. Some churches schedule quarterly Saturday night worship services with instruments and others go so far as to include an optional instrumental service every Sunday morning. The reason is the same: we want to be relevant to our communities.
I’ve worshiped in acapella and instrumental services and have also been on staff at churches that use instrumental services as an outreach effort. Problem is, we’re not thinking about “outsiders” when we plan these services. We assume that because there are instruments that we’ll draw them in and wow them. Did we ever stop to think that people outside our walls are so used to instrumental worship that seeing our attempts at instrumental worship would look like a junior high band concert? That’s really not very relevant. Besides, the only people who’ve ever attended those services I’ve been a part of are other CoC people that want to try instruments out.
The truth of the matter is that, no matter how much planning we put into these events, relevant church doesn’t happen during our worship services. Relevant church happens during the week when we encounter people throughout the day that God has put in our path. Relevant church happens when we pass someone needing help loading groceries in their car or changing a flat tire. Relevant church happens when we’re tired and have had a tough day and we choose to speak to our spouses and children with love and compassion.
If you want your church to grow, be relevant on Monday. You’d be surprised how much more relevant Sunday becomes when the entire church is relevant during the week.
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Brad Palmore
Those last two paragraphs speak loudly to me. Programs and such certainly have their place, I suppose, and numerical growth is at least some measure of whether we are reaching anyone’s heart. But I say “hear hear” to your proclamation that being relevant as a church is what we “look” and act like out of the church building. Something that has always bothered me is that, typically, “we” don’t get as involved in community needs as other fellowships do. I’ve always wondered why………………
Great thoughts on this. We often think cutting edge is the way to go but when it is not done well or when it is done only for the sake of being cutting edge it loses its edge all together. Good stuff.
Brad,
Just found your blog today via Matt’s blog, which I also just found. I appreciated this post, and look forward to reading more on both of your sites. If you haven’t read them already, I would highly recommend Edwin Friedman’s books, “Generation to Generation” and “A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix,” as well as Peter Scazzero’s books, “The Emotionally Healthy Church” and “Emotionally Healthy Spirituality.” Thanks for calling us to Monday relevance!
Brad,
It is good to find your blog. Any ways, I appreciate what you have to say in this post. The entire notion that changing our assembly practice (not that I am necessarily opposed to such changes) is just one more example of assuming they (unchurched) will come to us rather than us going to them on Monday, Tuesday, etc…
Grace and peace,
Rex
Very good! You are right on target about our Monday relevance.
I just figured out where your comments are on this new faceplate. Cool!
I also came here off a link from Matt’s blog.
I worked in the music industry for several years as a radio jock which gave me a fair share of experience critiquing music as a professional.
“Did we ever stop to think that people outside our walls are so used to instrumental worship that seeing our attempts at instrumental worship would look like a junior high band concert?”
I lol’d at that statement because it’s so very true. I’ve attended some instrumental services at different places that made me cringe, and I’m pretty sure I wasn’t alone.
I heartily agree with you, brother. Healthy growth comes from what happens during the week – not from what happens for an hour or two on a Sunday.
Thanks for all the comments, guys.
Meomix: I wonder if our lack of involvement has anything to do with our “one true church” doctrine we preached for so long. It’s almost as if people couldn’t receive love until they were in our fellowship, but they never became part of our fellowship because of lack of love.
Matt: Right on. The edge we hope to create so very, very dull compared to the edge that is true love through Christ.
Roger: Some of them are on my reading list.
Rex: I’m not opposed to the changes, either, but they need to be founded on the right motives. I’ve not seen many changes that were based on right motives in churches.
Stoogelover and Greg: Multiple personalities?
Wes: Glad you got a good lol. Thanks for coming by the blog.
Brad, let me do an introduction of sorts. Rex Butts is a young man I know and love and appreciate a great deal. He is one of “our” graduate students who was part of the Berclair family in Memphis for a time. We have missed him and his family since they moved to New York state after graduation. I was glad to see his name pop up in your comments.
P.S. – Rex, let me encourage you to come back here often and also to explore the blogs on Brad’s blogroll. Brad and the others have become dear friends and Christian kin to me.
Meowmix – Rex and I were in school together at Harding. We spent most of every waking moment together in the 2000-2001 school year thanks to the grueling schedule of HSBS.
I would agree with the motives for changes. Most of the changes (or lack of changes) are based on done with less than missional motives.
-Rex
I’m Stoogelover on my home computer and Greg England at the office. Somehow Stoogelover just doesn’t fit in the context of helping folks plan a funeral.