Last night in a small meeting in a back room, a committee spent a few moments reviewing the goals and visions of the church. It caught my attention that the first paragraph in the three page document said "Growth is not the primary objective of our church" and then continued to explain that growth could be achieved "inappropriately" by making church entertaining, promising wealth through faith, or emphasizing only good news of the Gospel while omitting the challenging requirements of Christian faith. Basically, it said, "we want to grow but we don't want to sell out."
It seems like in most mainline denominations growing without feeling like we are 'selling out' is a challenge. We will talk all day about how we want to grow, no doubt. But we rarely talk about why we want to grow. If you listen in on any of the meetings in most mainline congregations and heard how much we talk about money it might seem that we want to grow simply because we need to sustain our own services...and that might very well be the driving force of most of our desires to grow. That we need to grow because we want the institution to survive, the traditions to continue, our building to continue to hold Sunday morning services.
It's tricky business, trying to grow in this context, where really the ultimate reason for growth is to maintain a system that was perhaps life changing and meaningful to people once upon a time and to a small minority of people who grew up in that system of experiencing God, but has become irrevelant and alienating to most people in America.
Okay, so confessions from a minister: Outside of when I preach and feel the presence of the Holy Spirit with me, I rarely experience God on Sunday mornings. For me, God is so much more 'real' to me during the week; in my real life. I am not sure if it has always been this way but for me there is a huge disconnect between Sunday morning and Monday through Saturday. This might sound weird but sitting in church I often feel like all that is Church consumes all the space for God.
The tricky part for trying to remain true to the church and growing for most mainline denominations is this: We have to KNOW what it is we believe in and why it is valuable to others. To me, it seems we may have lost the foundation upon which we stand because all of the details, traditions, and formalities have become so time consuming that we don't have time to reflect on the meaning and relevancy of our faith in these times and then translate that into an experience through which all persons (churchy or unchurchy) can feel the presence and love of God. Instead we focus on how we should dress a certain way to come into church, or say this prayer at this time, or sing this hymn because we are pretty sure Jesus sang it and if he didn't, well, he should've. And since for most of us it is difficult to define what it is at the heart of the Message that would keep us from selling out, it really seems as though we sold out a long time ago and are just trying to keep from selling a distorted Message in a new way.
I want to believe that if we really knew why we were doing this church-thing, all of the details, the way in which we worship, would have much more flexibility. The measure of success would not be how similar it has remained over the Sunday's but how many people felt God touch their hearts in a new and significant way; the way it inspired them to live their lives in more grace-giving, justice-seeking ways.
The image of Jesus walking into the temple and overturning the money tables has been making me wish Jesus would walk into many of our churches with a Venti Raspberry Chocolate Latte and dump it all over the front of the sanctuary. That way when we begin to worry about the little things, like children's crayons or donuts or dirty shoes coming into OUR worship space we could all turn to each other and shrug our shoulders when the chair of the Worship Committee said, "Well, I guess it doesn't matter. Jesus already came in and dumped coffee all over the sanctuary."
I see the value of faith in my life. In my real life. For me faith is that which keeps me putting one foot in front of the other when the stairs of time seem to be shifting chaotically all around me. And my hope would be that somehow that value would be allowed to leak into the fabric of what has become an institutionalized experience with no room for the Holy Spirit to open our hearts and minds to remind us that it isn't the fear of selling out that we should fear but the fear that we would have gotten so far off track that we have nothing to sell.
