Don't Go To Church - Come to the Party!

At this morning's worship service, the theme was the Parable of the Great Dinner from Luke 14 - that beautiful story where the invited guests are too busy to come to the party, so the host sends his servants out into the streets to bring in the poor, the sick, the lame, and the blind.

Every time I read this parable, I imagine the astounded looks on the faces of the "uninvited" guests who get to enjoy this magnificent feast. I picture the overwhelming joy and gratitude they must have felt to have been given this purely unexpected blessing.

So this morning, when I told this story during the children's sermon, I asked them to describe what the best party ever would be like. Then I asked them to imagine how amazing it would feel to actually get to go to that party. My intention was to get them to understand how great it is that the Kingdom of God invites everyone to an awesome party that is even better than the one that they imagined.

But as I sent the children back to their seats, and then proceeded through the routine of the rest of the service, it hit me square between the eyes that what I had just asked the children to do - to respond to God's grace with overwhelming joy and gratitude - is something that very few of us
adults do, at least in traditional mainline churches.

How many of us - clergy or lay person - come to worship feeling the joy, the awe, and the sheer astonishment at being invited to the Lord's Table? How many of us sing songs of praise, confess our sins, accept our forgiveness, and hear the Word of the Lord with as much enjoyment and as much zest as we would feel at a magnificent banquet?

I have known a few who sincerely feel this much joy in worship, but they are the exceptions rather than the rule. If we are realistic, don't we have to admit that the majority of folks in the pews (and in the pulpit) range somewhere between mild interest and sheer boredom? Don't we have to agree that duty and obligation are much more common motivations than overwhelming joy for people to come to worship?

This is not to say that most people in our churches are not people of sincere faith and commitment. I believe that almost all are. But for churches that still rely on the Sunday morning worship service as their central and defining practice, perhaps it is time for us to ask why our central and defining practice is one that so many people find so un-joyful. Perhaps it is time to ask why, even among our most faithful membership, skipping worship is becoming more and more of a common and acceptable thing to do.

Which brings me back to this morning's service. What I realized in asking the children to think of the Kingdom of God as an awesome party is that we as God's people have forgotten how to party. Or more accurately, we have forgotten how to make worship a party. We are like the invited guests in that parable who were overly occupied with their duties and obligations, and we have forgotten how to lay all that aside and just come to the table with open-hearted exultation.

This, I believe, is one of the chief reasons we have lost a generation and a half of young people. It's not that they don't believe in God, or don't desire the spiritual truth of the Bible, or don't hunger for God's grace. It's that the worship we tend to produce (produce, and not proclaim) does not reflect the overwhelming joy and gratitude that we feel for being called to God's table.

So whether we need to create new worship forms, whether we need to recharge the old forms, or whether we need to bring worship out into the world and into mission will be different in each context. But however we respond to the stifling reality of being "The Frozen Chosen," we need to make our worship a party. Indeed, we need to make everything we do a party. We need to make it the best party the world has ever seen.

From The Pulpit: Uninvited

(An excerpt from my sermon preached on July 21, 2013. The text is Luke 14:14-25, The Parable of the Great Dinner.)

... As much as this parable is about God giving a warning to those who are invited not to miss the great dinner, it is more so about God finding a way for the uninvited to get there. The main characters are not the three who miss the banquet because they are too busy, but instead are those who get to come in their place. At its core, this parable is about the inclusion of the excluded: the poor, the crippled, the blind, the lame, and those who have nothing better to do than wander aimlessly in the streets.

From their perspective, and from the perspective of those who are excluded in our society, this is not a challenging story at all. It is a beautiful story, a story of hope, a story of promise, and a story of freedom that gives them assurance that the coming of God’s Kingdom will not leave them behind.

If we look through the history of the Bible and the history of our own nation, it is breathtaking to realize just how many times God has made manifest the inclusion of the uninvited - and how much God is doing the same thing today.  If we are willing to look for it, and if we are willing to work for it, we will see similar glimpses of the Kingdom whenever those who are accustomed to being on the outside are invited in and given a seat at the table.  

This parable boldly proclaims this good news of liberation for all of those groups who face prejudice and exclusion. But it’s also good news for those who might feel uninvited on a more individual basis. Some of us might identify with the invited group, but at times - because of difficult circumstances in our lives, or because we find ourselves in a place where we don’t fit in - at times we feel like we have personally been uninvited from the table of God’s blessing. Sometimes, we feel like we are left wandering alone in the street while the party is going on inside without us.

So the good news is that God’s grace invites us all in, and that God’s love is especially given for those who feel separated, for whatever reason, from the glorious Kingdom that is being brought forth in our midst.

So the challenge that this Parable of the Great Dinner gives us is to be watching and to be ready for the unknown times when the Kingdom breaks forth, and to work today to include those who are uninvited. But the good news that lies beyond this challenge is so much greater. For the eternal party that God is throwing invites us all, insider and outsider, rich and poor, healthy and sick, seeing and blind, able-bodied and lame, busy and wandering. What a great party this is going to be!

 

Compassion, Not Judgment

(I am the pastor of a small-town church in southern Virginia, still somewhat of a hotspot for racist tensions. This morning, I felt compelled to address from the pulpit the verdict in the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin case. I had already prepared a prophetic sermon about judging the poor based on Matthew 20:1-16, so I decided to insert the following remarks before the Scripture reading:)


A few times from this pulpit, I have spoken about the increasing divisiveness that we are seeing in our nation – divisions that are political, economic, and racial. This summer, every time we turn on the news, it seems like something controversial and polarizing is being announced – whether it comes from the Supreme Court, from Congress, from the White House, from state legislatures, or – as we learned late last night – from a jury.

The announcement of the verdict of the Trayvon Martin case caps off a week that has been particularly polarizing. It seems like we as a nation are so determined to be against one another that we’re just bouncing from story to story continuing the same polarizing fight.

Now I’m not going to pretend that I know whether George Zimmerman is guilty or not. But the case has been a flashpoint for racial tensions, and I stand with my African American friends as I see in them the struggle, the pain, and the fear that is still a reality of their existence. No matter how we feel about this one high-profile case, we can all agree that racial divisions are still strong in this nation. We are far from realizing The Dream that Martin Luther King spoke of, and we are called to work in Christ-like ways to bring peace and justice to our nation at a time when it seems so much of our unity is fracturing.

One of the biggest things we can do to be an agent of peace and justice is to pay attention to the lesson of today’s parable. It is about some workers in a vineyard, and about their quickness to stand in judgment of others. The lesson Jesus is giving is that we are to approach our fellow human beings not with judgment, but with love and compassion.

 

In our divided times, standing in judgment of others is what we see too often. Working to defeat one another and condemn one another seems to be the rule of the day.  So let us now listen to the words of Christ from Matthew 20, where he calls us to a different path.

 

(After the service, I was greeted with many positive reactions to my words. One woman whom I feared would be angry with me told me a story about her grandson and his African American friend being stopped and searched by police. She thanked me for speaking so candidly. I would be grateful for any of your thoughts on these remarks, praise or criticism.)

 

 

Don't Go To Church: Part 3

I love Sundays in the summer. No Sunday school. No committee meetings. No youth group. Nothing but God's people gathering for worship and fellowship. In my mind, it's the way church is supposed to be.

It's not that those other things are unimportant. And it's not that I'm the pastor, and an  uncluttered Sunday meanis less work. For the congregation, too, summer Sundays feel 5different. No one worries much about attendance. The time is less programmed and busy. The mood is
 less performance-oriented
and more presence-oriented.

Most of all, though, what is different about summer Sundays is that the sense of duty, the sense that we are here because we are supposed to be here, is lessened. It's hard to pinpoint exactly why, but this feeling has to do with school being out, with a lot of people travelling, and with a general feeling that summer is a time to let go of the busyness of life and all its obligations. For too many people, including pastors, "going to church" for a Sunday worship service is one of those obligations.

This year, I've been thinking and writing about the need to release church members from this sense of obligation. Enjoying the "duty-free" nature of summer worship has helped me realize that it is possible for a traditional mainline church to make the transition from "I'm supposed to go to worship" to "I want to go to worship." The question for me, and for many of my colleagues, is how we make that feeling stick all year round.

With this goal in mind, here are several alternatives to the "everyone must go on Sunday morning" model. Each one will be expanded in future posts in this series. They all have their pros and cons.

1) Multiple Worship Offerings. Instead of offering one or two services on Sunday that people feel obligated to attend, offer several smaller services at various times and locations throughout the week. Encourage people to find the service that works best for them. Have a "festival worship" once a month or once a quarter where Sacraments can be served and the whole congregation can worship as one.

2) "Get Out Of Worship Free Cards." Give people permission not to attend worship at all, but to become involved in other activities inside or outside the church that connect them to God. Encourage them to attend worship if and when they want to be there.

3) Connect Worship Directly To Acts of Service. Have worship only after engaging in the hands-on mission of the church - whether it's serving at a soup kitchen, visiting a nursing home, or attending a political rally.

4) Join Other Congregations for Worship - Especially ones of different racial, theological, or economic status. Use worship as a time to build bridges, not isolate.

Which of these options appeals to you? Which has the most practical possibility in your church? What other alternatives to "duty-bound" worship might you suggest?

Don't Go To Church - Part 2

Pastors and lay leaders in traditional Protestant churches:

What if we started telling people that we don't mind if they stop coming to Sunday worship?

What if we tell them that we don't want to see their faces at all on Sunday morning, unless they really want to be there?

What if we remove the chains of obligation and tell folks to worship God at other times, in other places, and in different ways if a Sunday morning service isn't authentic and meaningful for them?

 

On the surface, this idea might sound crazy, even heretical. For centuries, the weekly Sunday service has been the backbone of the Protestant faith in America. At one time, attendance was required by law in many places. Even after worship attendance was legally made a choice, it remained compulsory in the mind of the culture. Unlike any other church activity, worship was the one time of the week all church members were supposed to gather.

Sometime in the second half of the 20th century, this compulsory attitude began to loosen. As both church and society became more consumeristic, many people began to see worship attendance as optional. They no longer felt obligated to be "in church" every Sunday, or even a majority of Sundays.

But even as attendance and membership steadily has declined into the 21st century, the compulsory attitude has persisted. It's a vexing paradox that church leaders are noticing. Less and less people are feeling personally motivated to go to worship each Sunday, but the Sunday service is still viewed as the compulsory church activity. As a result, many people are drifting away from church participation altogether, and many others who are unchurched are never giving it a chance, since the one thing that is required is something that has little meaning or authenticity for them.

Therefore, in order to have a shot at reaching these folks, we first need to remove that age-old obligation to attend worship on Sunday morning. Which is why telling folks "Don't Go To Church" might be the best way to bring them to Christ.

Next time, we'll examine some of the ways traditional churches are breaking this worship paradox, and are building new worship experiences based on fellowship and mission.














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Don't Go To Church - Part 1

 

Recently, my Session was inspired by an article entitled, “Don’t Go To Church, Be The Church.” It explained that faith does not consist of occupying a pew on Sunday morning. Faith is about what we do out in the world every day of the week.

But as much as we understand the “don’t go to church, be the church” philosophy, we don't always follow it when we seek new church members.  The goal of evangelism in most churches is quite simply to fill more pews. We might initially attract folks through fellowship or mission activities, but the aim is to parlay that relationship into a regular presence on Sunday morning. In short, despite our own belief in “being the church,” we tell our new folks that what matters is “going to church.”

This disconnect happens because Christianity in America is in a time of transition. For much of the 20^th century, the church and its influence permeated every aspect of society. To speak of “being the church in the world” was nonsensical, since nearly everything and everyone in that world was already Christian. “Going to church” was more appropriate, with the “church” being the building and the worship service itself.

Today, we are moving rapidly into a post-Christian era. Each year, the church grows less and less influential on the culture as a whole. As we move from the center to the periphery, the notion of “being the church, not going to church” begins to make perfect sense. In a culture that largely does not know Christ, the need to be a witness beyond the walls of the church building is suddenly relevant.

In many ways, church members are aware of this transition from Christendom to the post-Christian era. Their laments include the end of prayer in schools, loss of Sabbath, and the fact that many of their neighbors don’t belong to a church and don’t want to. Essentially, they are in a prolonged grief process over the death of Christendom.

Most often, though, the change that concerns them the most is that their 20- and 30-something children don’t go to church anymore.  This is where the disconnect becomes most pronounced, and where it ties back into the way we approach evangelism. The way we think about attracting new members suffers from the same deficiency as the way we think about the younger generations that the church is losing.  

On the one hand, there is the recognition that the changing times call for a new philosophy of “being the church” - which points to a whole new realm of new strategies and practices.  On other hand, however, and at the points where the transition becomes most emotional, the tendency is to revert to the old understanding that “going to church,” that presence in Sunday worship, is what defines our faith.

(In Part 2, I will examine one way we can overcome the old attitude of “going to church.” We can give folks permission not to attend Sunday worship.)

From The Pulpit: The Growth in God's Kingdom

(This excerpt is from a sermon preached on June 16, 2013. It is based on the Parable of the Growing Seed from Mark 4: 26-29.)

... It’s a very comforting parable, because it reminds us that the Kingdom is not ours – it’s God’s; and therefore, the growth of the Kingdom is not our responsibility. We are called to participate, but we don’t make it happen. God does. Which means that we don’t have to be meticulous about understanding and controlling every aspect of our faith lives the way we are about securing our homes at night.

But often, when it comes to our discipleship and when it comes to the church, we feel like we do have to exert that kind of control over things. We often feel like we do have to keep the doors locked and unwanted intruders out. We feel like we do have to keep the temperature well-regulated so no one gets too hot or too cold. And we feel like we do have make sure all the lights are turned off when we want to sleep, especially that pesky closet light that shines right in on our pillow.

Now of course I’m not referring to the literal church building when I make this comparison. This challenge that the Parable of the Growing Seed gives is not a reminder to the Property Committee to check all the locks and thermostats and light bulbs. It’s a challenge for all of us to check the ways in which we are trying to lockdown our faith, be in control of everything, and  keep the Holy Spirit from doing anything unexpected; versus the ways we can relinquish that control, open ourselves up to the Spirit, and be surprised by the growth that God is creating. 

And what better real-life example of this do we have right now than an actual garden? I’m referring, of the course, to the Lake Country Community Garden, which got started this spring and embodies the lessons of today’s parable. Remember what Jesus said:

“The Kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and  rise night and day, and how the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know.” Now in the literal sense, this parable does not apply to the Community Garden, because it been planted by experts using sophisticated irrigation and pest control, and it has been meticulously maintained by a strong team of volunteers.

But in the metaphorical sense, the story of how the Garden was born is all about the unplanned and uncontrollable growth of God’s Kingdom. Bill would be happy to share with you the full story; but the way that the idea was conceived, hit an early roadblock, and then exploded in a different different direction shows us that this is truly God’s work. We can understand it and control it no more than we can control the weather. We are simply called to scatter the seeds, to watch the Kingdom grow as we rise and as we sleep, and then to come together to enjoy the benefits of the harvest.

Later in the summer, we plan on bringing together all of the churches who are involved in the Community Garden and with Backpack Buddies – which is another new ministry that has exploded in unanticipated ways – and having a special service of thanks and praise to God. When we do this, we will understand that while it is a good idea to lockdown and secure our homes and our families each night, it is not such a good thing to try to secure and control the growth of the God’s Kingdom. May the harvest bring us joy and peace. Amen.