I had a revelation this month, so I thought I’d share it. A year and two months ago we started our second worship service. From the beginning, we chose to use more contemporary music and style for many reasons. Frankly, we have struggled to develop a consistent “character” in that worship service, and we are still tweaking details. We do have a consistent congregation of about 35-40 people with attendance as low as 20 and as high as 60. Our first worship service attendance varies from 60 to about 110, usually in the 80s. As session and worship pillar have struggled to make decisions, we have had some deep discussions and even disagreements. We aren’t arguing, we all want what is best, and we have always come to consensus. But we are still trying to discern exactly what that “best” is. In order to help with some of those decisions, we offered a worship survey last spring and got a wonderful diverse response from you. Thank you. While many of the answers clarified priorities and preferences and were very helpful, I still found myself struggling with clarity even about the survey results.
Here’s my revelation. Some of our preferences directly oppose other of our preferences. Specifically – We want to grow as a church and reach more people for Jesus Christ – clearly yes! And we want to know everyone in the church, see everyone every week, and be profoundly connected to each other – also, clearly, yes! At first glance these don’t seem to be opposites. However, if you want to reach more people, you offer more services at more times. If you want to be a closer community, you offer one service all together. The same is true of music style – do you offer what most people like best or do you offer more variety to reach more diverse people? Should our decisions prioritize pleasing the people who are here, or reaching out to new people? Further, exactly what would those imagined new people really need or want – in order to hear the word of God and share their gifts fully? We really have been wrestling with a lot of difficult ideas and no clear solutions.
Why I am sharing this with you now is not only to inform you about session conversations, but more importantly, to invite you into the struggle. Session read a book called “Raising the Roof” connected to a book called “The In-Between Church” both by Alice Mann for Alban Institute. The premise is that churches operate differently at different sizes, and that when moving from one size to another (growing or shrinking), a church will experience significant pressure. The pressure will manifest in little disagreements and differences of opinion, stretched resources (money and volunteers), and an uncomfortable sense of unrest or constant change. We are firmly an “in between” church – between pastoral size and program size. (If you want to know more, I will loan you the books.) So we will continue to experience pressure until we shrink down to a comfortable manageable size or until we use the pressure to push ourselves into growth up to the next size. If we choose to try to grow up to the next size we must continue to endure and utilize pressure – which may come out as discomfort, inconvenience, or challenge for our people. In other words, if we want to grow for the kingdom of God, it cannot be about our personal preferences, but must be about the greater good. Honestly, sometimes, it would be easier to give in and shrink down to the next size to keep happy those who remain. But your session has chosen to respond to God’s call to growth and to reach out into our community with the good news of Jesus Christ. Wondrously, your response to the worship survey on that question expressed the same desire – to grow and to reach out to others. That effort may require some changes and compromises along the way. We hope it will also lead to new life and energy and hope for our congregation and community.
This doesn’t answer a lot of my questions about exactly what to do next in worship. But it does remind me again that it’s really not about me anyway after all. Worship is all about giving glory to God – of course, always. May we be blessed as we find deeper and more passionate ways to praise God together in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.