CHURCH: and how the enemy of my enemy is not always my friend.

My family finally joined “the club” this spring.  Our 9-year-old middle son wanted to play baseball.  It turns out, it’s a lot like Church!  It comes with a financial investment to participate, then all the equipment, and of course—the schedules!  [We’ve recently been in the throes of a 6-day, 5-game nightmare where wind and snow-outs meant games “jumped randomly” into our previously well-arranged plans with reckless abandon.]  Before we knew it, baseball owned us, interrupting meals and displacing weekly traditions by demanding junk-food binges and ice cream suppers because “we had to eat something quickly.” 

Yes.  This is literally our “first sports rodeo.”  We observe more experienced families regularly bemoaning, “When will it end,” as the season is just beginning.  We notice some families—like ours—have religious commitments; but while I was sure to make Sunday worship, I must admit, I skipped out on some other things that I would have otherwise been present for because I now have a sports league in my life!  I’ve even heard “gratitude” that our league isn’t so intense, so that if you miss a practice or a game you aren’t demoted—because some of my son’s teammates have multiple sports; one of his teammates is Jewish and can’t practice or play Friday nights or Saturdays; and tonight, we’re choosing our son not skip his religious education class to play in a baseball game.  There are definitely trade-offs and choices. 

My wife noticed several weeks ago—“this must be the new community”—because between cub scouts’ pack meetings, pinewood derby, and den meetings, and now baseball, we see a lot of the same people.  And “our people” know “other people” because it’s a steady diet of baseball, lacrosse, football, traveling softball, basketball, …[name your commitments here], and for many of them it’s in multiples! 

So I’m reflecting on a conversation from Easter Sunday in which a nice family that was worshipping with our congregation for Easter was chatting with me before worship began, and pretty well identified this kind of cultural sports-a-thon existence as “bad” and “wrong”—in addition to Muslims purchasing church buildings and Jewish neighborhoods were literally expanding.  Maybe they thought I needed to hear them lament how fewer and fewer Christians seemed to be going to church these days,” so they named as shameful the reasons why some people don’t attend church, even as they were admitting they were worshiping just because it was Easter. 

I get it.  The Church, frightened by the merciless talk of “decline,” comes to see the threats to it as any “competition” that has arisen to its dominance.  But we’ve been talking about this ever since the first stores started opening on Sundays—and that’s been 50 years or more ago, now!  Frankly, I think the world’s moved on.  And we should, too.  I think this is one of the ways that the world has changed.  And it doesn’t make us “bad people” or failed Christians. 

If we focus on worship attendance as self-interested Church goers, we will entirely miss a creative and important opportunity, here.  There is a new community which needs the faithful witness of faith-filled Christian people that is more than just worship attendance. 

For our part, the Church could ably reframe this new world in more helpful ways.  We could, for example, disconnect worship from “sabbath” as Walter Brueggemann observes: 

“Sabbath, in the first instance, is not about worship.  It is about work stoppage.  It is about withdrawal from the anxiety-system of Pharaoh, the refusal to let one’s life be defined by production and consumption and the endless pursuit of private well-being.” 

In this view, churches might even consider cancelling worship to allow people to experience a broader Sabbath experience.  Ours was a beautiful weekend—weather-wise.  There is much to be said for sitting in the bleachers at the ballfields, basking in God’s glory in a bright, sunshine-filled sky and comfortable temperatures and a whole community “playing ball.” 

I know!  Preachers aren’t supposed to advocate for playing hooky from worship—people might get the idea that it’s OK.  And it’s true, we might have more people in worship if we could summarily dismiss or dismantle the regular and routine conflicts from grocery shopping to weekend swap-meets to little league sporting events and practices.  We can name these things as “bad,” and warn people about the “conflicts” and berate them for missing “worship.”  But for me, these would be reasons why people might just choose to stay away from Church more often! 

I have handfuls of people who are regular participants in our congregation who routinely seem to find it necessary to “confess” to me their Sunday “indiscretions” (choosing other activities over worship).  Maybe they think this is what I want to hear—or need to hear—that such contrition is or should be required to remain in good standing, or something.  I smile, because I actually know how it is.  Missing worship doesn’t make us bad people.  Especially if we’re:

• Taking a vacation weekend with our spouse who works for a bank and this has been a grueling tax season.  
• Participating in a 5k race that raises money for cancer research. 
• Attending the wedding of a family friend out of town. 
• Taking time away with family to relax; 5 baseball games in 6 days certainly eats up family time. 
• Completing 3 weeks of endless overtime.  
• Helping a family member move. 
• Sitting with a friend in the hospital. 
• Spent after a Saturday cutting the grass, working in the yard, helping a neighbor put up a fence, and need a spur-of-the-moment windows-down-drive-through Amish country on Sunday. 

These things may obliterate our worship attendance numbers; but they don’t make us bad people or failed Christians.  They don’t cause us to lose “Christian market-share,” and perhaps, if people knew this was really permissible, would improve our standing in the community and our attendance! 

The Church can cope in this new world, because we’re invested in people and Sabbath and not just worship.  Attendance is helpful, but it’s not the only measureable goal.  The day was once that the Church actually sought to care for the oppressed and persecuted and the suffering.  And this might be easier and more attractive than ever!  It might simply be a word of grace when people can’t be present; and offering to hear their stories when they can. 

Because we believe God is present with us in everything.  Even in community sports leagues and walking a golf course chasing a ball.  Maybe not every Sunday—but at least some of them. 

If we actually stopped calling people “bad” for missing Church, or the things they do as “bad,” and sought instead to instill in them Christian values they could demonstrate wherever they were—we could actually be ahead of the game. 

Slowing Down to go Fast; or making one step forward by taking two steps back (or, the value of listening)

I’m a NASCAR fan, and on Sunday’s in the religion of left turns and second place is just the first loser, commentator Darrel Waltrip is fond of preaching two counter-intuitive formulas for success.  #1—“Loose is fast.”  It’s his way of telling that if you want the fastest car, you have to have a set-up that keeps you uncomfortable.  “You’re driving it,” he says, “but it feels like your wrecking it on every lap.”  #2—“You have to slow down in order to go fast.” 

Last Sunday I preached the divergence of two scripture stories describing the disciples after Jesus’ resurrection.  One story from Acts 5 (a story that you may have attended Church all your life but never heard of), describes disciples breaking the rules, being chased by police, enduring jail time, sprung in a jail-break orchestrated by an angel and re-sent to defiantly preach Jesus crucified and risen.  Another story from John 20 (that we tell in Church almost every year), in its most-popular form describes fearful and doubting disciples hiding behind closed, locked doors. 

I think in spite or because of our best efforts, too many churches have ministry and mission models that mimic “hiding out.”  We’ve developed building-centered identities where our “witness” is safely showing the world our faithfulness in gathering for weekly, hour-long meetings; and, it “appears” the rest of our lives can be disconnected (like Church and State) from our church attendance and religious beliefs. 

It’s no wonder we choose John’s story, though.  If we followed the example from Acts 5, we’d surely feel the uncomfortableness of feeling like we were wrecking on every lap!  So to ensure crash avoidance, we over-adjust our car’s set-up so it always feels like we aren’t wrecking.  Yet we end up being so safe we can’t keep up in the race!  While we’re dramatically under-performing, “inside our buildings and practices” where we breathe the air of deeply held beliefs and tried and true practices, we errantly insist that “not crashing” IS winning. 

But most people know better. 

So, with disappointing results—too many empty pews, unfunded budget line items, and dreams of former glory—we ask ourselves questions like:  What can help people come to Church— or (at least) come to worship?  How can we go from under-performing to over-performing?  But often, these questions give rise to MUCH speculation from INSIDE—where we breathe the air of tradition and success-that-once-was-ours.  In response, mostly internal speculation that scrambles for what appears to be working in other churches gives way to “quick-fix” or populist ministry based on attraction.  In order to try and replicate the programmatic successes we covet, we narrow our first move down to picking tried and true programs to duplicate. 

Sometimes, you just have to slow down in order to go fast. 

Waltrip, as strange as it sounds, preaches a NASCAR wisdom of carefully “backing off”—slowly rolling out of the gas and not working the brake so hard—to let the car negotiate a turn without the driver aggressively over-driving the corner.  The result generally is that you go faster, except that it feels like you’re slowing down. 

As congregations consider how to create new ministries, conventional wisdom is to avoid “re-inventing the wheel” by choosing something that’s been tried and tested.  But a few months ago, I was impressed with a presentation at a NEXT Church event by a couple of pastors from Baltimore.  They described work that “looked a lot like” those disciples in Acts 5.  But they labeled the start of this Acts-mimicking-ministry with a process where LISTENING was the first step.  It sounded easy.  You just ask people what they wanted or needed, and then built a program around that need.  Piece of cake, right? 

Not so fast.  Literally! 

The kind of LISTENING they advocated wasn’t the simple survey kind—“here, fill out this form, we’ll collate the data and get back to you when we have a solution you might like.”  Rather, it was a form of deep listening that required a kind of incarnational community involvement that necessarily reverses some of our evangelistic thinking.  We have to stop looking into the community and asking, “How can the Church get some more members out of here?”; and instead, recognize the essential nature of the Church supporting, enhancing, and growing the community as a whole.  We have to begin to see and understand that, “The community doesn’t exist for the Church; rather, the Church exists for Jesus Christ AND for the sake of the community on Christ’s behalf.”  Can we discern what the community needs that the Church can participate in fashioning?  It might even require that a church have partners in the community! 

In Baltimore, the experience of listening paid off only when the listening was followed by a season of wrestling and discernment within the Church.  Leaders described a circular pattern where listening was followed by discerning or wrestling, followed by choosing an action, followed by evaluating the outcome.  “Wins” didn’t just describe successes, but were the natural result of carefully studied failures and learnings.  In fact, failures (opportunities to learn and grow from actions that underperformed expectations) were required before almost every “successful outcome.” 

The journey starts not with a conversation around, “What can we do?” or by borrowing someone else’s set-up.  Rather, we must start with a conversation about “How can we listen—to those around us?”  Followed by a conversation about “How can we serve—those around us?”  Followed by a conversation about “How can we act—in response to those around us?” 

I’m convinced this is model that will ramp up our ministry and really make it hum along. 

The problem?  It feels like we’re slowing down.  Avoiding self-interest and especially self-promotion goes against every conventional wisdom of increasing BIPs (butts in pews).  And it feels like we’re going to crash long before we get someplace meaningful. 

© Rev. David Stipp-Bethune; Teaching Elder and Pastor, The Presbyterian Church of Llanerch, Havertown, Pennsylvania