The Invisible Church

I was at a conference recently when a pastor shared a story about her church. There was a fire in their church kitchen one day and when they called 911 and said, “St. Percy’s Church is on fire!!”  the fire department dispatcher said, “Where’s St. Percy’s Church?”

The church building is next door to the fire department.

How is it possible that the local small-town fire department would not be aware that their next-door neighbor was “St. Percy’s Church”?

• Was the church sign not flashy enough?
• Were shrubs hiding the front of the building?
• Did the building look so run down that neighbors assumed it was closed?

While all those things might be true – the church could have no sign, kudzu could be covering all the windows, and the bricks could be crumbling – but if the church had a relationship with the fire department, those firefighters would know exactly where St. Percy’s Church met and they would most likely move extra quickly to put out the kitchen fire.

Our churches are invisible because we are all about ourselves and not all about the community in which we live.

This is true for every kind of church – those found in quaint villages, inner cities, Starbucks-laden exurbs, and rural crossroads.  If we have no relationship with our context, we are (deservedly) invisible.

Why has St. Percy’s not taken “thank you cookies” to the firefighters at Thanksgiving?  Why have they not invited the firefighters over to talk about making homes safer?  Why have they not gone caroling over there or made You-Are-Amazing Cards or love-bombed them with fruit baskets or just gone over there to introduce themselves and ask what they – the church – could do to support them?

One of my favorite congregations honored 9-11 by having a Feed Our First Responders event in a grocery store parking lot (co-sponsored by the grocery store and a smoothie business) for their Fall Kick Off.  There were free smoothies and people donated grocery store gift cards for the local firefighters which were distributed by the fire chief who is a member of that congregation.  People LOVED this.  This event had everything:  community service, connection-building, tasty smoothies, an invitation to be generous, and exemplification of what the reign of God looks like out in the world.  They are not invisible.

I have served wonderful congregations which were invisible to everyone but the members.  But every once in a while, we got with the program and people noticed that we were out in the world trying to follow Jesus. 

So, who’s up for taking cupcakes over to the police station?  Or ice cream sandwiches to the local park?  Or water bottles to the local CROP Walk?  Or . . .