“We’re Fine”

Imagine that you are home after a meeting where one person yelled “shut up” to another person and it was revealed that threatening notes are being left anonymously for a person on the paid staff and someone in the meeting left early in tears. Do I dare add that it was a church meeting?

We get used to certain behaviors if they are allowed to continue long enough. If those behaviors continue for years and no one is ever held accountable, they become norms. And after they’ve become norms, it’s interesting to notice what happens when a new person enters the system and the new person says something like, “What the heck is going on here?” “This is not how Christians act.”

Chances are that we attack the new person.

On any given day, I meet with church people who wonder why “nobody” wants to join their church/serve as an officer/volunteer for a project when I wonder why anybody would when I witness the behaviors church people don’t notice any more: bullying behavior, lack of grace, inauthentic hospitality, a lack of curiosity about people who don’t look or speak as we do.

One of my favorite congregations around here shared with me that they hadn’t had a visitor who wasn’t related to a church member for over 30 years. As a rural church, they simply don’t get visitors. No one is moving into their part of the county. It’s not surprising that any new pastor coming into that community would need to navigate ever so gently how to share that some of their long-time behaviors might make baby Jesus weep.

Note to congregations who do have a steady stream (or at least a trickle) of new people coming into your church as visitors or new neighbors: do a self assessment imagining yourselves as “new.”

• Do we tell families with children that “the childcare is down that hall” or do we walk them to the childcare and help them with their coats?
• Do ushers greet people in the parking lot with big umbrellas on rainy days to help people get inside?
• Do we offer coffee to the woman living in her car in the church parking lot and invite her to come in if she’d like? And then do we offer to sit with her? And maybe invite her to lunch?

And I’m not even talking about how our budget priorities, staffing priorities or mission priorities expand (or ignore) our call to work towards the Reign of God.

We are not fine as The Church of Jesus Christ if we have forgotten that the person we deeply dislike or the leader we criticize behind their back or the stranger we ignore are children of God worthy of respect and compassion. We are not fine if our congregation refuses to stand up to bad behavior. We are not fine if no one stands up to bullies.

If you’ve ever been part of a church that exemplifies the love of Jesus well, you know how life-giving it is. It’s the kind of community that supports us in times of trouble and forgives us in times of failure. They don’t just bring us casseroles (or Grub Hub cards in 2023) but they actually do pray for and with us.

I’m fine – very fine – when I know that Church is being Church as God intends us to be.

Image from the blog of Kenny G with permission. Source.