Church Here and There

I've been away from this blog for a while because my wife and I spent two weeks in Germany visiting our daughter who's working as an au pair for a year. She has a great circle of young adult friends but none of them have church backgrounds. One of her friends in a moment of abandon said "I went to a couple of services but the problem was, it was just so #@&%ing boring!!" (Dropping an F-bomb isn't such a big deal in Germany as it is here.) The main churches in Europe are still state supported. People elect to pay a church tax which pays pastors' salaries and helps maintain their 800 year old buildings. In return, they get access to the church for surprisingly resilient Christian services like baptisms, confirmations and weddings -- but don't think it's important to actually go to church on Sunday.

It made me realize how much of our time and energy is spent trying to attract people, to "market our product" so to speak. And if our services are (Bleep Bleep) boring, we end up in big trouble.

What a fine line it is, though, between connecting and pandering. That's the tension I have been experiencing ever since I undertook my affiliates project. (In case you're new to this blog or have forgotten, check out the first postings in the archive.) People say their spiritual need is to find inner peace -- but should the church then play to that expressed need? It's oh so tempting -- and oh so easy to get sidetracked, chasing down every possible means of perhaps attracting a few new folks.

I think what's required in the church today is, above all, the patience that comes with faith. We gotta trust that by faithfully proclaiming and embodying the gospel, and by caring for folks with the heart of Christ, that God's will for the church will (mysteriously) be done. We can find new ways to package it -- but have to be really vigilant that the packaging doesn't start to take over. And that feels like walking along the edge of a cliff with the ground giving way under your feet, but it's what we're called to do.