I’ve had a couple opportunities in recent years to observe churches from a different perspective. The first was the two years I was in Springfield, Missouri attending seminary. It reminded me of when Sue and I moved to Massachusetts to start my professional career. We were like resident tourists enjoying the varied geography from the ocean of Cape Cod to the White Mountains of New Hampshire. We delved into the historical events and people that were part of the formation of our nation and the Revolutionary War. We relished the uniqueness of Boston’s city life as well as the solitude of the Berkshires. It was an exciting smorgasbord of experiences.
We had been part of a great church in central Wisconsin for seventeen years before we left for seminary and had only been a part of one other church since we were saved. It was in Springfield that the “resident tourist” feeling came back as I would sample the churches and ministries around town. In many ways it was like the research that I was doing for my seminary work except these were living textbooks. I learned a lot on that visit to the other side of the fence both positive and negative that I hope will help me develop and lead a new faith community.
The most recent opportunity is where we are now. I’ve again traded the platform for the pew and I am reminded of how it feels on the other side of the fence. As part of the process of planting a new church I have been visiting the churches of our community to get a pulse on what and how the Kingdom is doing in our midst and whether there is a need for the flavor of church that God has called us to pioneer. But while doing that I have also been a visitor in a large number of churches and it has again allowed me to view the church from a different perspective.
I don’t claim that this is a complete treatment of the subject but I thought it would be a good idea to capture some of these thoughts before I get back on the other side of the fence. I feel like a professional food critic that randomly drops in on a restaurant, samples the food, service and environment, and then writes a critical review (most of which is bad) without ever getting to know the owner, the chef, the staff or the faithful patrons. Let me say from the get-go that I believe the Church needs a variety of expressions, cuisines, atmospheres, serving styles, locations, temperatures, … and that there is no one way to do church correctly. However, there are common principles for success that transcend taste, preference, style and culture.
Perspective Matters
My first observation is that perspective matters. In every church service there are groups of people with different perspectives of the same event and that ignoring those perspectives will likely compromise the purpose and objectives of the service.
The pastor and church staff see the weekly gathering of the church to be the pinnacle of their week. Everything that they have been working on has been pointing and building to the Sunday service. They are totally invested, convinced of its value, and excited about what is going to happen and it’s potential. They can’t understand why everyone doesn’t prioritize their personal, family and professional lives around the Sunday church service, after all they did.
On the other side of the fence is a myriad of subgroups that make up those in the congregation including lay leaders, committed core, faithful members, pew sitters, religious consumers, seekers, and skeptics. Beside not being part of the vocational clergy they also share some common perspectives about the church service. They see the weekend as a two day vacation that is the reward for completing 5 days of work or school. It is a time to recharge and have fun before the cycle repeats. For most, regular church attendance must compete with other activities like recreation, sports, travel, rest, yard work and visiting the in-laws. They see the church service as just one of the options for their Sunday schedule and any ministry commitment must be layered on top of busy family and professional lives. The church service has a relative value to them depending on the cost of attendance (which is their offering plus the value of what they aren’t doing because they are in church, and if they are serving somewhere in the church you must add that opportunity loss to the cost). Then there’s all the battles that they had to fight before getting to church; thoughts of sleeping in, fighting kids, crabby spouse, the dog runs out the door, the baby fills the second diaper of the morning, and all the Starbucks on the way. They can’t understand why everyone just doesn’t stay home in bed and watch Christian TV, after all they did.
This trip to the other side has reminded me that as a church leader I must work to not view others just through the lens of my perspective. I must be careful in setting my expectations of others and gauging the success or impact of a church service or my performance based on my expectations. It has also underscored that to be effective in communicating with a congregation, a service, a team, or even person to person, I must take into account their perspective, because perspective matters.
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