Dear Welcoming Worshipers:

This may come as a bit of a surprise, but occasionally I muse about things other than political temperament or cultural erosion; sometimes I muse about the church—and not just its niche in society or role in public discourse. I sometimes think about how we ‘do’ church and how we ‘are’ church.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been rolling around in my head our metrics. What we count, how we measure progress, where we look for trends. Most often we consider ‘how many’, as in attendance, and ‘how much’, as in offerings or expenditures. But independent from this annual report data, I’ve been thinking about people, as in those who are not yet part of our fellowship, and I’m beginning to believe our systems of connection may be upside-down.

The centerpiece of our community in both energy and focus is our gathering for worship on Sunday mornings; that’s when we take the most careful attendance. In addition to asking people to sign in, the ushers endeavor to count every human in our building between 10 and 11 a.m. Occasionally on their attendance form, they will have scratched out the total to include a few late-coming stragglers. If you’re in the doors before the postlude, you get counted. Adjusting for seasonal fluctuations, we then compare those numbers to previous years and draw some conclusions concerning the relative strength of our congregation. It’s been that way in every congregation I have served. But worship attendance might not be the best way to determine trends facing our community of faith.

In the past, it was taken for granted that if you wanted to become part of a congregation, you came to their worship service. It was presumed that people were looking for a place to worship God, or have a spiritual experience, or learn something from a sermon, or participate in group singing. But singing together or attending a lecture or even going to a concert presumes the pending attendees have some pre-existing understanding of what will happen at the gathering. I believe this presumption has become less reliable. Fewer and fewer people have grown up in church. Knowing where to sit, when to stand and sing or shake hands or read in unison, when to sit quietly facing forward, why the monthly snacks served up front are so small and why brass hubcaps appear when the choir is performing isn’t intuitive. If our future is going to rely exclusively on the pre-trained, dwindling will be our hallmark.

I suggest this is upside-down because our primary point of entry is perhaps the least accessible. Forty years ago, this disconnect was addressed by ‘seeker sensitive’ churches who attempted to familiarize the worship experience. Chancels were replaced with stages, narthexes with lobbies, pews with theater seats; crosses and other liturgical equipment along with offering plates and hymnals were banished and replaced with acoustic curtains and motivational backdrops. It worked for some, but most attendees of these services were refugees from traditional congregations, not new recruits to the faith. For all their innovation, the worship service or celebration experience or religious slide deck was still the main point of entry. From there, additional connection, education and service was commended for those more serious about the faith, not opportunities for a low-risk welcoming connection.

Long before liturgies and symbolic architecture, the early church welcomed newcomers into people’s homes. There the food was plenteous, the conversations stimulating and mutual care robust. From these smaller gatherings of friends, people were invited to larger group fellowships, where they listened to readings, learned new music and offered prayer. Rather than inviting people to worship and then breaking them into smaller groups for more intimate connection, they first met in simple ways. Then people were encouraged to share in the higher expressions of ‘church’ in worship and Christian celebration.

As I said, these thoughts are currently only musings on my part; I’m sharing them to see what you think. All week long we do amazing and delightful stuff. Book and support groups, sewing and singing, gardening and games, meals and movies, crafting and kid care—these are all familiar activities even for the ‘un-churched’, but we primarily populate these activities from our Sunday faithful. Might we turn that around and grow our worship from the friends we make, inviting them to things they already know how to do?

Wondering if worship should be the last step of commitment and not the first, I remain,

With Love,
Jonathan Krogh
Your Pastor