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