God Is Testing Your Church
God Is Testing Your Church
Tom Bandy
Our EBA leadership forums were buzzing about worship design plans as early as last summer. Church planners suddenly realized that Christmas was on a Sunday this year, and everybody was interested how this would impact worship times and designs. My hunch is that by November church worship committees have become worried about attendance; church choirs are already concerned that their altos, sopranos, tenors, and basses might be absent with their families on Christmas morning; and pastors are contemplating shortening, delaying, or canceling Sunday services altogether because “our families will want to be at home on Christmas Day”.
This is a test! It is sort of like a test of the “emergency frequencies” for television and radio in case of disaster, only this time it is God’s test of the “emergency listening capabilities” of church leaders to the Holy Spirit shouting into your ears. IS IT ABOUT YOU … OR GOD’S MISSION? Christmas is the #1 opportunity in the entire year when Christians can connect with spiritually starving people who are strangers to grace. And because worship happens to be on a Sunday, churches are tempted to blow this opportunity to protect the comfort zones and family expectations of members who have forgotten their call.
I cannot help wonder how many churches will fail the test? How many choir members will tell the pastor: “Sorry, Reverend, I can’t make it to worship Sunday morning because it’s Christmas and I have to be home with the kids”. How many ushers will beg off; how many board members will be on holiday; how many elders will make big promises about attendance that they have no intention to fulfill; how many musicians will plan to be absent; how many veteran members who claim to “know Jesus” will make introducing others to Jesus a matter of secondary importance on Christmas Day; and how many pastors will rush through Sunday morning so that they can hurry to have dinner with the extended family. Later in January they will all gather together in the next board meeting, lament the budget shortfall, and wonder why their church isn’t growing. Hello! This is a test of the emergency broadcast frequency! Churches aren’t growing because church leaders aren’t faithful. They are so preoccupied with their personal needs that they forget God’s mission. Never in the entire year will the be so starkly revealed as on Christmas Day 2005, when Christmas Eve is on a weekend and Christmas Day is on Sunday.
This is a “test” of Old Testament proportions. God’s demand to be faithful to the covenant is about as unequivocal as Elijah’s challenge to the prophets of Baal. Are you in mission or not? Did God become incarnate just for you or also for the stranger you are supposed to love? Is the experience of the real presence of Jesus the Christ the bread of life or an optional dessert after Sunday dinner? An Old Testament “test” is an either/or experience. Thoroughly modern, well-balance church people would love to be “both/and” about worship on Christmas Day 2005. “Well, God’s wants us to have a healthy marriage and family life, and also be mentally and emotionally fit, so surely dining with the family or flying to the Caribbean with our beloved spouse ‘counts’ as much as worship.” I suspect that reasoning would be OK with Elijah, provided you were planning to share your dinner with the homeless or pay for ten young seekers to accompany you on the Caribbean cruise where you could spend time mentoring them in Christian faith. Not planning to do that, are you? Planning instead to skip worship on Sunday to enjoy only your extended family or snuggle with your spouse at a Disney resort? Sacrifices to Baal are taking place over there, Elijah says.
Please understand. I love families. I have one. And I would love to go on a cruise in winter time. I need it. But why now? Why on Christmas weekend, of all weekends? Why on Sunday, Dec. 25, of all days? That’s the optimum time to connect strangers to grace with Jesus Christ. Shouldn’t that cause us to change our self-centered plans? Isn’t that the time to go to church … and invite a stranger to church … rather than not go to church?
Now let’s plan Sunday worship for Dec. 25th.
The first thing to do, right away in November, is to gather church leaders together for several sessions of extended, serious prayer. Start each session by reviewing carefully the demographic and lifestyle diversity of your primary mission field. (The primary mission field is defined as the total diversity of people contained within a radius marked by the average distance people in your church are willing to drive to work and shop). The primary mission field for most churches includes at least 3-5 major lifestyle segments, and innumerable affinity groups. Talk about them, pray about them, and open yourselves to God’s Spirit. God will make you heart burst for somebody. In addition to your regular worship service, that’s who you plan to invite to Christmas worship on Saturday evening and Sunday morning.
Next, decide what tactics will make the people for whom your heart bursts most comfortable and most receptive to the revealed grace of Jesus Christ that you anticipate in worship. Count on it. If you prepare the table, God will provide the food. If you create the opportunity, God will supply the incarnation. Just decide on the time, place, style of worship, refreshments to be served, gifts to be given, and any other tactic that will bless the stranger with the maximum love you have to offer on Christmas Day.
Too many churches poll the congregational membership to decide what times the worship services will be on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. This only reveals that church members are so selfish that they want to shape God’s mission around themselves. Instead, you should be polling the publics beyond the church for whom your heart bursts to discover when they can come to worship. Will that put your members and leader out? Who cares? You’re the ones called be God to be in mission. To be called means that you are ready to put yourselves out, and reshape your family expectations, for the sake of God, God’s mission, and the glorious opportunity to introduce a stranger to grace.
Next, get serious about accountability. Decide. Make it a policy, vote on it in the congregation if you have to, and do it in November. Make the decision that no elder, board member, trustee, Sunday school teacher, choir member, musician, or staff member (including the secretary and the custodian) shall be absent from Christmas Eve and Christmas Day worship, for any reason whatsoever except health. If they are, that person will be fired, terminated, or removed from office effective January 1st 2006. Does that sound harsh? No. It is simply mission driven. Jesus said something similar when he called people to follow him. You have got to build some serious accountability into your worship plans … and hold members accountable to their covenant vows.
I think it goes without saying that you should advertise like crazy, target the micro-cultures for whom your heart bursts, get the word out, invite people enthusiastically, and invest some significant budget for the purpose. This is not the time for half-measures. If you love them … really love them … you will go out of your way to go into the highways and byways and compel the stranger to come in. Compel them not by clever gimmicks, but by the intensity and sincerity and sensitivity of your love.
The last thing you want to do is “blend” worship on Christmas Sunday. Do not reduce your worship options. Expand them. Target specific groups of people, who have specific needs, so that they can experience specific kinds of grace. Your goal is not a lot of people, but an intense experience of grace (be it healing, coaching, thanksgiving, celebration, reconciliation, or whatever). Make it radically intense; really deep; powerfully emotional; hugely motivating. “Gosh,” that sounds like Christmas Day worship will not be an afterthought, with limited resources, done in a hurry, so I can get home to open presents.” You got that right! This is going to be demanding of church leaders … to make personal sacrifices … for the sake of total strangers … so that Christ will be born again in their hearts. That may be inconvenient, but you are “called” by God to lead, right?
When the day arrives and the time comes, do not even give a second thought about “success”, because if you have done all the above you have already “succeeded”. Don’t worry about whether there are a handful of people present or a zillion people present. Don’t worry if the financial offering fails to cover the financial expenditure. Don’t worry if there are more disciples than seekers, or more mentors than mentees.
- The seeds of love you have planted will bear fruit next month or next Christmas;
- The faithful commitment you have evoked will motivate service and leadership long into the future.
But most importantly, whatever the worship attendance on Christmas Day, God will show up. God will honor your faithfulness to God’s mission. God will become incarnate in your church and in your hearts. You will feel great, think great thoughts, and be a great people … a chosen people … God’s own servants. And when you eventually go home, and sit down to dinner with your family, and bow your heads in table grace, you will feel Jesus among you as never before. The very inconvenience you have caused yourselves, your families, and your plans will be a witness that you are willing to shape your lifestyle around God’s mission.
In short, you will have passed the test. God’s emergency broadcast system spoke, and you listened. God will bless your church, because God always blesses the faithful.