What We Learn From Having Church in the Snow
Earlier this week Mark Driscoll wrote some reflections on his church after last weekend’s lowly attended church services. His church was one of very few who kept their doors open in the entire Northwest last weekend.
I don’t know of any churches that stayed open last weekend in Portland.
Mark gave a list of 3 things he learned:
- We learn who sees (his church) as a calling and who sees it as a job.
- We learn about our own heart.
- We learn about the deep love some people have for our church.
Ok, before I share my thoughts…let me first say I have the utmost respect for Mark as a teacher and God has used him to draw people to Christ in a tremendous way. My opinion of him regarding those things isn’t changed by what he wrote.
K, some thoughts of mine.
I thought the entire post was ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. Chalk me up as one person who was glad church was canceled last weekend, and I don’t think my level of commitment to my church needs to be questioned because of it (something I wrote about HERE).
So why do I say ridiculous…
- It was unsafe- every road in my area of town was requiring chains to drive. I don’t think that has ever happened before. To ask thousands of people to wake up and drive in the morning would have been a compromising situation (and this is coming from someone who usually makes fun of Northwest drivers in snow).
- Someone doesn’t show their level of commitment or deep love for a specific church by showing up in the worst of weather, they show it in their desire to reach and serve people and in their devotion to Christ.
- Being the church isn’t just a Sunday morning thing. I sensed a ton of disappointment in what Mark wrote. Clearly lots of key volunteers did not show up, and obviously their numbers were down big time. But when did being a good Christian and being devoted to a church become a Sunday only thing? Why does everything in a church boil down to 2 hours on a Sunday morning? So church got snowed out…isn’t serving your family in a Christ-like way just as valuable. Maybe a better thing in this situation would have been to invite housebound neighbors over instead of driving across town in a blizzard.
I’d love to hear your thoughts about this.
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Tyler Braun.
Good points! I think the whole Sunday morning commitment thing is a really big issue that churches need to get over. So what if people can’t make it to their church building every Sunday? Does it make them any less a part of the fellowship? What about the parents’ & toddlers’ group that meets on a midweek afternoon, or the men’s group that meets in a pub on a Friday night?
I think some churches see these sorts of groups as a recruitment tool for the “real” church, and measure their success by how many people they manage to bring along on a Sunday morning. Some people will be completely put off by the formality of a Sunday congregation (however relaxed and informal it actually is) and prefer to deepen their relationship with God through a smaller group. I think that if churches keep promoting the typical Sunday service as the only way to be church, we’re never going to reach out to the world. Not saying we should abandon Sunday-type meetings, just that we need to be flexible and not assume a one size fits all approach!
Very good points. Often as followers of Christ we are somewhat blinded by Church. We sometimes think that it is the only way for us to worship. It is a huge problem. At the Annual Conference for a United Methodist Church that I attended, they went over the numbers. The Church only grew in the small groups. Worship was declining but the numbers of new members participating in small groups were increasing rapidly. We really need to focus here.
If you think about it, Jesus didn’t go and build churches where he traveled and ask people to come to him. He went out and found them and taught them where they were. If we are truly followers of Christ, shouldn’t we do the same?
Thanks for these words. You just found yourself a new reader and didn’t even know it. Keep up the good work. God bless brother.
Chris
So it looks like he made about 6,000 of his members feel guilty and 2,000 feel special for showing up. For a guy that talks a lot about numbers, you’d think he would have considered those two numbers before posting that blog.
Kudos to the churches that shut their doors to keep people safe last week. Even more kudos to the ones that opened their doors and let the homeless come in and stay warm.
This is the kind of thinking that makes us look as narrow and judgmental as non-church-people think we are. I’m always stupefied that my “holiness factor” is tied to my showing up at church. I checked on my elderly neighbors, cooked for people, shoveled their walkways and patios and hoofed it to Safeway to pick up essentials for them when I went for E & I. But I couldn’t get my car out of my garage for about a week and a half and thus missed church. I guess I’m just not committed enough… Please. I will (almost) miss the snow because it brought everyone together in a way that rare in the Northwest. That’s what church looks like to me.
Brad- Good points man. My only worry there is that I do think a consistent commitment to a church is very important to a personal walk with Christ and for that community of believers. But when the weather is as bad as it was, calling out people for being uncommitted is completely unfair.
Chris- I definitely see your point. I just hope it goes beyond small groups.
Ryan- Yeah, I doubt the reaction to this was all that positive.
Karen-
Love it.
I think Mark needs to chill out a little bit. With that kinda weather, he could’ve just maybe enjoy a hot toddie and just relax (or MAYBE he DID have one and posted that blog afterwards).
I’m committed..but from where I come from, 65 degrees is considered freezing…so by the time we had a 1/2 inch snow I’m already dressed up in my long john and parka…and that’s my INDOOR outfit!
I agree w/ you. You probably know that I’m a believer in the fact that the Church is in me, the Church is in you in the fellowship of believers whether or not it’s in church building on a Sunday morning. I can have church w/ my roomates or friends or whatever right where I am. “When 2,3 or more are gathered in My name…”…this is what I believe God intends…
I gotta admit by the time Sunday came around I was desperate to get out of the house and reeeally wanted us to have our service. “Come on people! Let’s do this!”
I grew up in upstate NY and don’t remember us cancelling service.
I understand though and absolutely agree with your three points.
One of the most peaceful times in my life, a time I felt closest to God, was walking by myself in the snow on Christmas so would have loved to have just walked to the closest church to worship together with whoever could have made it. So part of it may have been self-righteous motivation (ahem! Your church may not have been HARD-CORE!!! enough but we’re doing church yo!!) but mostly I like being out in the snow and I do like getting together with my church.
I think it would have been fun for everyone.
“Hi, you don’t know me but I’m a neighbor and a Christ follower and have come to worship Christ with you”
We ended up having a humble Christmas service in our pj’s and living room.
BTW, Marc Driscoll’s going to be in town Jan 16 & 17th at Grace Community Church in Gresham. http://www.fightingwithgod.org/
I agree with your post. By not attending the Christmas Eve service I was not saying “I don’t love my church (Jesus).” ALL I was saying was “it’s too hard to drive in this stuff and I don’t feel safe.”
I didn’t go to work all last week either, but I’m committed to my job (making money).
…not everyone has a four wheel drive or chains. It was more than church services that were canceled. It was flights, garbage, trains, buses, school, etc.
I, for one, would not want to have our worship pastor stranded in Beaverton and unable travel home to be with his own family in Troutdale, at Christmas, just because we held services.
I applaud those who have traction and went in difficult driving conditions and delivered food and toy baskets. I applaud those who shoveled walks or picked up groceries for neighbors. What we were given this Christmas, in the form of cold weather, was an opportunity to rethink and customize what it means to be the Church vs. just going to church.
I think that perhaps a spiritual issue was made of something that was not necessarily spiritual. My guess is that those that stayed home were not trying to dis God or the church. That is a negative assumption to make and I have to say if I attended his church I would have been hurt by that.
If we had a snow like that no way would we have church because none of us is at all equipped to go anywhere in snow. We here in the deep south believe that snow is a message from God: “Stay home and play!!!”. Make fun of us, but you’ve never seen determination until you’ve seen Southerners playing in an inch of snow! We act delirious! It’s our only chance! We make little snowmen on the hoods of our cars and throw snow at each other – the snow is so dry it won’t stick together. We take a million pictures. (It’s been years since we’ve had even that much!)
So if it happened here I would say that people just wanted to play in the snow or curl up and have a quiet morning at home by the fire with God. Sometimes we need that.
Maybe he had a bad week. Sounds like an overreaction to me.
I re-read his post and maybe his point is more positive than I first thought. Maybe he was just impressed by those who DID show up and maybe he himself was tempted to just want to go home and was working through some heart issues himself. I don’t know.
I still don’t think it’s a big deal to cancel church during a snowstorm though…..
This isn’t about a snowstorm but I am reminded of doing a Christmas Morning service a few years ago when Christmas landed on a Sunday. We’d just done two Christmas Eve services and frankly I didn’t want to spend all day Christmas Eve and all morning Christmas morning at church. I really wanted some time with my family. So I come in to do the Christmas morning service and there were – wait for it – 25 people there. maybe. tops. counting me. Here is the funny part. Except for those on stage (all four of us) I knew two people. I had NEVER SEEN the others. I don’t know who they were or where they came from. It was bizarre. Our church family came on Christmas Eve but I have no idea where the Christmas morning crowd came from. If I had it to do over again I can’t decide what the best thing to do would be. Is it wrong of me to want to be with my family after spending all day Christmas Eve at church? (9 am to 9 pm) Should I be happy for the opp to minister? Or should we say “This is a family day” and close the doors? I don’t know.
This isn’t so much a response to the blog, though I agree, as much as it is to janowen. Not gonna lie, your last sentence definitely gave me pause. Christmas as a “family day?” Christmas. The day that’s supposed to be the celebration of Christ’s birth. His birthday. His, not ours. Shouldn’t we show up for that celebration? I’m pretty sure if it was my birthday and people decided they’d rather hang out with their family and friends, give those presents to everyone but me, and I don’t know, throw a text “Happy Birthday! Love You!” message my way, well I wouldn’t be digging that. And I haven’t done anything for those people in comparison to say, becoming a man and then hanging on a cross and taking on every single rotten sin in the entire world.
But that’s just me; can’t exactly speak for Jesus.
Technically, it shouldn’t be about us at all. I mean, the traditions are great and everything but the truth is, they’re all just distractions. I can understand your desire for family time, but if there is ever one time of the year for ministry, it’s definitely during the holidays. Did you know that there are more suicides this time of the year than any other?
great post Tyler.
those 3 worship gatherings (or not) during the snow were very interesting… and I’m grateful for the experience of all of them, to rethink why/what we do… to connect in different ways, to learn more about our community and worshipping together.
Dec 14th it began snowing as people were making their way to church- I noticed a different feeling of community and shared experience in the room that morning as we worshipped together.
Dec 21st- cancelled; if we could go back in time I think I would ask Ron to send out an email to our church family announcing the closure with a word about being the church… most figured it out on their own, but i think it might have been a missed opportunity to not seize a teachable moment.
Dec 24th – Christmas Eve- Ron in snow pants, boots and a sweater; lots of people were able to come and it was wonderful to be together again as a church family. It was a sweet time remembering what God did when he sent Jesus and what he expects of us. To love mercy, to act justly and to walk humbly with Him… to church in the snow maybe? I think not.