When Outsiders Come To Church

2011 March 17

by Tyler

This past weekend we had a few pagan bloggers come to my church (oh the horror!!!). They are the two writers that make up the new blog out of Portland titled Year of Sundays. Essentially they’re going to different churches around Portland every Sunday for the entire year. And they don’t hold back on any of their opinions.

Honestly, I love the whole concept. I love their raw honest look at church, I love their writing, and I love their ability to pick up on BS.

I was a little scared about what they might say about my church, because you never really know if what you desire to be about as a church translates to people who have little to no church background. To really get to know a church, a time and energy investment must be made. No one can fully see all that a church is or isn’t in an hour or two on a Sunday morning.

So even though I was a little scared, I was mostly looking forward to hearing their perspective. Most of church becomes about what appeals to “insiders” and very little thought goes into what it takes for the Christian faith as presented on a Sunday morning to translate to “outsiders” (I use quotes there because I hate the idea of inside and outside, like I am God and determine those things, they’re merely meant as gross generalizations to help you in understanding).

Here are some of the highlights for me of what Joel shared:

“Consider yourself forewarned. Sunset Presbyterian isn’t for bench warmers. Also, its sermons aren’t quite ready for prime time. Like any good megachurch, however, it is home to a well-rehearsed rock band and karaoke system.”

“Sure, the service was dry and Tex couldn’t give a straight, non-preachy answer my questions if I’d held a .44 magnum to his head. But these folks are trying to be better people, and they’ve found a like-minded to community in which to pursue that ideal.”

And here were my favorites of what Amanda wrote:

On the offering…I guess we use similar baskets (bags) as other churches they’ve visited: “I had to laugh again when the velvet bags went around the room. Is there a Jesus Supply Warehouse or something?”

Finally, the pastor summed up the day’s message by saying, “Maybe God’s tapping you on the shoulder and telling you to go to Uganda?” I turned to Joel and whispered, “What if God’s NOT tapping me at all, but I still want to go to Uganda.” “Check your meds.”

“Would I go back to Sunset? No. We just didn’t click. But I’ll tell you this: I am glad this church exists. Their members reek of kindness and generosity and I believe they do good work in the community and in the world. That’s pretty much all you can ask for.”

Take a look at their posts about my church home (Sunset) and then subscribe to their blog (Joel’s post // Amanda’s post).

One of the things worth thinking about is whether churches should plan their gatherings with non-Christians in mind or not.

I fully believe most churches have people who would not call themselves Christians in their midst every weekend.

But should churches change their focus on weekend gatherings for non-Christians or not? Why?

(Maybe a better way to think of this is…if you knew Joel and Amanda were coming to your church on Sunday, would you do something different? If so, why not change that right now?)

Filed under: church Tags: church, Sunset

Bonnie Gorshe

I love that you’re thinking about the extent to which weekend gatherings should or should not focus on non-Christians. This is the kind of question I have been pondering for decades and why I so often miss my freeway exit or go to the store for milk and come home with coffee and apples and no milk. It’s my excuse for spaciness before I can legitimately claim the mental impairments of advanced age.

One way to look at the question is purely worldly. How much do the Trailblazers cater to people who really don’t care about basketball? As someone who doesn’t care about basketball (sorry, everyone else, that’s just how I roll) my experience is that they do provide sufficient entertainment for people like me. The atmosphere of having all those fans together supporting a team is electric. I like being with whoever it was that brought me. And there are alternate forms of entertainment at halftime that I enjoy. Most of these can be transposed onto the church experience. The regulars should really be loving the service so the atmosphere is electric, and it should be sufficiently entertaining as to hold everyone’s attention. (Visitors are on their own regarding whether they like the people who brought them.)

Before I became a believer in the Bible I was very curious about what the Christians were really up to. As such I was a lot more interested in what Christians were saying to one another than I was in the sales pitch they made to non-Christians. We’re so inundated with marketing messages that we’re jaded. The minute anybody tries to sell me on something my armor goes up. I wanted to get past that carefully scripted message and know what was waiting on the other side. So my personal feeling about what should happen in services is this: be Christians interacting with Christians. Follow the instructions that we are not to neglect meeting together. Be a Body. Let them see what this looks like. Yikes, it’s the “A” word (authenticity)! There is something to watch out for, however. Churches have been known to do certain things that put off people who are not in-the-know. When I visit my husband’s childhood church, Lutheran, their liturgical services leave me feeling like I don’t belong. Suddenly everyone is saying this, now they’re all reading from that, now they all stood up, then they sang a tiny snatch of something and everybody sat down. I can only imagine how off-putting that is to someone completely un-churched, as though they have a secret handshake you need to know to be part of their fellowship.

I could go on but this is your blog, not mine. There is a whole other category of making people feel that even someone like them (sinful? unattractive? weird?) is not only welcome but would be enfolded and even needed. This is an area I perceive Sunset as being weak in and I was not surprised by the reaction of Amanda.

By the way, you do a great job.
http://www.manofdepravity.com Tyler

I think you kind of hit on 3 schools of thought well here.

1. Do church for followers of Christ, hoping that people who don’t follow Christ will find that contagious.
2. Do church only for people who don’t follow Christ, because church is about the Great Commission and reaching those who don’t follow Him.
3. Do both. Probably the hardest solution and a difficult (at best) thing to do.

Thanks for your thoughts Bonnie.
http://willadair.com Will Adair

This is the best thing I’ve seen online all day. Awesome.