The “D” Word

Posted on June 15, 2013 by smaxreisert

In those moments when I allow myself to consider my most worrying concerns about the present and the future of the church, I often think about one particular couple I know. Whenever I think of this couple, I cannot escape the notion that the church is doomed, at least in its current form. And more than that, I wonder about what it means to pair the words “doomed” and “church.” When a local church closes, for instance, is it similar to a business that ceases to exist or does something else happen? Can something else happen?

This particular couple that bring such despairing thoughts is a pair of people who were once quite active at Old South. Now, they are Christmas Eve and Easter people. To be fair, they are a bit more than that, as they don’t just attend worship, but participate in the music program, including the rehearsals leading up to Christmas Eve and Easter worship. About five years ago, I bumped into them at a non-church function. They shared with me their story. They loved their years of active service and connection to Old South, but one of my predecessors had driven them away from more regular, active involvement. They couldn’t quite give it all up, so they continued to be involved in the music of Christmas and Easter. Through my early years serving Old South, they came to feel much more positive about the church. They liked that the church had become “Open and Affirming.” They found that they liked the worship leadership I provided for Christmas Eve and Easter. They liked my preaching and they liked what they were reading in the church newsletter.

All of this renewed good feeling was leading them to consider coming back more often to attend worship. They were thinking that, maybe, they were ready to be more than Christmas Eve and Easter people. Since this conversation took place though, about five years ago, I have not seen them even once outside of the their annual, music-related visits to Old South.

I wonder: if we cannot lure this couple into the fold, how will we be able to lure anyone? This couple likes what they experience at worship. They also have that big important piece of church involvement: friends. They know the church, obviously—how to get to it, when worship is, what to expect. Yet, they just cannot move beyond the commitment they’ve held since one of my predecessors chased them away with a more conservative theology.

And, beyond just thinking about this one couple, I cannot escape thinking about what it all means for Old South, and churches like it. Are we doomed? Will we eventually, inevitably close? What does that mean for us, for the church, for God’s presence in this little part of the world?

How do we experience and live the promise of new life of the Gospel as we consider that our future may very well involve a smaller group of people not worshipping in our beloved building? For a church like Old South, will new life feel in any way connected to our old life—in our buildings, the church organ, our staffing? How do we prepare for the possibility that we will need to let go of our buildings while still hanging on to our identity?

This last question is the one that I wonder, and worry, about the most, because I think it is connected in a very important way to my job. In what ways can I help inspire the transformation of a group of people to seeing themselves as part of something that goes way beyond the buildings in which they gather?

For pastors like myself, this is where the subtle and not so subtle conversation and leadership must find a home, and where we must find ways of inviting grief and even anger. Not an easy task, especially when people want to come to church to feel good.

Ultimately, I believe that the church as a group of people that gathers in a building with a tall steeple with an organ, etc., is doomed. Yet, I remain hopeful—sometimes even despite what I experience on a regular basis at church—that the church is capable of opening itself to the transformative grace of Christ, and has the capacity to see itself as the embodiment of Christ on earth even if it isn’t connected to its beloved building. Though hopeful, I am aware that this transformation will not just happen, nor will it happen without pain and deep heartbreak. Nor will it happen without recriminations hurled at the pastor. Time to strengthen the inner armor and focus anew on the work of the Gospel, which really doesn’t have anything to do with buildings, but setting free the abundant love of God.

Posted in Doomed, Maine Cautionary Tales, My Life as Pastor | Leave a comment

When a Church Falls, What Sound Does it Make?

Posted on June 8, 2013 by smaxreisert

A Roman Catholic church in Waterville, Maine (where I live) was torn down recently. It had been closed as a church several years ago and then put up for sale. Although some suitors came along to consider buying the building and converting it for an alternative use, no one ended up purchasing the property. The Diocese eventually decided to tear it down in order to build senior housing on the site.

Before the building was torn down, a campaign emerged and a petition was drawn up, to try to convince the Diocese to change its mind. I have no idea how many people signed the petition, but it was obviously not successful. The church building is now gone.

What was especially interesting in the campaign to save the building was that it was started and encouraged by a local businessman who admitted in his pleas that he no longer attends church. For me, this is both sad and pathetic.

I understand that church buildings hold important and valued memories for people. Weddings, baptisms, confirmations, funerals—these are among the most emotional moments in our lives. Yet, it is crystal clear that these large sanctuaries cannot be preserved simply for the occasional big moment in the lives of the people who live in the area.

Waterville was once a place where many Roman Catholics lived, many of them coming from Canada to live and to work in the area mills (paper and textiles). At one point, fourteen priests served Waterville. But, now the mills are closed and the community is smaller than it once was. And, like other communities, church attendance among those who remain has declined significantly. There are now only three priests who serve the Waterville churches, and one of them is part-time.

The businessman who started the campaign to save St. Francis church referred to the episode as a “wake up call.” Did he “wake up” and begin to attend church again on a regular basis? I doubt it.

Churches are not sustained by attendance at “big” events in life. Churches are sustained by the regular attendance and participation of people week after week. And, I’m not just talking about the sustaining power of money in the offering plates.

If the “big” moments really mean something when they take place in a church, then the smaller moments must be acknowledged and celebrated as well. “Preservation” of church buildings is simply not enough. For without the faithful inside, the building is, literally, an empty shell. And, empty shells are, in the end, really not worth saving.

Posted in Buildings, Other Denominations/Christians | Leave a comment

Change

Posted on June 1, 2013 by smaxreisert

The Maine Conference United Church of Christ is holding their annual meeting this weekend in Farmington. The big word of the meeting is “change,” with the overall theme hovering (literally) over the stage: “Moving Forward in the Midst of Change.”

In bits and pieces, we have talked about changes that we have experienced and are experiencing—more churches calling less than full-time pastors, church members getting older, and some of the other various challenging aspects of being a mainline, progressive church in Maine, which is, according to at least one study, the least “churched” state in the country (with only27% of the population self-identifying as Christian).

But as we talk about “change” and the necessary requirement that we engage in “change,” which in truth has been a reality throughout the existence of the church, I hear questions such as these:
1. What does “change” really look like and where do we begin?
2. How will we know when the changes we make are “good” changes, and are faithful to the Gospel?
3. How do we engage with change in a congregation full of older, and more tired, members (this isn’t MY question—I’m not sure I would characterize many of my older members as “tired”— but I heard spoken by several people).

One of the most significant observations was offered by the General Minister and President of the United Church of Christ, Geoffrey Black, who suggested that many of the most meaningful and important changes we need to make won’t do anything to help with the bottom line. They won’t help to bring growth and stability to our finances. It’s important, he offered, that churches understand this dynamic, and its consequences.

I should add that money and finances should not simply be cast off as “worldly” and unimportant, as if we ought to boldly institute changes without any consideration of money. When I have money conversations with Old South’s church Treasurer, especially when money is tight and she is having difficulties paying the bills and making the payroll, I am reminded that money has a faith component.

The road ahead hints at a change that will be profoundly challenging for those currently in the pews. And that is that we may find new paths to religious and spiritual fulfillment that may not actually allow us to remain in the building(s) we have, or to maintain our staffing configurations. Essentially, we must explore what it means for us to be “church.” For the church that I serve, what does it mean to be “Old South”? Is the building essential to our Old South identity or not?

If we were to answer that question today, I suspect that the answer would be, for Old South, that the building is essential to our identity. We must not then, at this time, focus on the role of the building in our lives of faith, since that may very well be completely overwhelming for church members and friends. But, the conversation ought to be guided in such a way that the role of the building is a conversation that we will be ready to have when it is time to have that conversation. For church leaders like myself, we should assume that the time will come when we cannot escape this conversation, so let’s not find ourselves unprepared.

The questions, conversations, and changes ahead must be engaged, and guided, in hopeful ways, helping people to begin to pray over and think about their religious and spiritual lives in new and thoughtful ways. Many churches are already in this place, and some churches have even closed. For many, a church closure essentially means an end to that church. For the future, we must think differently. Otherwise, we will be experiencing closure after closure, not only losing the church, but the voice and expression of our faith. We must not fail, then, to take seriously the challenges ahead, and to clothe ourselves fully in God’s grace which will bring us to where we need to be.

Posted in Maine Cautionary Tales | Leave a comment

Acknowledging Our Vulnerability

Posted on May 25, 2013 by smaxreisert

Last week, Old South—the church I serve in Hallowell, Maine—experienced two deaths—one was a man who had moved to the area a few years ago and enjoyed singing in the choir until his health began to decline a few months ago, and the other a woman who had attended Old South for a while after her beloved church in a nearby town closed several years ago. For those who are faithful members and friends of Old South, it seems like we are in the midst of a very long drama of loss.

After years of relatively stable attendance and membership, we find ourselves in a more vulnerable place. Last year was an especially painful year, with five deaths. And, last year and the year before also featured a significant number of people moving away. In the midst of all of this loss, we don’t have much on the “gain” side. Even though we have a steady stream of visitors, no new members have joined, nor have many of the visitors become regular Sunday morning worshippers.

It may be difficult to say the word, but we are definitely feeling vulnerable. And, truth be told, it’s not just in the new empty spaces in the sanctuary, next to old empty spaces, places that were, until recently, occupied regularly by a good friend of the church, we are also seeing it in our finances.

Pledges for 2013 are below what we had hoped for, but when you look carefully at the numbers, it’s not hard to figure out what the deficit is all about. It’s not that people are giving less; we have real loss of actual people who, until they died or moved, gave faithfully—and generously.

We are in a vulnerable place, yet it is difficult and challenging to acknowledge that word, or even articulate it. And, it is yet more difficult still to embrace it, to focus on it, keep it in prayer, and to wonder what it means for the future.

For most of the long-time members of Old South, they still clearly remember the good old days of Christendom, when Old South was a vibrant part of the community, when the mayor attended the church, and when one had to arrive extra early on Christmas Eve to get a seat for the service.

It’s not easy to let go of those perceived good old days. For many, it is impossible.

But, our strength is not measured by the number of people who fill the sanctuary, nor is it measured by the money in the offering plate each week. Instead, our strength is more likely to be found in those moments when we are able to speak of our deep concerns and worries, when we find the grace and courage to acknowledge that we feel vulnerable.

One of the long-time members of Old South has recently started to remind people of the church of a long, long time ago, back in the earliest days, when followers of Christ met in homes. So far, she isn’t getting much traction. She shares her hopefulness that even if, one day, we must relinquish the buildings, we will still be “Old South,” meeting in the homes of members and friends. Old South will still be Old South, whether worshipping in its lovely sanctuary or in someone’s living room. Her words so far, though, don’t seem to be of much comfort to anyone. Nor has she found anyone willing to join her. But, my hope is that that will change, that people will find something much less scary and “defeatist” in the thought that we can still be “Old South” without “Old South,” and instead live in the midst of that very hopeful and faithful notion that the church is not the building, the church is not a steeple, the church is the people.

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Getting Some Perspective, Part Two

Posted on May 18, 2013 by smaxreisert

Old South’s Sunday School experienced an extraordinary surge of growth in the 1950s. By the mid-1950s, the number of children enrolled exceeded 200. How to respond? Build a building, of course!

And, the Parish House was built and opened in 1957 on the lot across the street from the church building. That’s still where the Sunday School meets, though the numbers enrolled in the Sunday School now are tiny compared to that number from 1957 (on an average Sunday, we have between 4 and 6 children and youth). The church offices, including mine, are also located in the Parish House, as is the primary kitchen, and a fellowship hall that we use for committee meetings and church gatherings.

When the church celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Parish House in 2007, we sifted through a lot of the materials that were saved from the process, the building, and the opening of the new Parish House in 1957. One of the things in all of those materials that were put on display that struck me was the vote to authorize the building of the Parish House. The Sunday School was enormous and the pastor back then a huge proponent of the building project, yet the actual vote to make it all happen was remarkably close.

I’ve often found myself wondering: What did the opponents to the building see? Did they object to the expense? Were they concerned about the sustainability of the numbers in the Sunday School? Did they, in some way, recognize that the sudden burst of growth needed more time to show itself as permanent or temporary?

Unfortunately, we don’t have the notes from the meetings back then, but I find myself wishing that those in opposition had been able to gather just a little more support. Like other churches that built up or added on in the 1950s, we are hampered by a physical plant that is now too big for us.

This is especially poignant, and unsettling, when we realize that the great surge of growth of the 1950s really didn’t last long. Even in the very next decade, the evidence of decline was already apparent.

In our now too large spaces, we have a hard time recognizing that the amazing growth of the 1950s really had less to do with us, than it had to do with was happening around us in the culture of the United States. When everyone “went to church,” we didn’t find a way of sustaining that sentiment. My more cynical side wonders if we were spending too much time congratulating ourselves.

The big question that remains is: were we doing God’s work or the world’s work? Is it possible for those of us who remain to wrestle with the concept that maybe what happened in the fifties was actually not a very good thing because it drew us away from the work of Christ?

These are questions that must be considered, prayed over, thought through. They are critical to how we understand who we are and to whom we belong. Is our mission simply to fill our parking lot or is it to do the work of Christ, even if that means moving out of the buildings we can no longer afford?

Who are we and what is our purpose? This is the essential question, to be asked as if it’s never been asked before, and to see where it leads, how it lead us closer to the One we say we wish to follow.

Posted in History Lessons | Leave a comment

Getting Some Perspective, Part One

Posted on May 11, 2013 by smaxreisert

A few years ago as I was rummaging around in the Old South archive (a large, fireproof file cabinet in my office), I came across an old Old South newsletter.  At the time, the newsletter was called The Old South Messenger (it is now called The Chimes).  This particular issue of The Old South Messenger featured, on the cover, a photograph of a young girl, looking forlorn sitting with her chin in her hands and a long, frowning face.  The caption read, “I wish mother would take me to Sunday School.”

Inside the newsletter, there’s a prominent box with the words “Too Busy” and, in that box, this bold statement appears:  “Too many people try to satisfy their conscience by saying, ‘Too busy to go to church.’  This is an old excuse that is so out of date that it ought not to have any place in our lives.”

Any guess as to when this newsletter was published?  Sometime in the 1980s?  1970s?

Not even close.  The date of publication:  September 1923.

Many of us in the church seem to believe that the lower than desired attendance that we are experiencing is a new story.  Yet, it is not.  We think that the current declines are an anomaly that we must endure or conquer.  Yet, what seems more true is that the full sanctuaries that many of us remember from the 1950s and 60s (my memory doesn’t actually go back that far, having been born in the 60s, but I am told that the sanctuary was full back then), that is the anomaly.   In the great scheme of the life of the mainline Protestant church in Maine, the anomaly is the 1950s.

The fretfulness that most mainline church members experience is not only that our sanctuaries are much less full than they were forty, fifty, sixty, years ago, it’s that the great surge in mainline church attendance in the 50s was accompanied by expansions of buildings and physical plants.   These larger buildings not only feel larger, and lonelier, when occupied by far fewer people.  They are also a larger financial burden.

It’s important that good church people understand and appreciate the wider and deeper issues that they face.  It’s even more important that good church people have perspective and a sense of the historical picture that goes back further than the 1950s.  We won’t likely find many answers to our problems in the past and I can’t imagine that any of us would wish for the dynamic that changed the tide from the not so robust church attendance of the 1920s to the full sanctuaries of the 1950s—the Great Depression and then World War Two.  But, we ought to feel a little less adrift when we look back at the last century and see ourselves as part of a larger drama, and to recognize that we share at least some of the same concerns and sentiments of the church of the 1920s.

With greater depth in our sense of ourselves and our past, we must also wrestle with a yet even more profound question:  was the anomaly of the 1950s, when our sanctuaries were full, more about us, our message and the Good News of God that we professed, or was it more about the culture, and the push in the culture that people attend church?  Is the anomaly of the 1950s a story about wonderful glory days of Christ or is it about a burden that led us all to fool ourselves into thinking that we were doing God’s work, when really we were doing the work of American culture and society?

More on that next week.

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The Value of Friendship, and the Church

Posted on May 4, 2013 by smaxreisert

I’ve been thinking a lot this week about friendship and, more precisely, the undervalued benefit of friendship and community. Our society, culture, and certainly the Christian church have long supported, encouraged and highlighted the value of family and the idea that the family is a critical, essential element of our collective lives.

All of this focus on family and family values stifles any consideration of other forms of relationship, especially friendship. This is a problem.

Protestants especially, who view only scripture as authoritative rather than both scripture and tradition, are on shaky ground when it comes to placing family at the foundation of all human relationships, and as a indispensable element in the expression of faith and love.

The New Testament is not, it turns out, especially family friendly.

Jesus never married or had children. Same for Paul.

The stories of the Gospels emphasize the value of friendship, over the value of family. The gathering of disciples forms a web of community through friendship. In the Gospel of John, the significance of friendship is captured in Jesus’ bold proclamation: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (John 15:13)

And, in other parts of the Gospels, Jesus offers other striking statements regarding the value of friendship versus the value of family: “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26)

And, in Paul’s writings, he too makes startling claims regarding the problems of family, especially as spouses get in the way of service to Christ: “To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is well for them to remain unmarried as I am. But if they are not practicing self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion. . . . I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to please the Lord; but the married man is anxious about the affairs of the world, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided. And the unmarried woman and the virgin are anxious about the affairs of the Lord, so that they may be holy in body and spirit; but the married woman is anxious about the affairs of the world, how to please her husband.” (1 Corinthians 7:8-9, 32-34)

Why then, do so many churches, even Protestant churches, insist on maintaining and emphasizing family as the foundational component of experiencing the fullness of life and faith? Why does the Church continue to equate church with “family,” instead of speaking of the Church as a community, a gathering of friends?

We, in the Mainline, would do well to move the conversation and emphasis from family to friends and community.

It is not only family that offers love, support and encouragement along life’s journey. In fact, for many people, the family is precisely where they have experienced abuse, ridicule and emotional and/or physical harm.

We, in the Church (and especially Protestant churches) ought to be more conscientious in how we speak and act, highlighting the value and benefit of friendship, as promoted in our holy scriptures. Jesus gathered in the midst of his friends. And, those of us who continue to gather as followers of Christ, ought to consider our own role as friends, of Jesus and of each other.

Friendship is not simply a nice thing, a mostly inconsequential feature in our lives. Friendship is, instead, a critical aspect of our life in the Church, a part of the underpinning of our experience of faith and love. More “focus on friendship,” instead of “focus on the family,” would provide new opportunities for lively and meaningful exploration of what it means to live the life of faith.

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Text Wrestling

Posted on April 27, 2013 by smaxreisert

For the past year or so, the organist of Old South and I get together every few months to plan worship. I choose scriptures and themes and then the two of us talk about what music—hymns, anthems, etc.—will support and highlight the chosen themes and scripture passages.

When I looked at what I had chosen, in advance, for the Sunday following the Boston Marathon bombings, I discovered that I had chosen the passage from Acts where Peter raises Tabitha/Dorcas back to life from death. I squirmed. I thought about changing it. I really didn’t want to talk about it.

What family that week who had lost a loved one—from the Boston bombings, or the explosion in Texas, or the earthquake in China, or any of the myriad places where death had visited—wouldn’t give anything to receive a visit from Peter, or someone like him, and to have their loved one brought back to them, alive? The passage from Acts struck me as difficult, unhelpful, and unfair. Now, it’s not that I think that much of the Bible is the paragon of fairness, at least in terms of how human society generally thinks of fairness, but the Acts passage really got under my skin as unreasonably unfair, if such a concept makes any sense at all.

Instead of dumping it, though, I kept it and spent about half of my sermon talking about how much I disliked the passage. Whether the event really happened, or it’s rooted in a rumor that got out of hand, or it’s really offered as some kind of metaphor, it doesn’t matter. I don’t like the passage. And, more than that, progressive/liberal Christians like me (although I’m still trying to figure out which “label” fits me best) must have the discipline and the fortitude to raise up passages like Acts and talk about how much we don’t like them, how much we struggle with them, how much they make us squirm.

Being a Christian isn’t about having everything come easily and neatly, uncomplicated and simple. It’s sometimes about hard things too.

Our Holy Bible is not a textbook, nor is it an answer key to all of life’s difficulties. It doesn’t answer all of my questions. Some questions remain, and that’s not only okay, but it ought to be more out front of who we are and what we do, in the more liberal/progressive church. Questions, struggles, pointing to passages that we don’t like: these are all vital aspects of living faithfully.

We haven’t done ourselves any favors over the years, ignoring these difficult passages or declaring that faithful people must simply accept them, as a matter of faith. Plenty of people have left the church just for this reason. And, for those who remain in the church, our faith is stunted by these attempts at pushing away the difficult and complicated. People are intelligent enough, it seems to me, to be able to handle a little complexity.

We discover, especially when disasters happen, big or small, that a simple faith based on a limited engagement with biblical texts leaves everyone unfulfilled. No wonder people have left the church.

It’s time to turn the tide, to engage in difficult texts. We should not expect that such discipline will lead to tidy answers, but a fuller and deeper conversation with God—a faith that truly feeds the spirit and encourages the soul.

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Thoughts on the Boston Marathon Bombing

Posted on April 17, 2013 by smaxreisert

Someone on the news talked about how special Patriots Day is in Boston—and now it’s special in a way that no one wants. In Boston, Patriots Day is a special day. While most of the rest of the country is back to work on a typical April Monday, Boston comes alive with celebration. Sure, Maine and the rest of Massachusetts also observe Patriots Day and take it as a holiday. But, in Boston it is decidedly different. It’s a big party.

For several years when we lived in Cambridge, my husband and I had friends who lived along the Marathon route in Brookline and every year these friends hosted a Marathon gathering. We spent a lot of time outside at that annual event, cheering on the runners—the fastest, elite runners first, but then the other runners too, the ones who would get no television coverage. At best, they would probably beam when they found their name listed among the finishers of the race, in tiny print in the newspaper. Those runners might not have received much press coverage, but they were cheered on. It’s one of the amazing these about the Boston Marathon—that normal people run, and normal people stay by the side of the road and cheer them on, sometimes long after most people, and certainly the media, have stopped paying attention.

One of the first things that struck me, when I found out about the bombing on Monday, was that it took place so far into the race, when only the “normal” people would be finishing the race, the people whose only glory would be accomplishing a personal goal. And, on the sidelines were other normal people, cheering on friends and family, and strangers too. Because that’s what you do during the Boston Marathon when you are in Boston.

I find myself weary—weary about another act of senseless violence, and weary that it was not the only act of senseless violence on Monday (in Iraq alone, 55 people were killed in bomb attacks on Monday and over 200 were wounded), and weary about the constant meaningless chatter on the news, and even weary about the defiant pronouncements that the Marathon will go on next year (of course it will).

The horrible event on Monday provides lots of reasons for hope, with so many people jumping into action in so many different ways to help and respond. On balance, it seems that the goodness of humanity outweighs the badness. It is here that I believe we must be most vigilant. We must remain compassionate, hopeful, loving. We cannot allow evil acts to drag us down into a place of fear and hatred.
Frederick Buechner once offered this perspective on the world: “Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid.” (Beyond Words: Daily Readings in the ABC’s of Faith)

I would add: a) don’t be full of hatred, and b) don’t get weary.

Today, I’m trying very hard—and praying for the grace and strength that I need.

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Hope in Worship

Posted on April 13, 2013 by smaxreisert

During Lent at Old South, we engaged in a little “spring cleaning,” thinking about aspects of our church life that are very meaningful to us, that we want to keep, as well as things that are no longer meaningful, that we are ready to get rid of. We focused on worship, the church’s mission statement, our mission programs, etc.

One of the things that came out to be especially meaningful is worship. Many people, not surprisingly for Old South, commented on the music. For a church our size, we are blessed to have so many people with the gift of music. People also commented on the feeling of community at Old South, that they feel supported and encouraged. And, then there was one little surprise regarding how people felt about worship: they like the sermons. And more than that, many commented that they like the “thought-provoking” sermons.

I wasn’t completely surprised to find a few comments regarding sermons; I do get positive feedback on a fairly regular basis. But, I was surprised by how many people included “sermon” when they thought about what is especially meaningful for them in the worship experience. This wasn’t multiple choice, after all. They could write whatever came to mind.

At Old South, the worship experience is meaningful to a lot of people. But, I also have the sense that this is something that is mostly taken for granted. The feeling is that it’s supposed to be this way, so we don’t spend much time talking about it, or doing anything about it, or sharing it.

During a couple of committee meetings that have taken place since Easter, I’ve talked about the information regarding worship and have encouraged people to think and pray about how we might move the positive experience of worship to a new place. Can we find ways of sharing our experience more widely? How do we express our love of worship outside of the worship space? Are we able to appreciate that our good feeling is more than an individual experience, that it is a communal experience and perhaps worthy of more attention?

As I’ve discussed this information, I’ve noticed that many of those who are listening, are also thinking—and maybe even beginning to think in new ways. Exciting.

There are lots of people out there who have no idea what worship is, what it’s like or even why we do it. All they know are the jokes about boring sermons.

Maybe it’s time to get re-acquainted with some of the basics of what we do and why we do what we do, and why we are still doing what we do. It still has meaning. And it shouldn’t just be taken for granted. It should be shared.

There is hope in our common experience of finding meaning in worship. There is hope in figuring out how to share what we’ve found.

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