I remember one of my visits to my Grandmother’s church in Waterloo when I was about 4 or 5. We were sitting in the huge sanctuary, and I turned to look behind me.
I got a some-what gentle swat on the ear and my grandmother whispered at me – “we don’t turn around in Church …”
“Why not?” I asked, “how do you know who is behind you ?”
I don’t remember Grandma’s answer, but I DO remember the lesson that we don’t turn around in Church … because it was so different from my home Church, where we not only turned around, but we actually had conversations with the folks in front and behind us.
When I was a teen in my home congregation of Centennial United Church in Stratford, we staked a claim on the back corner of the sanctuary, and it was where a cluster of us gathered each Sunday during worship. In front of us sat two wonderful older women who greeted us each week with a smile, and who were always interested in our lives. Even when we were up to something (and that only happened occasionally …) they would ‘shush’ us with smiles.
Turning around in my home congregation was normal and accepted by many. I’m sure there were those who shared my Grandmother’s view, but by and large the majority of folks had other things to worry about …
BUT, what strikes me in recalling that visit to my Grandmother’s church, was the optics left with me from that moment. What I remember about visiting the Church is being told “we don’t turn around in Church.” I don’t remember anything else – just that … yet, my Grandparents helped shape my faith, and my place in the Church in a myriad of ways, but what I remember about my Grandmother’s church was and is that single moment … if, as a leader in the Church, and one who has spent almost my entire adult life in active ministry in the Church, can remember an instance like that from my childhood almost 40 years ago – I have to wonder what kind of impressions and experiences of the Church have others had in their lives?
Optics are a powerful thing.
Our experiences and impressions are a powerful thing.
What we think is happening – how we perceive things, might be at odds with others, and what we experience as positive and affirming might be regarded as anything but by others. And we ignore this difference at our peril.
The challenge in the church, and as people we face in regards to this, is accepting the importance of pausing periodically to engage honestly, openly, and frankly, as we assess things and really reflect on how others are experiencing us, our faith, and our presence in the community.
And it is not just the experience of the visitor or the newcomer who might stray in the door, but also the regular attendee and those who are part of the circle but who have for any number of reasons, pulled back and are less involved than they once were.
As we move through the season between Easter and Pentecost, and mark the earliest days of the Church in our readings, we are mindful that we began, as a church, amongst people who felt great passion to go out into the world and share the Gospel. They wanted to invite anyone and everyone to share in the Good News that Jesus had proclaimed, and that they now had to share.
Paul standing in the streets of Athens, pointed to the altar of the ‘Unknown God’ to illustrate and invite his listeners to join in the movement that would become The Church. He knew that people were yearning for something, and he wanted to offer them the transformative effect of the Gospel as he and as the others had experienced it. So, Paul used the Unknown God to extend that invitation.
He wanted his optics to be consistent with the message.
Too many times in the Church we tend to place an asterix on our proclamations and our invitations. We’ll say – “All are welcome” but then have a limiting factor or a condition on that welcome.
I liken it to an illustration from Canadian Musician Connie Kaldor who once noted at a small concert in Brandon that she grew up in a small rural town in Saskatchewan – ‘you know that place she said, its where you stop in the local coffee shop with the big sign ‘welcome’ out front, but when you EVERYBODY gives you the ‘stranger stare’ …”
The optics of the stranger stare is at odds with the warmth and welcome many rural prairie towns offer …
I’ve been in churches that say proudly – “we want to attract new people and we want to grow …” but then the new people arrive and start wanting to change things then the STUFF really hits the fan, and we learn that they only want certain people, or they only want certain aspects of the people …
The optics in that moment say something very different from what is really going on …
So at a celebration of Baptism, we have a moment to pause and reflect and honestly appraise who we are, what we are about, and how we do our ministry … and it’s not a bad thing. It’s an opportunity … it’s a moment to ensure our optics are in synch with our expectations ands beliefs.
I KNOW in my heart that my grandmother would be mortified at my example. She was one of the most warm and welcoming people I’ve ever met, and she meant no offense by her action, or by that expectation in her congregation. But that example helps to remind all of us that sometimes we need to pause, reflect and try to do things a bit differently … it’s about sometimes being open to that terrible six letter word: CHANGE.
The church we invite folks like Jordyn to be part of, is not church I was invited to be part of at my Baptism, or the Church you were invited to be part of at your Baptism. The Spirit has been busy changing and altering the Church and its people …we are a dynamic every changing group of people because the Spirit is as our texts celebrate, with us – moving among us and touching our lives …
Instead of fearing that change, or clinging too tightly to the past and the way things are, the challenge – the opportunity is before us to CONTINUE to embrace that change and allow the Spirit to guide and inspire us …
To return to the example of my grandmother’s church. Forty years later, what has stuck with me about my Grandparents was not the rigidity of that visit to their church, but rather the depth and strength of their faith. When I think back, it is the many conversations we had about faith and things to do with our spiritual journeys that I remember most. I remember holding my grandfather’s hand and as a 20 year old youth, praying with an 80 plus year old man the night before a major surgery because he was frightened and worried and wanted the comfort of prayer before he slept … I remember holding my 95 year old grandmother’s hand on our last visit mere days before she died, and saying good bye while she smiled and said “I know where I’m going – I’m not afraid …”
I remember the strength of their faith, not the cuff on the ear for turning around … and more importantly, I remember the power and the welcome and the love that they share through that faith …
And at the end of the day, that’s OUR only JOB as a Church – to share our faith and to openly and without conditions or limits, invite others to share in this journey …
May it be so … thanks be to God … Let us pray …
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