This past Sunday, as a group of us sat around the table finishing the last of a wonderful meal, I asked the question "What do we value as a church community?" I was amazed and humbled to hear what their perception is of what we, as a faith community centered on Christ, valued. You would have thought that they had intimate knowledge of our earliest documents and discussions. The reality though is that the group I was asking are all relatively new to this journey with us. All of them joined us during the Common Table 2.0 phase ... having gone public and gathering together as a church these past 12 months. None of them were here during our phase of wrestling with terms like mission, values, purpose. Now as a good leader, it could be argued that I should have been hammering these as the new people joined us. It should have been on cards, banners, signs, video screens. I should have highlighted each message with just exactly where these all fit within our scripture teaching. Having self evaluated and looking back over these months, I can honestly say that I did not do these things. Oh sure they are on the website, but those of us pursuing the pastoral arts would tell you, in a moment of painful honesty, that these sites are not very frequently visited by our members. Leadership experts would say that I failed in this most crucial aspect of vision casting. I have done that drill though in other ministries. I have cast those visions and led those efforts to ingrain mission and value into a group who sat politely nodding their heads, only to have those who never heard it also never see it. I would tell you that I'd much rather have the response that I received the other night ... because they knew it, not because it was well positioned and produced. They knew it because it is what their experience has been with us.
It has gotten me to thinking though ... a key value of ours being that everyone is welcome around our table ... that we are a church for anyone and everyone ... but not really. "Church" is still colored by so many different markers that ours would be, and is, too big a stretch for many people. What I mean is that it is too big a stretch for "church" people. Our intimacy in community is intimidating. "Church" should be sitting back and watching. It should be produced, or at least neat and definitely predictable. Food is fine, but lets schedule it around potlucks after church that we are free to stay for or not. Scripture is for teaching us how to be better Christians ... it resolves, it answers questions. It might challenge, but not anger. For all of our intent and desire, the worship environment is not participatory. Discipleship is for the overachiever types and workshops...perhaps a small group subject.
We are a different place. Our values are things like community, love, prayer, connection, serving the least, walking through tough stuff ... things of discipleship. I don't know this because of our taglines. I know this because that's what our group said has been their experience. It's not perfect. It's often messy and certainly not well produced. We are wide open, and our table always has space... but be warned; this is a church for everyone, and then again maybe not.
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