I’m in my post-Easter musing mode. Easter is the high point of the Christian year! On Easter we celebrate the power of life to defeat death, the triumph of love over hate, and pledge ourselves to have an undying love for God in the same way that Jesus did, no matter the cost.
This year I had a team of people working together with the goal of making this, “Our Best Easter Ever.” I’m happy to say that we did have a great Easter. We had an increase in attendance, beautiful music, (Thank you choir, musicians and soloists!) a call to action to do something for the homeless people in our community, and incredible refreshments with mimosas no less! Whoopee! It was a great day “our best Easter ever in our five years as Central St. Matthew United Church of Christ!”
Of course, what comes next is “the Sunday after Easter” or “Low Sunday” as it’s known. And this year it really was low for us, because it was the first weekend of New Orleans Jazz Fest and it was a beautiful day. I’ve been at this “ministry thing” long enough that I know that’s the way it goes, and I take it in stride but the fluctuations in church attendance frustrate some clergy and laypeople alike. I heard of a pastor who one year on the Sunday after Easter preached a humdinger of a sermon reaming out those folks who only come to church on Christmas and Easter. At the door afterwards a parishioner shook the pastor’s hand and said, “Reverend, there was a lot of truth to what you were saying today, the only problem was that the people who needed to hear it weren’t here!”
The reality is that preaching sermons like that aren’t going to get anybody to come to church. These days there is something afoot in our culture when it comes to church attendance. I am just old enough to remember the era when church attendance awards were given in Sunday school and church. People received pins for not missing a Sunday for a whole year and some people had a chest full of pins and wouldn’t miss church for anything.
Nowadays that’s changed I recently saw the statistic that said regular church attendees go to church on average 2.6 times per month. In other words, now perfect attendance is attending church approximately 31 times a year! Let me be perfectly clear about something I’m not interested in bemoaning these changes. No amount of tongue-clucking or appealing to the good old days is going to make people return to the church to achieve perfect attendance pins. I am, however, concerned because while every Easter we celebrate Christ’s resurrection, it seems that the church is getting buried!
That is why I am interested in making the church, “the community of faith,” more meaningful in the lives of people.
- I’m interested in finding the key to making the church so vital in people’s lives that they can’t stay away.
- What I’m interested in is finding ways to change church so that it serves the needs of people rather than trying to change people to serve the needs of the church.
And I need your help. What are your thoughts, feelings, and perceptions about how this can be done?
So, answering for yourself and only for yourself and nobody else; refraining from all criticism of how “other people” ought to do this or that, or that the world is going to hell in a handbasket. (I’ve heard it all before and so have you and it doesn’t do anybody any good.)
Answer these two questions.
- Why do you go to church? If you do that is. Or if you don’t, explain why you don’t go to church.
- What would make being part of church more meaningful to you?
I am interested to hear your thoughts and feelings, let the conversation begin.