History of Connecting!

A couple of months ago, I heard a report on NPR (that's National Public Radio for those of you who are not as cool as me!) about a study of cell phones in the last 10 years. How far they have come and how they have improved. You didn't have to hear the report to know that cell phones have come a long way. Of course, one phone (made by a company that is named after a fruit) has changed a lot of that. But even before the Iphone, cell phones from their size, function, and features have improved leaps and bounds in the last decade. But what caught my attention about the report (and I have chewed on for the last couple of months) was the only thing that the report said had NOT improved dramatically over the time. Yep, you got it: the hearing and speaking quality. The report said that while some improvements have been made, by far the worst function of a cell phone is the sound of the conversation you have on it. Which is the whole purpose of the cell phone. The one thing it was made to do, it does not do very well.

I feel this way about the church sometimes. The churches in the last 10 years have gotten really good at time management, energy production, programming, and marketing. The church can make a sermon series on Ezekiel sound hip and relevant, when we all know it is not! Some churches are machines. They run well, are smooth and are very polished. But is that what CHURCH is about?

I have a friend who has moved a couple of times over the last few years. She says that she thinks her calling is to teach churches how to make people feel apart of the church. She says churches are bad at it. When she goes to a new city, she has to jump in herself in order to feel a sense of belonging. Maybe that's the reason people can attend worship services for years and never be connected. We are great at making them feel it is important to be there but not so much at making them feel like they belong. Isn't being a part of a community high on the purpose of the church? I am sure that the networking plans of the church are so good that every visitor in the last 15 years knows about everything that the church has on its calender, everything it has to offer, and they have been emailed and snail mailed about them. My question is who would be there to make them feel welcomed or would they sit in the back and feel distant?

I know that some people are really good at making people feel a part and others are not. But we have to do a better job at connecting with people. I don't want the church to be a well-oiled machine that does everything but the one thing it was made for. That is connecting members with Jesus and his people. Let's do our part of making our churches as inviting and welcoming as the God we live for. To people looking for the best possible way of living, do we offer a radical way of living in a community of people who know, love and look out for each other? Or do we offer an hour of produced energy one day a week that has a lot of bells and whistles but ultimately fails at its purpose?

Here is a couple of things that I want to think about: Of the people who join your church, what percentage actually stays active? Years ago as a freshman at Harding, I heard Rich Little say this,

"The number one reason people become a Christian is because they met a Christian. The number one reason why people don't become a Christian is because they met a Christian."

What do the people we meet ultimately decide to do?