Super-sized Christianity

"Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people.  And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.”

                                                                                                                        --Acts 2:46

            On the show Parks and Recreation, Councilwoman Leslie Knope holds a hearing about the expanding sizes of soft drinks in her town of Pawnee.  It seems the local fast food chain Paunchburger has increased the size of their “small” beverages to a whopping 64 ounces.  Their medium-sized soda went to 128 ounces (most people call it a gallon).  Then, there is the horrifying 512 ounce version they called “child size” (because the gigantic cup is the size of a small child).

            On one of my frequent hospital visits recently, I was talking with the hospital chaplain and telling him about Atonement.  “We are just a small church, but very active,” I told him.  “We have about 250 members on our rolls.”  “Back when I was in seminary,” he told me, “a church with over 200 members wasn’t small.  We called that medium sized.”  As soon as he said that, it reminded me of what I had learned about growing churches over the years and I realized that he was right.  Atonement is growing up.  We’re becoming a medium-sized church.

            Small, medium, large…child sized… what difference does it make?  Those words are not nearly as arbitrary as they seem.  Churches at different sizes really do have different characteristics, different personalities, and they function differently.  One thing people love about small churches is that you can really know everybody.  When there is one service with attendance below 100, you can look around the sanctuary on a Sunday morning and tick off the names of who you know.  If there’s an unfamiliar face, it’s a safe bet they’re a visitor.  When weekly attendance climbs above 100, the percentage of visitors increases.  When there is more than one service, not even the pastor knows every worshipper. 

            Which brings us to some of the big changes churches see happening as they move from small to medium.  As churches grow through this transition the roles of the leaders, particularly the pastor, must transform.  The pastor’s time is inevitably drawn towards new plans and projects, and helping new people take on new roles.  Churches making a successful transition to the medium size find ways to share the ministry of routine calling on members and bringing communion to the homebound.  This is happening at Atonement with our Caring team and trained Eucharistic ministers.  Deacons, council members and other lay leaders also take on more prominent roles.  They may end up leading events and being public representatives of the church in ways that just the pastor would when the church was small.

            The role of the church council of a medium-sized church is different as well.  Council becomes more focused on ministry goals and policy decisions and less on deciding who we call to fix the toilets.  Authority and responsibility is spread increasingly through the congregation to those empowered and entrusted with particular details of parish life.  Council, in turn, works to keep the teams healthy and functioning so that more people can become involved and more ministry can happen.

            Our congregation is changing.  Sometimes we welcome change, sometimes we dread it.  Almost always, change brings some level of discomfort.  We’re regularly dealing with a number of growing pains, including:

 -- not knowing everyone…  It’s exciting to see new faces, but also confusing when you’re not sure who’s a regular and who’s new.  We are currently working on a directory which we will be producing in-house.  This will allow us to have regular updates and produce a more accurate directory with more photos.  This year I have invited various ministry groups to spend a morning with the confirmation class to get to know our youth a little better and to share a little about what they do.  But I hope that every member sees themselves on the front line of greeting and welcoming new members, as well as inviting them to serve.

-- we are tight for space…  For lack of available space, we turned down 3 congregations in the last year who came to us wanting to use our building.  Storage is at a premium. My office and all the rooms in the back have been used to store items used by other ministries.  Some evenings, there are groups in every available room.  It is wonderful that the building is being used so much, but it does put more wear and tear on the building.  We are grateful for the gracious spirit in which people help with clean up and help make room for others who are using the building.

-- we are looking to expand…  A new building will bring us new opportunities, possibilities AND responsibilities.  Many have pointed out that this means we will have more space that will need cleaning, more utilities that will break down, and more upkeep in general.  It will also mean that some of our ministries will be able to function differently.  We know that fellowship and the food pantry will be directly affected – fellowship because we will now be able to have larger meals cooked in a full kitchen; food pantry because they will continue to need designated space to store and distribute their food every week. 

            Paul Bartell has volunteered to help put together a “Master planning team” that will collect and coordinate various other plans for the use of our property.  Areas to be designated for the prayer garden, playground, columbarium (as well as access to it) and other outdoor projects should be identified and marked.  We hope that each ministry will be thinking about how they might need to adapt as we expand our facility, and share that with this group.

-- we have new ministries…  With our new English as a Second Language (ESL) class taking off, men’s and women’s Bible studies up and running, and expanding programs serving all ages, there is a lot going on at this church.  It gets hard to keep up with, so to help us all get a good look at the many ministries that happen here, we are putting together our first Ministry Fair Sunday on April 24.  Each ministry team will put up a display somewhere in the church building, and we will all take some time during worship that day to visit those stations.  We will also be implementing a new feature in the announcements – a “Classified Ad” section for each ministry to share their needs for resources, members, volunteers, etc.

            After the Easter miracle brought the Church to birth, God grew his people and expanded their numbers, growing their hearts along with it.  As we pursue our mission of sharing the love of Jesus, glorifying God and extending His kingdom, we experience the newness of God as the people of Atonement.  Like the early apostles, we recognize that many of the changes we experience are due to the movement of God’s Holy Spirit.  We give thanks for this future God is bringing about, even when it invades our space and messes with our comfort zones.  For years we have been Wesley Chapel’s “small church with a big heart.”  As our membership grows medium-sized, may God also transform our love for Him and for our neighbors, growing our hearts super-sized.

Peace,

Pastor Scott