There aren’t many things I have found that I truly just cannot stand about ministry. There is one thing, however, that creates such anxiety, such pressure to perform, such an intense level of personal expectation that, whenever I encounter it, I sometimes question my fitness to serve in a small, rural church:
The church sign.
Let me explain. Where I serve, the sign in front of the building says a lot. The larger churches with more resources have really cool digital signs, that rotate between announcements concerning church activities and worship times, upcoming events, and sometimes even very clever pixelated images that convey their mission. Smaller churches have signs that allow for two to three lines of brief text that often convey some clever truth, some statement that leads to further reflection (such as “seven days without prayer makes one weak.” You see, they took the word weak and, well, you get the point), or service times and one announcement for the church.
My problem is that I don’t find myself particularly adept at saying anything in one sentence. In fact, one of the biggest challenges I have found in blogging is actually writing something that takes less than or approximately 5 minutes to read, as opposed to a multi-volume tome each time I post. So, needless to say, when I look at the church sign, I shudder. We are not in a situation where it would be financially prudent to purchase a state-of-the-art church sign. In fact, that will likely never be a thing that we do. So, several times a year, I stand outside, staring at my mortal enemy the church sign, with its outdated church announcement mocking my inability to create a clever proverb, or even to come up with a passage from the Bible that will fit into the space restraints. It is horrible. Truly horrible. I actually had to take a break from writing this to get my anxiety over the sign under control.
Okay, I’m better now.
The other day, however, I thought that I had just the best idea ever for a church sign. We as a body pride ourselves in our openness to receive, welcome and love people from all walks, all backgrounds, and with all sorts of baggage. We are the church for all the people who were never the “cool kids,” if you get my drift. One of my favorite people in the church has labeled us a “happy band of misfits,” and I love that term. It is really who we are. So, I was thinking of this, and how we could communicate that in a few words on the sign, so that when people drove by, they went “yeah, that’s the sort of place that I’m looking for!” I seriously spent a day, off and on (I did other things too, by the way) thinking about this and what we should say. Then, it hit me. I knew exactly what I would say! I came home that evening, triumphantly prepared to share with my family this stroke of genius, this moment in which my truest abilities to articulate truth with clarity could be displayed for all the world to see. “Family,” I proudly exclaimed, “I have created the next phrase for the church sign.” They waited with baited breath, clearly overwhelmed with the utter excitement for the genius that awaited them. I then stated, “the church sign should say:”
Wait for it. . . .
“We love hurting people.”
You know, as in, if you are hurting, struggling, in pain, having been truly affected by the brokenness of this world, this is the place for you. We love you! And we want to know you.
My revelry in the moment however, was shattered by two things. First, there was a painful and awkward silence from my gracious wife, who waited to see if I figured things out on my own, and if sanctification in my life had progressed to such a point that my pompous revelation would be met with Spirit-filled humility. Second, however, was the reaction of my 6-year old son, who did no such waiting. Instead, he simply asked, “Daddy, is that what we do?” He was utterly confused by my statement. You see, He did not hear
“We love hurting people.”
No, no. Instead, he heard this:
“We love hurting people.” As in, injuring them. This misunderstanding was amplified further later on in the evening when he asked me, completely innocently, “Daddy, when will we change the sign to say ‘we like to hurt people’”
Needless to say, this was not the outcome I was looking for. Which, at the end of the day, provided me with a series of things that I think I have had to learn the hard way about ideas in church revitalization and replanting. I thought they may be worth sharing, so here we go:
1. Not every idea you have is good: I have had some doozies. But in order for there to be some good ideas, you have to sort through some pretty bad ones too. There is a later blog post on this, involving scissors and horse manure (but that’s for another time).
2. Most ideas you have will not be clearly understood on the first pass: especially if they are culturally very different than what people are used to. We have to be committed to overexplaining every change, to saying things so many times that people are both totally sick of hearing about it and totally aware of what is going on.
3. Not everything you say gets heard the way you mean it: what you are talking about when you say the words “missional” or “evangelism” or “discipleship” or even “church” can be far different than what people hear. Prepare ahead for misunderstanding, and respond with grace when people don’t hear what you mean.
4. Cleverness is not the essential component to church replanting and revitalization: and boy is that good news! God doesn’t call the clever; He uses the faithful. Be faithful. Be simple. Don’t always overthink. Most of the best things we have done have been the simplest. Keep it simple!
5. You need to bounce ideas off of lots of people before just implementing them – share your ideas with people, and open yourself up for feedback. Be prepared for things to be misunderstood, ill-received, and sometimes misquoted. But you need to have people in your life telling you when you are slightly off-center.
We settled on “He is faithful.” It wasn’t the most clever thing anyone’s ever read on a sign, but it sure is true. And truth beats cleverness every time. And, it keeps the children in my congregation from envisioning the church as a place where folks come in to engage in vigorous MMA-matches on Sunday morning.
All of us say things that get misunderstood. All of us try really hard to say the right things in the right ways and then marvel at our failures. The good news of the Gospel is that God is gracious in those moments. May we be people of grace and faithfulness, resting in God’s promises and trusting His goodness, even when we stink at communicating that with other people.
And, if you come to church on Sunday, pray for the guy that has to do the sign. It really is stressful.
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