A Birthday To Remember and To Learn From

Okay. So I thought we were going to have to rally all CCM’s together and start marching around traditional churches seven times in order to start bringing down the walls that make them seem impersonal, but I’m going to have to put my “Jericho” campaign on hold after seeing what one church member did this past Sabbath at my church to make a personal impact in someone’s life.

For the most part a typical service at my church goes like this: praise time, announcements, call to worship and invocation, hymn of praise, offertory, special music, children’s story, morning prayer, sermon, closing song, and closing benediction. If you want to connect with someone on a personal level you’d better do it before or after you get to the main service because once you’re seated in the sanctuary you’re in the doldrums as far as personal human interest goes. I call this “church in a box.”

But this past weekend a fellow church member threw a monkey wrench in the whole routine! Rather than wait before or after the service to bring attention to a personal matter she did it right in the middle of church in front of everybody! Gasp!

Her name is Gayle Daniels. It so happened that her father’s birthday had fallen on that Sabbath day and she wanted to weave two very special days into one memorable day. So she planned a special surprise for him. Before the sermon began she stepped up on the platform and began addressing the congregation. She graciously thanked the pastor for allowing her the time to bring the occasion to the church’s attention and then called her father up to the front.

As her father made his way up to the front she humored everyone with a couple of light hearted comments about her father’s age. She told the congregation that she wanted to make this a special day for her father and began to call up family members by name. But these weren’t family members who attended our local church. They didn’t even live in the area. Several family relatives, including her father’s nephew, grandchildren and a long time family friend, flew down from Maryland, Tennessee, and Washington DC, just to be there for that day!

As the family gathered around, Gayle also invited the rest of the church family up to the front. Just about the whole congregation crammed between the isles to be a part of the special recognition. Then a family friend, also a preacher, held a special prayer to thank the Lord for the years of life He had granted their loved one.

I’m sure what Gayle and her family did that day will stay with her father forever. But I also hope it had an impact on our church. I hope my church understood that these people were living out the love of Christ. I hope they didn’t just see it as another special feature. What they did that day was inspirational, thoughtful, and showed a devoted love for another person. Their act of Christ-like love gave a glimpse of what true Christian culture is really like without the walls of rigid traditions that tend to keep people at bay. I’m glad that Gayle had the awareness and creativity to create a little bit of Christian culture that day in order to give this kind of personal recognition. On top of everything else what an awesome way to celebrate the meaning of Sabbath; the day that God also celebrates and gives special recognition to His relationship with us.

It’s examples like these that will help break down church walls and make the Christian religion a bit more palatable. If others make similar efforts to celebrate human relationships in traditional church settings then perhaps they will give others a reason to give church and Christianity a shot. On the other hand, if churches want to stick with a “church in a box” program, well they could miss out on the opportunity to experience God’s love in real time. Kudo’s to Gayle and her family!

CCM's: Breaking Down Church Walls

Believe it or not there was a time when churches were at the center of community living. They were valued for their modesty and communal function. Churches had a more organic quality that made them accessible even to the common passer by. It was almost certain that a community with such a church was a tight knit community. Be that for better or for worse, the point is that modern day churches for some reason don’t have the same communal qualities and fail to appeal to the personal spirit. Somewhere along the line they became very introverted and impersonal. A wall was built up around them. How it got to that point, I don’t know exactly.

This past week I had several conversations with people who have made the same observation. We didn’t spend a lot of time talking about how it happened but one thing was pretty clear, we were frustrated and disappointed with it. One person, a good friend of mine and a respectable associate pastor, talked about her challenges in trying to create a sense of community and discipleship within her traditional church setting. She talked about how she encountered resistance among church clergy when it came to ideas that would help people build relationships and find personal meaning in their faith walk.

There could have been several factors contributing to the resistance (perhaps one being that she was a woman minister…oh no!) but I think that’s just a symptom of a deeper problem- the impersonal attitudes of today’s traditional churches. The problem is that the church leaders should have immediately recognized the value of a “personalized” ministry regardless of who suggested it and should have done everything in their power to embrace and support it. Personal ministry should be the number one priority of any church. It shouldn’t just be an idea or a suggestion it should be a principle on which every Christian church operates. But when churches are introverted and impersonal, personal ministry becomes just another good idea that’ll only see the light of day if a church department happens to find it useful. The value of personal ministry is just not easily recognized.

So what needs to happen? These church walls need to come down. But before you go and commit the heretical act of literally bulldozing the walls of your church just to get a glimpse of the outside world, remember it’s just a metaphor! (But you would definitely get people’s attention that way, hmm.) But in all seriousness, to bring down the walls that make a church seem impersonal, people have to make an effort to engage others on a personal level. They can start within their own spheres of influence. Mentoring and discipleship training can also help provide people with tools for building relationships with others. Talk to your church leaders about mentoring opportunities. Ministries like Tikva (read previous post) can also inspire ideas for how to live out Christianity where people live their lives. If you encounter resistance then build friendships with people in your church who might share your same ideas. They key is not to give up or give in. CCM’s, its time to bring down the church walls! Nicely please!