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As time creeps closer to the worship gathering, I would welcome people with a
"Hey! How are you?"
"Great to see you this morning!"
"How about those Yankees?!"
and other common conversations like that. Magically, my wife would appear with my three young children, holding a coffee, and looking a little frazzled. I never understood why she was always seemingly in a rush - she was just coming to church, after all!
Sometimes I would look out the window or stand outside looking without staring at the parking lot. More often than not, I would see people waiting in their cars until a little closer to the gathering time. "What is with that?" I would think to myself.
Worship would begin, and I would be systematically running through the service order in my head.
Announcements - check! spotless transition.
Worship - Great song selection this time! I can hear everyone singing behind me!
Message - Time to preach, no pressure, just have to grab the attention of everyone in the room for 30 minutes and preach a transformational message about Jesus.
Closing - Okay, sprint to the back and greet the new people. Connect with them and make them feel noticed!
People leave, the faithful make their rounds, lock doors, and turn out the lights. I head out to my car and head to lunch with my family. If I am luckily, I would even get a quick nap in before the week would start.
Now, Sundays look quite different.
Due to the nature of our phase of planting, we don't have currently have the bandwidth for Sunday morning gatherings.
I sleep in a little later than I used to. I make coffee, turn on some music, and even scroll through social media. For some reason, I have 10 thousand notifications from churches that I follow about to go live. In fact, I forgot that I had followed many of these churches, since Sunday mornings are the only time they show up on my feed.
I spend the morning getting ready and dressed with the family. My wife and I have the conversation - "What church should we try out today? Wait - what time is their service? Do they have kids church? Will our kids actually go to kids church? Are they weird?" These are all legitimate questions we asked. We would always try to figure out the night before were we would go, but we procrastinated and waited until we had our morning coffee to have that conversation.
The magic that I thought had happened between me waking up and my wife getting to church with my three kids turned out to be a non magical experience at all. Not only did I have to find clothing for all of them to wear that day, I had to drag them into the car so that we would be at the worship gathering on time. I have no idea how my wife has gotten herself and the kids to church on time the past 5 years!
Here are three things I have learned about visiting a church on a Sunday morning that I didn't expect:
1. Websites don't tell you everything.
Most of the churches that we have visited had visually appealing websites. They gave all the great basic information, but I was surprised at how difficult and how many clicks it took for me to get the information on when service actually was. Furthermore, church buildings can be confusing. In many cases, we didn't know which door to enter. Making this clear on a website (or better yet, on campus) was a plus when we did see that info ahead of time.
Some of the larger churches that we visited actually OVERSOLD the Sunday morning experience. One church in particular had a video of people being greeted by the door, bon fire pits, smiling faces, balloons for kids. It looked so perfect that I expected it to be that way when I pulled into the parking lot. Spoiler: there weren't any smiling faces, or greeters at all.
2. Too many options can lead to no decision at all.
If you have ever gone into a grocery store looking for a basic item, only to find 50,000 different brands on the shelf, then you can get a glimpse into my experience in choosing a church to worship at on a Sunday morning. There are a lot of options in our area, like most areas that I have lived in. Honestly, there were some mornings that I would google places to worship. After a few minutes, my wife and I would decide to do a devotional with our kids at home or stream worship from our sending church. Chances are, there are many people that have a desire to try church, but have too many options because they want to make the right decision for them.
Hint, hint: that is why an invitation is so crucial. It takes away all the other options. The only decision they have to make is to go or not to go.
3. There is no doubt in my mind; God is at work.
Okay, so the first two were pretty negative. Here is the overwhelming characteristic I learned about visiting other churches: God is impacting poeple every Sunday in different ways. People are different, and sometimes we forget that. As pastors, we secretly wish that everyone in our community will like our church. They reality is, you are going to reach people that are pretty similar to you. That can be good and bad.
At the same time, there are different churches with different strategies to reach different people. This experience has taught me that just because I can't reach a particular group of people doesn't mean that some else can't. It is better to be part of helping people find their fit and grow in faith, even if it may be at another church.
There is something beautiful about the diversity and difference of local churches that represents the big c Church. After all, the church is simply a tool to build God's kingdom. May we never forget that.
If you are reading this, there is a high chance that you are part of a local church or a pastor. I would encourage you to see the beauty of the churches in your community this week. Thank God for the different communities of faith in your town. They aren't perfect, but neither are you.
This has been a time in my life I will never forget, and I have learned a lot from visiting other churches simply as a child of God with my family. Visiting a church on Sunday is hard, but not impossible. If you have the chance to do this at some point in your ministry or life in general, take it! You will learn a lot.