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Prior to planting The Mission Church, I had always worked in established churches. Most of these churches were in a suburban context, and the one rural church I worked in, still operated in very suburban ways.
Because these were established churches, there was a certain way we did things. I grew up in the church, so this culture was familiar to me. You go to church early, before Sunday School to help set up, then you go to a Sunday School class divided by age, afterwards you might have a coffee break, then you go to church service, where you sing, pray, take offering, and listen to a sermon. Many churches had Sunday night service, where you'd come back for more songs, prayers, another offering, and sermon. I knew what potluck meant (gathering for lots of food prepared by many hands). Midweek service was either youth group or some type of kids club. Summer had a week long Vacation Bible School.
This was the culture that I grew up in. It didn't seem weird, or out of place. From the time I was tiny, I could sit still through church, and my mom says I sat through bible stories in the nursery before I was a year old.
The past few weeks have opened my eyes to how very strange this culture is to people who have not encountered church on a regular basis. The culture of church is beautiful and varied, but very difficult for young people in particular, who have never interacted with church before.
When we attempted to do Vacation Bible School, we discovered it was not written for our context, urban and unchurched, an issue I never ran into before, because i was working within the context of a church culture. Sitting still for 20 minutes is a challenge, singing songs seems out of place, listening to bible stories is a new thing, and there is 0 understanding of what missions is, let alone raising money for a missions project.
The reality we are dealing with, is that these kids don't even know if they can just walk into a church building. One kid asked "Do we just walk in? Or do we have to have our invite with us?" They are timid and wary of our building. They are unsure of what they are to do, and the whole experience is alien to them.
We talk a lot around here about redefining church to culture. That we have to illustrate what the church is outside of our walls, if we ever want to see anyone come inside of them. But a large part of that work, is redefining church culture to ourselves. Reorienting ministry to look different than we've done it before, and realizing that it's okay to do things different.
When we stepped outside of the Vacation Bible School format, amazing things happened. Kids opened up. They were laughing, they were comfortable, they were open. They felt okay coming into the church. All because we scrapped what we thought we needed to do, and replaced it with something organic and beautiful. You can't force someone to become a Christian, or to come into a church, anymore than you can force someone to be your friend or to love you. That's not how relationships work, and that's not how Jesus works.
Jesus stands at the door and knocks, he doesn't bust the door down. If we had busted doors down, we would have missed the grace of the Holy Spirit at work.
So today, as I was working on a few projects at church, I heard "Pastor Robbie! Hi!" In small excited boy voices, and a smile broke out over my face, and I called to all of them by name. This time they weren't timid about coming into the church and asked "Can we help you with anything? We want to help." I gave them something to do, a small project that was done in just a few minutes, but they felt a part of something, and I did to.
I felt a part of this great movement of the Holy Spirit. The Kingdom of God is here. It's present. Sometimes it looks like a church that's been around for decades, with established youth groups and programming, but sometimes it looks like sweaty neighborhood boys chasing soccer balls in the yard. Sometimes it looks like open hearts looking for a place to belong. Sometimes it looks different than what we ever dreamed or imagined it could, and it's beautiful.
