no perfect people allowed

What do an atheist, transient, retired missionary, opera singer extraordinaire, student, professor, filmaker and web designer, buddhist all have in common? They are the future church.

As Christians in a post-Christian society, our job is to become cultural farmers (I shared from 1 Cor. a few posts back). The task is to develop the right soil, a healthy environment where people can grow up in faith until the invisible God is made visible through his Body, the church. For us, God is responsible for the growth, the changed hearts, but the soil is the responsibility of the leaders and people who make up that church. Creating that culture is the most important task leaders can undertake to engage a post-Christian society, yet we often give culture creation little mental effort. Because culture is largely unseen, we are mostly unaware of the cultural soil we have created in our churches.

A great book by John Burke (No Perfect People Allowed) talks about creating the right cultural soil. "The culture becomes highly ingrained to the point of becoming invisible to the members of the organization. That is why it is so difficult for group members to talk about their culture, because it operates at a level below our normal consciousness. Perhaps this explains why many churches try to reach the same group with the same methods, but the "feel" in each group is entirely different. The intangible feel is the culture. The culture is what seekers pick up on immediately.

One thing I do is observe first-timers at the end of a meeting. Generally speaking, they'll stick around if it connected with them and talk to people. Our meetings have been great, Tony's really fascilitating conversation and people are so active in expressing their thoughts (this week was on relational conflict and resolve, for some reason the ladies were the most vocal:)). But I think the most enjoyable time is watching people stay an extra hour following the meeting and talk with others. This morning, the meeting went from 11-12:15 and nobody left until 1, and the last to leave was at 2:30.

All too often, leaders implement new "seeker" services and "postmodern" services with cool music, candles, art, aesthetics, or whatever the latest thing is, but miss the most essential nutrients for the healthy body....those intangibles. It's not the visible but the invisible that needs our focus. It's not candles but community, not art but attitude, not liturgy but love that makes the difference.

What a relief too. We've toiled over wanting to be creative, and "do" Church differently because many of the old paradigms have changed. The more I talk to young people around here, the more I discover that they could honestly give a crap about the order of service, or seeker sensitivity. People want to feel that invisible, that intangible culture only people can create out of the raw, authenticity of being human on a individual, corporate and spiritual level.

Tony shares this often, but it's right on: as churches, we need to create the right context for conversation.

I love this Church.