At Tiny Naylor’s on Christmas Morning

As with most people in America, my wife and I love to spend Christmas with our family, and we have always been fortunate enough to do that.  Well almost always. The first ten years of our marriage we lived in sunny California and our parents couldn’t wait to spend the Holidays with us, getting out of the Midwest’s cold and snow.  Later, we had a great time sharing our son with his grandparents every year. We always made a big deal out of every bit of Christmas with the family every year, except one.

For our fourth Christmas together, neither set of parents could get out to be with us.  So it was just the two of us that year.  We had moved to Pasadena, California on the first of December and we didn’t really know anyone there. Because we were at a loss to know what to do with ourselves, on Christmas Eve we went to a big mall.  We had no shopping to do, because we had mailed our presents to our family weeks before. Instead, we slowly wandered the mall, looking around and generally getting in the way of all the last minute shoppers.  Then, we went home and took the dog for a walk while looking at the Christmas lights in our neighborhood.  Our TV was on the fritz, so we listened to the radio.  The L.A. stations had radio drama specials on that night—three different productions of “A Christmas Carol.”  Tina went to bed after the second one, but I heard all three sitting in the dark looking at our Christmas tree. 

The next morning we got up early and opened our presents.  That was fun, but with only the two of us it didn’t take very long.  We decided to go out for breakfast.  There was a little café around the corner named Tiny Naylor’s.  It was an interesting place that morning.  The first thing we noticed was that we were the youngest people in the place, by about 30 years.  The next thing we noticed was that almost everyone was sitting alone.  There were a few other couples, but a lot of the tables had just one occupant.  We ordered and watched the people. The waitresses were extra cheery.  They seemed to understand that their customers were lonely folks.  Instead of feeling resentful that they had to work, they realized that the folks they were serving needed someone to be nice to them.  Everyone took his or her time eating breakfast.  I think most of them had no place else to go.  Tina and I felt very lucky, because even though it was just the two of us that morning, we had an invitation to dinner with one of the families in our new church, and my wife’s parents would be with us in a couple of days. 

I’ll never forget that morning because it was the first time I realized how lonely Christmas can be for people who are unattached.  Those folks were lonely … and quiet.  I have always wondered what was in their thoughts.  I’m sure some were mourning the passing of a loved one or a relationship that had ended.  Others were probably harboring anger and bitterness toward someone.  Still others may well have been glad to be alone so they didn’t have to put up with the people in their families that day.  I’m pretty sure that many of them just wanted the day to be over so they could get back to their regular lives.  Perhaps there were others who, like my wife and I, were just biding time until they could join a celebration with people they loved. 

I still love the presents (both giving and receiving) the music, the movies, the church presentations, the decorations, everything.  But the memory of that breakfast at Tiny Naylor’s keeps me sensitive to those who don’t enjoy the season the way I do.  It also helps keep the wonder of the real meaning of Christmas the main thing for me.  Whether or not we celebrate with family and friends, and whether or not we enjoy the traditional celebrations, it is important to remember that it is all about God’s Son being born to show His love for us and to redeem us from our sins.  That, my friends, is cause for celebration under any circumstances—big and brassy, or low key and quiet.   

If Church Growth is Not the Point, What Is?

Ok, I know the term church growth is out of style and that it really bothers some people in Christian leadership circles.  (I find that the ire it raises in church leaders is often directly proportional to the growth or lack of growth of the churches they have led.)  I also know that for some church growth has become all about numbers and dollars and making the pastor a star.  You can call it church growth, or you can say it is the church doing the mission, or being the church, or call it the missional church.  The point is to get more people to become disciples of Jesus Christ.  Just as healthy, normal human bodies grow, healthy, normal churches grow.  If the church is a group that truly cares about each other and worries that friends and neighbors are headed for hell, it will grow.  In fact, I think if a church lives up to Jesus’ purpose for it, it can’t help but grow.  Strip it all down to the most basic terms and you find that our assignment is to do the Great Commandments of loving God and loving others, and to fulfill the Great Commission to make disciples.  If a group is doing that, people will want to be a part of the fellowship. 

What bugs me are the lids that church people and even some church leaders put on the church.  These lids keep the church from being what God designed her to be.  Here are a few of the most popular lids.  You can probably add to the list:

We want to know everybody.

If your church has an attendance over 40 you don’t know everyone.  Besides if you know everyone the church has not been reaching out.

We want to grow spiritually.  It is not necessary for us to grow numerically. 

If you are growing spiritually you should be learning how desperately people need the Gospel. 

We need to keep traditions alive. 

Not if they get in the way of helping people find the love, hope and salvation Christ offers.

We might offend some people in the church. 

Apologize and refer them to the mission to save the lost.

We might offend some unbelievers. 

The Gospel often offends the people who need it the most.

I actually know of pastors who say they don’t want any more people because they don’t want to work that hard. 

Get another job.  Check your calling.  Maybe you shouldn’t be leading a church.

If we grow we will need to expand our building and that is expensive. 

First of all, there are alternatives.  Second, get over your fear and trust God to provide.

We might get new people who are not like us. 

Expand your horizon.  It was tough for the early Jewish Christians to accept Gentile believers.  Grow up.

The pastor won’t be able to give me as much attention. 

Grow up and let other members of the body minister to you.

If we grow someone might come to church that sings better than I do and he will get all the solos (or play piano, guitar, etc.)            

Listen to yourself.  When did the church become about you?

If we grow there will be new people in leadership and I won’t have as much control. Jesus should be in control anyway.  Why do you need to be in control?  Whose church is this?  Is it yours because you give a lot, or Jesus’ church because He paid for it with His blood?

If a church is going to grow, or become truly missional, or truly be the church, it will have to face up to these lids and find ways of removing them.  Hopefully, that means the people will have a change of heart and realize that it is more important for their neighbor to find Jesus than it is for them to have things their own way.  Unfortunately, too often the only ways those lids are removed is for certain people to leave in a huff.  Many church plants are started because the pastor discovered it was easier to start a church from scratch than to remove lids at an established church. 

All of us … from the church leader, to the seminary professor, to Joe and Mary pewsitter … need to look at ourselves.  Am I a lid?  Is my talk or my attitude keeping the church from building God’s Kingdom?  What scares me about the growth of my church, and why?  How does God want me to work to help other people become followers of Christ? 

Church Reputation

One of my wife’s co-workers had just been hired at a church in a town that we would pass through as we drove down the interstate, so we decided to keep an eye out for it.  Since it was a big church in town of about 20,000, we thought it might be visible from the freeway.  Tina was curious about the place and we needed a break, so when we stopped at an Arby’s for lunch. I asked the girl at the counter if she knew where the New Springs Church was located. She smiled and said, “Oh yes, that’s a great church. Everybody knows it.” I asked her if she went there. She said no, but she had friends that went there and she had been there a couple of times. I asked her for directions. She said, “Well, it’s out on such and such road.” I told her I was just passing through and didn’t know that road. She called her manager over and told her I was looking for New Springs Church. She gave directions that included three or four turns. I had hoped to catch a glimpse of the church as we sped by on t, but that wasn’t possible so we decided not to look it up. However, I asked the manager if she attended New Springs. She said no, but she knew the church because her grandkids had played basketball there and attended Vacation Bible School. “It’s a wonderful church. They do lots of stuff for people.” Just then another worker walked up and said, “Yeah, they help a lot of people. I go to another church, but if I didn’t, I would go to New Springs.” I thanked them, and we went on to our destination.

We never did see the church, but I got a mental picture of it. It’s a place that reaches out to the community, has a great reputation, and serves as a great embassy for the Kingdom of God in Anderson, South Carolina. I still haven’t been there, and I don’t know the pastor, Perry Noble, personally, (although I have become a fan of his articles on churchleaders.com). I have no reason to toot New Springs’ horn. I’m just reporting what happened and drawing this conclusion: this church must be doing a lot of things right, and I wish more churches had this kind of reputation in their communities. My mentor, Dan Harman, used to say that he wanted there to be three kinds of people in our town: those who went our church, those who went to another church but said they would go to our church if they weren’t involved in that church, and those who didn’t go to church anywhere but said that if they started going to church it would be our church. From my small sampling at Arby’s that day, it looks like New Springs has been able to do that in their town.   

What would happen if someone got off the interstate in your town and asked the people about your church at the local Arby’s or McDonalds? Would they get directions or a blank stare? Would the traveler hear good things about your church? Do the people in your town know about your church and is what they know positive? The people I spoke to that day didn’t talk about the great pastor. They spoke about how the church cares about people and reaches out to the community. (One of the people did mention that the worship was great, but that was far from the first thing they said about the church.) Big church, small church, whatever size your church is, it needs to build a reputation in your town for doing the great commandments. If it does that, it will almost automatically follow that the great commission will be accomplished. Here’s the thing. There’s only way to build this kind of reputation and that’s for the members to really learn to love people who don’t come to church and who may not be anything like the church members. You can’t program that. You can only teach it and, more importantly, model it.

I Saw A Giant

Now, those of you who know me have probably noticed that I am a pretty big guy.  I am not NBA tall, but I tend to be kind of obvious in a crowd.  Well the other day I saw a real giant.  Not a physical giant, but a spiritual giant is.

I am a kind of interim pastor filling in for our lead pastor, Rev. Earl Wheatley, as he battles pancreatic cancer.  A couple of weeks ago I preached a message in preparation for National Back to Church Sunday.  I talked about some of the ways that the church turns people off.  Particularly, I talked about how we tend to put people in categories and we are often seen as judgmental.  I closed by challenging the people to strive to be known for loving their neighbors, co-workers, and others who don’t know Christ. 

At the close of the service I invited people to come forward to pray at the altar rail for people they know that need a relationship with Christ; for ways they might show Christ’s love for them; and for openings to invite them to join us in worship.  The Spirit was moving among us and many people came to pray for their own attitudes, and/or people they might be able to reach out to.

The first person at the altar rail was the pastor I am subbing for.  He felt well enough to be in worship that day and sat on the front row with his wife.  The following Tuesday he was scheduled to undergo some tests that would tell what progress the cancer was making and if the very uncomfortable chemotherapy treatments were helping.  Right away, I figured Pastor Earl wanted us to pray for him and about the test results he would get that week.  I moved over to join him, but before I got there I could hear him praying.  To my surprise, he wasn’t praying about the tests, or his pain, or his cancer.  He was praying for people in his neighborhood that need to know Jesus, and asking God for guidance in how he could best approach them.  Of course, I agreed with him in prayer.

After his wife helped him back to his seat.  I just sat down on the steps to the platform.  I have to admit I was stunned.  Here was a man in a fight for his life and his prayer was for his unsaved neighbors.  I was in awe.

When everyone had finished praying and returned to their seats, I said to the congregation while still sitting on the steps, “I want to be Earl Wheatley when I grow up.”  Then I told them of Earl’s prayer.  We have a giant among us.  His body is emaciated, but his spirit is huge.  I am proud to know him, call him friend, and know him as a brother in Christ.  He challenges me to put the first thing first.  Call it what you want: making disciples, filling up heaven, or seeing people saved.  It is all about sharing the love of Christ.  It is this love that gives a man like Earl the sweet assurance of his own salvation and the deep desire for others to experience it too.  I want to be like that.  How about you?