| — | Rev. Adam Copeland, “Reaching Out to Young Adults Will Screw Up Your Church” |
| — | Acts 8:26-40: Castrating Our Customs, by Rev. Adam J. Copeland |
| — | The Rev. Laura E. Everett, “The Spiritual Discipline of ‘Ecumenical Awkwardness’ “ |
The last time I was at First Ave, I leaned over to my date and said, “Where the hell are the women?” They certainly weren’t on stage. They weren’t in the posters for the upcoming shows, either. How is it that all these guys have enough self-confidence to make it to this point? I am not saying that they ought not be up there, singing their little hearts out. But for cryin’ out loud, who told the 8 year-old-girls “no?” Because much of what I read says this is the age when they begin to believe that message. No, you can’t. No, you are not enough. No, you are not capable.
So, here is what I have to offer. All of this makes a strong argument for church. I’m serious. Because if we are doing our job well (the job of being church), we are offering another way…another story by which to live. And in that story, things are reversed. The last are first, the lowly are lifted and by God, kids are told that not only are they enough–but that they are the leaders. And lead, they do. Pointing out injustices, not letting us forget about the most vulnerable, calling us on our shit, humbling us, pointing us to grace.
If given the choice, most kids I know would not choose church. “Boring! Dumb! It’s a myth!” Over the years, I have heard it all. Kids don’t actually want church—but man, do they need church.
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Pastor Jodi Houge, of Humble Walk (Source: humblewalkchurch.org) |
Three years ago, Emily Scott had an idea. What if twentysomethings in Manhattan’s East Village got together every Sunday for an agape feast, just as the early Christians did? Scott knew that Gen Xers and millennial peers crave egalitarian participation in a close-knit community and tend to avoid anything that looks like an institution. What if a group of friends cooked and ate a meal together, read scripture and sang some hymns? St. Lydia’s, named for the hospitable woman mentioned in Acts 16, was born.
At first a dozen young adults met in each other’s apartments, but soon Trinity Lower East Side Lutheran Parish adopted St. Lydia’s. Trinity’s sanctuary could accommodate dining tables, and Scott was given an office in the 175-year-old church building. When St. Lydia’s grew in number to 20 people, both congregations agreed that St. Lydia’s needed to work toward independence. The tiny congregation would either have to strike out on its own or affiliate with a denomination. It engaged in a nine-month discernment process with the Metropolitan New York Synod, part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Ameria. The synod agreed to allow St. Lydia’s to join and retain its identity, so the congregation decided to join.
There was one problem: Emily Scott, though a graduate of Yale Divinity School, was not ordained (she is currently a candidate for ordination in the ELCA). In order for its feast to be a synod-sanctioned Eucharist, St. Lydia’s needed to have an ordained person preside. (Various volunteer clergy had filled that role previously.) The ELCA also normally requires church planters to serve at least three years in an established congregation before embarking on new mission development. That would mean that if Scott wanted to lead St. Lydia’s, she would have to leave and serve as a pastor elsewhere for three years. But the fledgling community was dependent on Scott’s vision and pastoral care. “If I had been asked to serve three years in a parish,” she said, “we would have failed.”
Fortunately, the ELCA had just lifted the three-year requirement for church planters, allowing new seminary graduates to launch into church planting. Stephen Bouman, former bishop of the MNYS, had helped push for that change, which mirrors a movement across the mainline. Some denominations have even dropped the requirement that missioners be ordained before they serve and are supporting entrepreneurs who are building congregations among immigrants or young urban adults. These missioners have recognized a need and yearn to create a church to meet that need.
“Who is God’s heart breaking for?” said Philip Lotspeich, coordinator for church growth in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). “We’ve sensed that the way we’ve done church is not working in a lot of our communities. The people that [these young church planters] are reaching are just very different from those whom we would typically reach.”
When Anne Lamott first came to church she was hungover and wanted nothing to do with anybody. Her advice to churches is to give visitors space and just let them be. If anyone had approached her and tried to do a home visit she would have joined a witness relocation program. She needed space and her church gave it to her.
Giving strung out alcoholics some space is good advice. The problem is that’s not what every visitor needs. That’s the real challenge for churches as they try to make visitors feel welcome… but not too welcome.
That means your church’s welcome committee—whether it’s an official ministry team or that one way-too-friendly guy—need to be really good with people. They need to be able to tell the difference between the barely recovering alcoholic who wants to be left alone and the lonely widow looking for a new place to belong. They need to be able to welcome the stand-offish twenty-somethings who are curious but not that curious, along with the eager family who are already signing their kids up for summer camp.
It’s not an easy job. Too eager in your welcome and you’ll chase someone like Lamott away. But if you give space to someone eager to get involved, you come across as cold and aloof. It’s a fine balance and there’s surprisingly little grace.
Do we really have to think this hard about how to greet someone? Yes, yes we do. And the churches that don’t will suffer for it.
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Kevin Hendricks, “Making Visitors Feel Welcome (But Not Too Welcome)” (Source: churchmarketingsucks.com) |
And so, without further ado, six steps to get rid of your crappy pastor and get a better pastor in your congregation.


