Another pastor came to our church about a month ago for a meeting.
He was early, and asked if he could walk the halls and explore our building.
When he came back, he said, "I bet I can guess the age of every one of
your Adult Sunday School classes."
I was intrigued. "Let's hear it" I offered.
"This class over here" he pointed to a large room with
lots of chairs facing one direction and a podium at the front, "this is
your oldest Sunday School class."
One-for-one so far. More on this later.
"These rooms" three classes with chairs and tables
fashioned together "are your people in their 40s though 65. Working
professionals, they usually like to debate and discuss."
"That big room upstairs with all the comfy couches and nice chairs, that's your baby-boomer's class isn't it?
Wow.
Then he talked about two rooms where there were only chairs
sitting around in a circle. "Those are your youngest classes, right?"
Right. He also noticed how one of those rooms shared a wall with the nursery which was another dead giveaway.
I've been thinking about his comments for three weeks straight,
trying to figure why the furniture is so predicable of our church culture and
what it all means.
The sanctuary needs some work from leaks and cracks and old
carpet. So we thought this would be a great time to invest in the future of the
church.
You might not be surprised that there were many reactions to the
idea of changing God's building that were deeply personal. One person spoke of
being baptized, confirmed, and married there, and every time she sees this
church exactly the way it is and has been, she is reminded of that. Another
spoke of the cost of changes as unnecessary; sort of a "if it's broke, fix
it; if it isn't broke, don't fix it" approach. This seems to be a popular
opinion. Whether or not this is what the church ultimately decides to do, as a
pastor I am compelled to ask that we consider the future parishioners into our
worship space, including those who have been baptized in our midst but do not yet
have a voice or vote.
Back to our visiting pastor's guessing-game. When the sanctuary was built, 85 years ago, the pastor was considered an expert. There were three great professions dating back to the origination of this country: Lawyer, Doctor, Priest. All three were educated, all three were pillars in the community, and all three were experts whose voices ought to be listened to as someone who knows better. Everyone faced forward because there was one expert to listen to. As my pastor friend pointed out, our oldest Sunday school class still follows this model, only now they rotate who the expert is from week to week. (They even invited me in to be the expert for a month back in 2012.)
Think for a moment about the power structures at play within this
architecture in a sanctuary. We all pray in one direction, where the pastor is
closest to the altar, and therefore closest to God. As if the prayer took on
special significance to God's ears if spoken by the pastor rather than a
parishioner.
Fast forward almost a century and imagine the world we live in. A
pastor is almost never the most educated person in any room (not even at home!).
We are the ones who have taken vows to live a life of Christ, but the thing I
say the most is not, "listen and take notes" but "this is the
body of Christ, given for you."
Not just on Sundays, but the world is changing all over. The world
is moving away from the one-expert model more and more each day. When I go to
the doctor I tell him what my blood pressure has been measuring, the research
I've done on medicines, and the way my wife (who is a dietitian) has been
suggesting I eat. Like more and more Americans, I do my own taxes, I'm learning
a foreign language from my phone so that others don't have to translate for me,
and my toothbrush is so advanced my dentist says I'm cleaning as well as he
can.
You see where I am going with this. In many great ways, the age of
experts is diminishing. No I haven't given up on my doctor, dentist, tax
professionals or teachers; and I like being
your pastor, but I'm sure I field more questions on the use of biblical Greek
and my dentists sees better teeth than our counterparts did 50 years ago.
If we use the progression of Sunday school spaces as a model for
the future, we can plainly see that more and more we study God in the round.
The youngest groups that meet for Sunday school don't have much in
the way of furniture because circling up gives us community to imagine God collectively
in and to continue to evolve in our faith together.
Also consider this: despite serving as pastor of the congregation
for nearly three years, outside of the youngest Sunday School class, I have not
been asked my thoughts on sanctuary renovations one time. Not by a single
parishioner. You might think this is because mine isn't a valued opinion (which is what I thought at first). I
have come to realize that it is much more because we've been trying to answer
the question, "What do we want the future sanctuary to look like?"
This question, properly framed, doesn't include the opinion of the youngish newish pastor. It doesn't
include the opinion of anyone other than ourselves.
This question is not a good one for the future of the church. This
question is the one that makes the church to lose its luster, its power and its
potency.
Church culture is changing all around us. Augsburg has avoided
many of the pitfalls of less fortunate congregations in decline. In order to
not follow in their footsteps, it would be prudent of us to find the right
question to ask.
When I think of giving my children a gift, I do not first ask,
“what do I want?” and work from there.
But better to ask the question, "In the future church, who do
we hope will worship God in this sanctuary? How might they want to worship?
The answer may be around the altar, not facing forward.
I’ve attached some pictures from my dear friend, Bishop Gordy of
Southeastern Synod of a healthy church that recently underwent this change.
