I’ve been grappling lately with church planting.
Some of you know that Brian and I came back home to Canada specifically because we wanted to start a church. But as the years have gone by (2 to be exact), I’ve wondered if the issue isn’t “planting” but “tending”. Not starting but pastoring.
We’ve visited a lot of churches in the Lower Mainland over the past few years. We took a while before deciding which church to attend. And what we saw in most churches were small, closed groups of people that were dying a slow death. Obviously, I’m being incredibly generic but I got tired of seeing groups of 15-50 people, huddled in a room, never really growing or changing or being relevant to the world. It just seemed like “why bother?” Heck, I am someone that I consider a pretty committed Christian and I wouldn’t go there! The music was lame, the sermons completely irrelevant, the people were unfriendly…I could go on. And not because I don’t see what matters. I’m saying when I put on my “outsider hat”, you don’t have to wonder why most people like God, even like Jesus, but hate church. Heck, sometimes I hate church.
It’s made me wonder whether another church is needed. Or if what is needed here is for us to throw our collective weight behind someone and support that work? Are we so arrogant that we think we’re the only ones that know how to do it right? Are we so convinced that our way will be different?
I’ve been wondering lately how much more effective we would be here, if we came together in unity. Canada is not like the USA which is filled with mega-churches. We don’t even have the population of California so it’s hard to find even the talent for worship bands sometimes. We have a lot of small churches. And it seems to me, therefore, a minimal impact on the lives of the hurting and broken.
I am not a mega-church person. As a matter of a fact, I often refer to myself as a refugee from the megachurches of America. The noise, the show, the glitz, the performance, the pace – not me, baby. But surely there is something between 15 depressed people, shaking tambourines at each other and a light show with amorous, orgasmic love songs supposedly directed at Jesus.
I have wondered how much more effective we could be if we were to just plug in with a church that is already established and reform from within. Sure there are many things about modern church that make me barking mad but I love it. And since I love it, I am wary of taking the stance of “I’ll take my ball, go home and start my own game!” That’s totally not our attitude. We love Canada, we love the Lower Mainland and we want to serve here.
I’m still grappling with this. It may just be the usual church-planters cold feet. I suppose that visiting all of these tiny churches would make anyone wonder what the heck they were doing. But neither do I want to just charge ahead, recklessly, in my life without stopping to consider, ponder and pray.
