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FAITH TALK: Hello, Is Anybody Out There?
“Nobody’s listening to us,” complained the author of the article outlining why Millennials are leaving the church. He suggested a church deserves to be left, “When [it] forges ahead without ever asking for our input.” He outlined a solution which included discovering needs, including Millennials on boards and a young adults pastor.
I assume the author attends a church where these things are not already happening, but I would argue, in the greater number of American churches, all these things are already a part of the churches’ protocol – at least they have been at virtually every church I’ve ever attended. I would suggest, perhaps the reason many Millennials feel they aren’t being heard is because they are complaining to each other, rather than finding out the proper avenues for making their opinions known.
There’s Nothing New Under the Sun
When I was in high school, a lot of my friends in Sunday School made the same sort of complaints. I call them my Sunday School friends, because that was the only place I saw them. Their parents drug them to church on Sunday morning and it was the last appearance they made all week. I know because I was there pretty much every time they opened the church doors. Church was and is my life.
Throughout the year in those Sunday School classes, the director would get up to make announcements. Barely a Sunday went by the church was not inviting us to deepen our involvement – to sign up for committees, serve on boards, answer questionnaires, volunteer for this or that or the other. Then in the worship service they also made announcements about committees being formed and meetings being held. Each Sunday as we walked into the service a deacon would hand us a program and if we took time to read it, it would inform us the very same things in the announcements in Sunday School and church. If you missed that, it was in the newsletter the church sent to our house each month. Nowadays, the same announcements are being made and you can also find the same thing on websites and Facebook pages.
The bottom line is that churches desperately want input. They hire all kinds of staff members to connect with various age groups. They regularly have business meetings, often immediately after the main worship service, hoping people will attend. They have response sheets tucked into the program. Usually the email addresses for the pastors, the elders or deacons and staff members are readily available. If you want to be heard, step right up!
Practice Patience
While your local McDonald’s measures response time in milliseconds and you expect your computer to operate instantaneously, that’s not how everything works. Just because you are not seeing your “input” immediately adopted, it doesn’t mean you aren’t making a difference. With a 24 hour news cycle we’re all used to results. In the morning we find out what stupid thing someone has said or done. By the time we pick up our coffee at Starbuck’s, social media has organized a response and by lunchtime the someone is making an apology. Instant gratification!
That’s just not the church. If you want to be heard and make a difference, you have to slow down and work through the process. After over six decades in church, I can tell you one thing, nothing is new under the sun. The thing you want has most likely been suggested before and for every change you suggest, there is someone else suggesting the exact opposite.
But what if you have practiced patience and you continue to get no results and no respect. Well, let’s talk about that next week.
Faith Talk 