As we find ourselves approaching the start of the church year again, it is time for us to think about the answer to this simple question. Why do you come to church? Is it habit? Is it to see old friends? Or is it to recharge your batteries? Is it to engage in the mysteries?
There are a lot of good and comfortable reasons to come to church but are they what Christ left us to do? The formation of the early church was not so that Christians could congregate with Christians without the interference of non-Christians. It wasn’t to form a social club for the enlightened. It wasn’t even to form an organization to coordinate charities.
Jesus left us with two commandments and one commission. Love God. Love your neighbor. Spread the Good News. That’s it. And figuring out what that means and how to execute it is the work of the church. That is what we need to do. Every day. This should be the standard of our actions, as individuals and as a church. Our parish is conveniently assigned a little chunk of real estate in the world to figure out how to do these things for the people who live here.
So who does live here? We can study demographic data. We can look for the local standard of beauty and spread it around our building. We can read books and we can put up flyers. As long as we are focused on who and what we are missing the point. Before we wonder what to do and even who to do it to, we need to know why we do the thing we do.
The Holy Spirit brings people through the uninviting architecture of our front doors with surprising regularity. We need to be cognizant to why they are coming. People no longer come to church to find a social club or a charitable organization to contribute to. These things are available to an information age at the click of a button. People come to church because they are looking for God. And people come to church despite the fact that Christians have a bad reputation for being exclusive and narrow-minded.
It is not our numbers that will wow them; it is our faith. I know that we have a very faithful community and we need to be less afraid to speak of it. We love God. We love each other. With joy and with passion we must not be afraid to spread the Good News.
