STRIVING FOR AUTHENTICITY
Our church-wide conversation about the future mission of our congregation has run in parallel with the related topic of renovating our facility. Both have been heated but productive, and I’d like to report on a theme I see running through these intertwined discussions.
It seems our church strives for authenticity. We are a humble group in the truest sense, in that we really don’t know, don’t want to know, don’t want it to be known, about the great things that are happening in our midst. While it is nice to see true humility in action, it is also true that this can itself become a source of pride.
What do I mean? We’re not the prettiest bunch of people around, nor is our building the nicest. And we seem to be darn proud of that. We like that our human facades and our property facades are a little imperfect. We like that we are warm and welcoming, not flashy and charismatic. We like that the beauty of our Sunday School program is in the rosy cheeks of our children and the faithful hearts of our teachers, not in the innovation of our curriculum or the newness of our classrooms. We don’t sing the trendiest worship songs, or have sermons that focus on the three P’s of prayer, or have glossy marketing brochures with shiny happy people on the cover. And we like that about ourselves.
To be sure, it is a wonderful thing to see an entire congregation say no to the idolatry of prettiness, sophistication, and brand new buildings. It is disgusting to see how much attention and money gets thrown in this direction in this country, especially when 1) God chooses the foolish and weak to do His work in and through, and 2) our brethren overseas are so deficient in material resources.
Nevertheless, as I stated above, I believe this kind of true humility can itself become a badge of pride. And I wonder if our striving for authenticity can blind us from seeing and responding to what God would have us to do as a congregation. For example, our building dialogue has us divided into two camps. There is a group that sees renovating our old facility as essential to attracting a certain group of newcomers, like people from the suburbs, upper-class folks, and parents who wouldn’t dare send their kids to Sunday School classrooms in a dark basement with electrical and water problems. Then there is a group that rebels against any sort of reliance on building renovation to advanced God’s Kingdom; church growth and obedience to God should be reflected in the faithfulness of His people, not in the newness of a church building.
These camps have battled over an expensive proposal to hire an architect to survey our physical plant and make suggestions about what we should do to renovate and improve it. The pro-building camp sees this as the first of many important steps towards making our church building more attractive. The anti-building camp shudders at the thought of starting an expensive process at the expense of investing in the people and families in the church.
I for one am in neither camp. I’m for doing the architectural study on purely secular grounds. We are called to be good stewards of our resources; our church happens to be blessed with a historic facility. We should do what we can, in a proactive and preventive way, to safeguard this asset, and to take good care of it. The building has been around for 100+ years, and every once in awhile, you need to fork over $15,000 for someone to tell you what you need to do from the standpoint of maintenance and safety and preventive measures to make sure it’s around for another 100+ years. We would spend a proportionate amount making sure we got the most out of our photocopier or our sound system, I argue; therefore, we ought to do the same with our most valuable physical asset.
But I digress. I hear and buy the arguments on both sides, but I wonder how much the anti-building folks are influenced by a striving for authenticity. A capital campaign and a newly renovated facility would come across as showy, and take away from the grittiness and real feel of our plain, understated motley group of members. Far from being a liability to future growth, chipping paint and water damage and subpar Sunday School classrooms add to the kind of character we are and that we want to show to the outside world. Is this what people are consciously or subconsciously thinking?
I don’t presume to know what is right and wrong, what is being faithful to divine principles and what is being seduced by popular notions. I do have an opinion, though. And I will continue to follow these two intertwined conversations to see if and how our striving for authenticity flavors our preferences and our decisions.
Our church-wide conversation about the future mission of our congregation has run in parallel with the related topic of renovating our facility. Both have been heated but productive, and I’d like to report on a theme I see running through these intertwined discussions.
It seems our church strives for authenticity. We are a humble group in the truest sense, in that we really don’t know, don’t want to know, don’t want it to be known, about the great things that are happening in our midst. While it is nice to see true humility in action, it is also true that this can itself become a source of pride.
What do I mean? We’re not the prettiest bunch of people around, nor is our building the nicest. And we seem to be darn proud of that. We like that our human facades and our property facades are a little imperfect. We like that we are warm and welcoming, not flashy and charismatic. We like that the beauty of our Sunday School program is in the rosy cheeks of our children and the faithful hearts of our teachers, not in the innovation of our curriculum or the newness of our classrooms. We don’t sing the trendiest worship songs, or have sermons that focus on the three P’s of prayer, or have glossy marketing brochures with shiny happy people on the cover. And we like that about ourselves.
To be sure, it is a wonderful thing to see an entire congregation say no to the idolatry of prettiness, sophistication, and brand new buildings. It is disgusting to see how much attention and money gets thrown in this direction in this country, especially when 1) God chooses the foolish and weak to do His work in and through, and 2) our brethren overseas are so deficient in material resources.
Nevertheless, as I stated above, I believe this kind of true humility can itself become a badge of pride. And I wonder if our striving for authenticity can blind us from seeing and responding to what God would have us to do as a congregation. For example, our building dialogue has us divided into two camps. There is a group that sees renovating our old facility as essential to attracting a certain group of newcomers, like people from the suburbs, upper-class folks, and parents who wouldn’t dare send their kids to Sunday School classrooms in a dark basement with electrical and water problems. Then there is a group that rebels against any sort of reliance on building renovation to advanced God’s Kingdom; church growth and obedience to God should be reflected in the faithfulness of His people, not in the newness of a church building.
These camps have battled over an expensive proposal to hire an architect to survey our physical plant and make suggestions about what we should do to renovate and improve it. The pro-building camp sees this as the first of many important steps towards making our church building more attractive. The anti-building camp shudders at the thought of starting an expensive process at the expense of investing in the people and families in the church.
I for one am in neither camp. I’m for doing the architectural study on purely secular grounds. We are called to be good stewards of our resources; our church happens to be blessed with a historic facility. We should do what we can, in a proactive and preventive way, to safeguard this asset, and to take good care of it. The building has been around for 100+ years, and every once in awhile, you need to fork over $15,000 for someone to tell you what you need to do from the standpoint of maintenance and safety and preventive measures to make sure it’s around for another 100+ years. We would spend a proportionate amount making sure we got the most out of our photocopier or our sound system, I argue; therefore, we ought to do the same with our most valuable physical asset.
But I digress. I hear and buy the arguments on both sides, but I wonder how much the anti-building folks are influenced by a striving for authenticity. A capital campaign and a newly renovated facility would come across as showy, and take away from the grittiness and real feel of our plain, understated motley group of members. Far from being a liability to future growth, chipping paint and water damage and subpar Sunday School classrooms add to the kind of character we are and that we want to show to the outside world. Is this what people are consciously or subconsciously thinking?
I don’t presume to know what is right and wrong, what is being faithful to divine principles and what is being seduced by popular notions. I do have an opinion, though. And I will continue to follow these two intertwined conversations to see if and how our striving for authenticity flavors our preferences and our decisions.
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