Building Bridges

I had a wonderful conversation with a friend in which he shared that because he spoke of my involvement in the church with a family member, she started to speak to him differently. She hadn’t realized that he was open to talking about church, even if he wasn’t actively attending. An article shared by APCE (Association of Presbyterian Church Educators) yesterday was about a college chaplain talking to young adults about how important their baptism was to them. Many had no current direct link to a church but they still highly valued that marker in their life.

As I reflect on this, and the phenomena of the growth of those who identify as “spiritual but not religious”, of the many in my generation who were raised in the church and how few are still there, of those who are disenfranchised for various reasons, and of those who believe the extremes portrayed in the media of how dysfunctional and broken the church is, I’m moved by how different a role the church plays now than it did.

When I was growing up, pretty much everyone went to church - it was just assumed. Those on church staff were focused on the thriving numbers of kids in the various programs. Sure, some community children and youth would find their way to a VBS or other program, but the focus was on the ones that you already had. A welcome was offered to all, but the expectation was that people would value the church and bring their kids to it, understanding its importance and critical role in life.

Now, regular attendance is often a thing of the past. Certainly in mainline churches, many kids are taught the faith by grandparents, the parents being too busy, disinterested, wounded, overwhelmed, ill-equipped or verging on hostile towards organized religion. The loudest and best-represented voices of the church in the media have not always done the rest of us any favours. Our arrogance and some of our approaches haven’t either. 

And yet, here we have these many sorts of people all around us in our communities who have bad information or history with religion but who may be realizing that they want to know more, that they need someone to listen to their hurt and pain, or that their kids are asking questions and they don’t know the answers. I found at the last church where I did child and youth ministry, very often I felt split in two trying to support those who came on Sundays, frequently with a surrogate parent, and reaching out to those who would show up to a program or two and clearly wanted to trust the church again and to have a moral if not faith foundation for their kids.

Particularly as Sunday schools trend smaller and smaller and as we run out of ‘our own’ homegrown kids who have stuck around and had kids, we have to be willing and able to engage with those outside who are hurting or misunderstood or not knowing they are welcome. We have to invest in positive relationships with organizations and people who perhaps have an outdated or fractured image of who we are and why we do what we do. Messy Church is one incarnation of opening up to the community - low commitment and expectations but a faith-based, fun program geared to young families.

There are some people who are fantastic at going outside the church’s walls, eagerly striking up conversations with people, serving at homeless shelters or food banks or on community teams and committees and injecting their faith into those relationships. I’m not normally one of those, but I do like the phone and as a staff member enjoyed connecting with people who some thought were a lost cause on the membership list, trying to open the door to understanding why they weren’t there anymore and if there was anything I or the church could do about it. Sometimes it was a misunderstanding, or shame about an event that happened, or dislike of a minister because of how something was handled. Some came back and for those who didn’t, I hope that I at least convinced them that someone cared about them and their journey.

We are called to build bridges and to be the face of Christ to those who are outside the ‘in’ group, whether ex-members and adherents or those who’ve never darkened a church’s door. How you do that in your context is entirely unique to you, and there are so many ways to go about it. Perhaps the easiest is to just be authentic in your faith with those in your life, sharing and listening and expressing the love of God and what your walk with Jesus means to you. You never know what changes may result.