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Posted: July 18th, 2007 at 2:01am By: Rev. Rebecca Schlatter
My church got reviewed last week in a local weekly publication, Reno News & Review. In a column called Filet of Soul, reporter Brian Burghart reviews churches, almost like you'd review a restaurant or a movie. The review covered everything from the appearance of the church building to the content of the sermon to the quality of the community's welcome.
I admit that I was skeptical about this when I first heard about it. Burghart was invited to worship by one of our members, unbeknownst to me. He introduced himself toward the end of the worship service, at the time when we greet any guests who choose to identify themselves. I wondered, how would he capture the ongoing, organic, changing life of a community through experiencing it for only one hour?
For that matter, which hour do you choose? Burghart attended our traditional worship service; an hour earlier, he would have found our contemporary service quite different. Or, two days later, he might have found community members engaged in Bible study or volunteer service. Even if worship is the time when a community is most itself, what about all those other times?
I was also suspicious of mixing worship with journalism. Personal preferences determine so much of one's response to worship. Would this reporter be objective?
No matter how I cloaked my skepticism in reason; in fact, my discomfort was grounded in concern for what people think about our community, our worship and, I'll admit, me. Each Sunday, in order to get up in front of people and do my best to be simultaneously authentic, pastoral, inspiring and edifying, I have to set aside the idea that anyone is judging. I have to pretend that no one is going to review this experience, or assign the church a number of stars, or whatever.
That may signal denial (after all, I myself have judged countless sermons and worship services), but it's a denial I depend on. And frankly, I was a bit miffed by having it challenged. Waiting for this "church review" to come out was a seminarian's nightmare: Here we weren't just getting graded on an assignment, but on everything — without knowing what the criteria were, and with our grade available to the entire town.
(Since then I've discovered that such church reviews aren't unique to our local paper — see, for example, the "Mystery Worshipper" of the online magazine Ship of Fools.)
My attitude began to shift when I remembered something I had learned in seminary. In preaching class, the professor encouraged us to preach as if this one sermon would be the only one some people would ever hear. Each sermon, he said, ought to present the good news of Jesus in a way that would make an impact, whether a person ever set foot in a church before or after. Same with the rest of worship: If the community isn't welcoming the first time a person shows up, or if the service is too hard to follow, there may not be a second chance. First impressions count.
Welcoming this reporter to church reminded me that, in fact, people do make decisions about a community and about Jesus within the space of an hour, or even less. We don't always get a chance to introduce people to the whole ongoing life of our community. What we do in that hour really matters.
But maybe it matters in a different way than I think. Worship is not really "about" our community, and though I may be up front, worship is certainly not about me. It's about the work of God in people's lives. God may use our community to do that work at times. Or, sometimes, not. And while I may occasionally get in a tizzy about what people think of me or us, I have to remember that those judgments cannot hinder the work of a determined God. The Holy Spirit knows what it's doing.
Next time I experience a crisis of confidence, I might try trusting the Holy Spirit, a practice that tends to work better than denial anyway. Or, just for fun, I might even try anticipating more generous responses than critical ones — such as the generous review we received.
— — —
Rev. Rebecca Schlatter is an ordained minister in the Lutheran Church (ELCA) in Reno, Nevada. You can contact her at {email newhousesfromoldbricks@hotmail.com}newhousesfromoldbricks@hotmail.com{/email}. © copyright 2007 by Rebecca Schlatter.
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My church got reviewed last week in a local weekly publication, Reno News & Review. In a column called Filet of Soul, reporter Brian Burghart reviews churches, almost like you'd review a restaurant or a movie. The review covered everything from the appearance of the church building to the content of the sermon to the quality of the community's welcome.
I admit that I was skeptical about this when I first heard about it. Burghart was invited to worship by one of our members, unbeknownst to me. He introduced himself toward the end of the worship service, at the time when we greet any guests who choose to identify themselves. I wondered, how would he capture the ongoing, organic, changing life of a community through experiencing it for only one hour?
For that matter, which hour do you choose? Burghart attended our traditional worship service; an hour earlier, he would have found our contemporary service quite different. Or, two days later, he might have found community members engaged in Bible study or volunteer service. Even if worship is the time when a community is most itself, what about all those other times?
I was also suspicious of mixing worship with journalism. Personal preferences determine so much of one's response to worship. Would this reporter be objective?
No matter how I cloaked my skepticism in reason; in fact, my discomfort was grounded in concern for what people think about our community, our worship and, I'll admit, me. Each Sunday, in order to get up in front of people and do my best to be simultaneously authentic, pastoral, inspiring and edifying, I have to set aside the idea that anyone is judging. I have to pretend that no one is going to review this experience, or assign the church a number of stars, or whatever.
That may signal denial (after all, I myself have judged countless sermons and worship services), but it's a denial I depend on. And frankly, I was a bit miffed by having it challenged. Waiting for this "church review" to come out was a seminarian's nightmare: Here we weren't just getting graded on an assignment, but on everything — without knowing what the criteria were, and with our grade available to the entire town.
(Since then I've discovered that such church reviews aren't unique to our local paper — see, for example, the "Mystery Worshipper" of the online magazine Ship of Fools.)
My attitude began to shift when I remembered something I had learned in seminary. In preaching class, the professor encouraged us to preach as if this one sermon would be the only one some people would ever hear. Each sermon, he said, ought to present the good news of Jesus in a way that would make an impact, whether a person ever set foot in a church before or after. Same with the rest of worship: If the community isn't welcoming the first time a person shows up, or if the service is too hard to follow, there may not be a second chance. First impressions count.
Welcoming this reporter to church reminded me that, in fact, people do make decisions about a community and about Jesus within the space of an hour, or even less. We don't always get a chance to introduce people to the whole ongoing life of our community. What we do in that hour really matters.
But maybe it matters in a different way than I think. Worship is not really "about" our community, and though I may be up front, worship is certainly not about me. It's about the work of God in people's lives. God may use our community to do that work at times. Or, sometimes, not. And while I may occasionally get in a tizzy about what people think of me or us, I have to remember that those judgments cannot hinder the work of a determined God. The Holy Spirit knows what it's doing.
Next time I experience a crisis of confidence, I might try trusting the Holy Spirit, a practice that tends to work better than denial anyway. Or, just for fun, I might even try anticipating more generous responses than critical ones — such as the generous review we received.
— — —
Rev. Rebecca Schlatter is an ordained minister in the Lutheran Church (ELCA) in Reno, Nevada. You can contact her at {email newhousesfromoldbricks@hotmail.com}newhousesfromoldbricks@hotmail.com{/email}. © copyright 2007 by Rebecca Schlatter.
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