Rev. Reed Lee Pedersen's
Not-So-Crazy Concept: Church is where people should find God. Sad Truth: That’s not always the case.3/12/2019 I was recently at a resourcing event held by our synod. The keynote speaker, Pr. David Daubert, presented on discipleship in the church today. He also presented much of the research he had gathered when collaborating on this topic with others. I will be honest; I had to go to the bathroom during his opening talk in front of the whole conference. I was waiting for him to go down a rabbit hole I had already heard about or to speak of a problem of which I already knew the solutions he would say, so I could go to the bathroom. Instead, I had to hold it because everything he said and spoke of was captivating. It was also full of sad truths about the church today and hope for the church in the future. “When un-churched people visit a church they are looking for God.” This statement was made in light of talking about why people go to church. The truth is that most people who regularly attend church (especially in smaller churches) do so for the people. They love the people who also attend that church and they go to walk through the ritual of worship with them. As for un-churched people or people who have fallen away from regularly attending a specific church, these are people who need a reason to actually try to attend a worship service in the first place. If one of them attends church service they are probably going through something troubling and in deep questioning. This is what brings them to the church. They are looking for God. The sad truth is that a lot of times a person looking for God goes to a church and sees a lot of nice welcoming people. They might even see a nice welcoming pastor, but they don’t find God. They are looking for answers and yet they only see smiling faces. They want to engage God in worship and yet all they see is everyone just going through the motions during service. Pr. David Daubert went on to say that the church (Lutheran Church specifically) needs to reclaim discipleship. It needs to be more intentional with how it approaches following, believing, acting, and speaking about Jesus. It cannot be a place or strictly friendliness. It needs to be a place that intentionally follows Jesus in all facets of life. What might worship and daily conversation look like if the disciples of Jesus lived that way? If you are someone who regularly attends a worship service and you find yourself in a conversation about why people don’t go to church, ask yourself, “Who is Jesus to you? Who is Jesus to them? Why is that important? What are you and your church going to do about it?" Points to Ponder:
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AuthorPastor Reed is a first call pastor at Augustana Lutheran Church in Andover, Illinois. Archives
July 2019
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