“Church would be great if it weren’t for all the people.”
A friend of mine said this to me after an awkward prayer service.
The pastor had promised, “If you’ve tried prayer meetings before and you don’t want to try them again, trust me, this one will be different.”
It wasn’t different.
The pastor had us stand in little circles with complete strangers and confess our sins to each other. Awkward. Really awkward—especially the guy who was really into it and had a lot to confess…
Why is church so awkward? Why are church-people so hard to be around?
Have you ever tried to leave church really quickly to avoid being cornered? A friend of mine was cornered at a church by an old man who kept pronouncing his daughter Avery’s name, “Ovary.”
Awkward!
Maybe my friend was right—church would be a whole lot better without all of the people.
But here’s the problem. Church IS people. That’s literally ALL church is. Church isn’t a building. Church isn’t a program or a service or a sermon. Church, at least as defined by the New Testament, IS people.
So…how can we not only survive the awkwardness of church people, but actually end up with stronger relationships because of church?
In this series of blogs, I am writing about how to survive church. The basic job description of church is to help with our relationships; with God, with ourselves, with each other and with the natural world. That’s the whole point of church. If church isn’t strengthening your relationships, something is wrong.
The problem is that for many of us, that is just the harsh reality. Something IS wrong.
I have already written about our relationship with God and with ourselves. I now turn to our relationships with others. How are you feeling about your church friendships? Here are a few questions to ponder:
Is the amount of time, energy and resources I am pouring into church resulting in real, authentic friendships?
Do I truly know the real lives of my friends at church or just who they are on Sunday or at small group?
Am I confident that if something happened to me—some tragedy or worse-case scenario—I’d have some deeply committed friends looking out for me no matter how long or hard the road?
Do I have anyone at church who knows me deeply—my real life, struggles, questions of faith, sense of calling, gifts, dreams, etc.?
If you are less-than-satisfied with your answers to these questions, here are some practical tips to not just survive awkward church people, but thrive in real church relationships:
1. Don’t expect too much from your pastor.
Do the math. If you are at a church of over 100 people, the pastor does not have time to know everyone deeply. Many successful church leaders know people expect a close relationship with their pastor, so they do their best to fake it. They remember some names, some kids’ names, maybe your occupation. The relationship is totally unsatisfying on all fronts. You don’t feel known and your pastor feels overwhelmed.
Survival tip—let them off the hook.
Jesus spent a lot of time with the twelve and especially the three; Peter, James and John. And that was Jesus! How many deep friendships do you have? Is it reasonable or even helpful to expect this same depth of relationship with our pastors? No. They don’t have time and we shouldn’t expect them to. Plus, let’s be honest, pastors are probably not the best mentors anyway. Their lives are mostly removed from culture and they can’t relate well with what most people face on a daily basis.
Survival tip—find a good mentor instead. Find someone who has some real-life experiences with family, career or other things you care about. Find someone who has walked down your road, bumped their nose a few times and still loves God. Grab coffee or a beer with them regularly. Let them into your life. You might just realize that you finally found your true pastor.
You don’t need to be best friends with the voice on the stage. Let them do what they do, and you, allow yourself to be “shepherded” (that’s what pastor means—shepherd) by someone who knows you and knows how to do real life really well.
2. Find two or three people and share life.
There is no proven way to meet people on Sunday morning. Stop trying. Instead, use small groups, classes and service opportunities as ways to meet people. Keep an eye out for people that are part of your normal world—people you might accidentally bump into at the store, park or school event. If those people do not exist at your church, maybe that’s a sign you are commuting too far. If that’s the case, either find a closer church or start something for people in your neighborhood outside of the Sunday service. Form your own small group around natural community, not the other way around. Many churches start small groups with online or lobby sign-ups. There’s nothing wrong with that, but you’ll likely end up with a commuter small group. Why not instead invite three other people from your real world to start a small group together? If your small group pastor can’t handle that, you might need to do it outside the normal small group system. That’s ok. The goal is community with people in your real world, not keeping your small group pastor happy.
3. Find one or two people not like you.
As a former small groups pastor I used to teach Maslov’s hierarchy of small group needs. If you’re not familiar with Maslov, he suggested that people need air and food and water before they’ll care about things like selfies, mindfulness and twitter followers. In other words, we need to have our basic needs met before we’ll branch out towards higher needs.
It’s the same with relationships.
Oftentimes idealistic pastors will say things like, “let’s make friends with the homeless, people of other ethnicities or other socio-economic classes.” I agree whole-heartedly, but in my experience, people need a few close friends in their own world before they’ll branch out. So, like I already said, find two or three people in your world and go deep. Peter, James and John were all fishermen from the same small town. It’s ok to hang out with people like you! But… as you go deep with a few, start to make friends with a couple people not like you. This is hard. It takes time. It takes energy. But do it. Even as Jesus inner-circle was bonding, he took them across the lake—to people across the lines of race, culture and religion.
This is the essence of the gospel of Jesus and the deepest need in the church—to show the world that we can love people that are not like us; people with different ideas, ages, political allegiances, economic statuses, etc.
As you go deep with a few, start to cross the boundary lines. You’ll be glad you did.
4. Watch out for time sucks.
To develop meaningful relationships we need to learn when to say “yes” and when to say “no”. Surviving church relationships will mean avoiding these two common pitfalls—two tried and true ways to waste a lot of time and energy with little chance at true friendships.
A. Commuter small groups.
It’s easy to invest a lot of time driving and preparing Bible studies for a group of people you will never see in your real world. Beware. Invest for awhile but look for people in your own world and start a new group asap.
B. Volunteerism.
Be helpful at central church gatherings. Run sound. Hold babies. Teach classes. Join committees. But be aware that these activities must supplement the most important use of your time—developing real relationships. If you aren’t making real friends, these other activities are a distraction that will inevitably cause you to burn out, hate your church and look elsewhere.
Remember, church is not a collection of people trying to run religious services. Church is family. Family takes time and relationship building. If you don’t put in the time where it counts, don’t expect to love your church. However, if you can set your priorities in the right order, church can be a wonderful community of people deeply connected, sharing life and furthering the amazingly good news of a God that loved us enough to come and build relationships with a few people as an example for us all to follow.
If you want to understand why churches get their priorities backwards, I wrote a book called Out of the 4th Place. It explains the history of church structures and why we tend to end up looking more like 4th Century Rome than Jesus. Look it up on Amazon and share your thoughts!