Winter Adventure and the Pastor
Well, yesterday was pretty interesting. After church, we went sledding with another family in the church. Sylvia made this amazing peppermint hot chocolate. She brought it in a thermos. As we were drinking, I felt like I was in a Norman Rockwell picture. Adam enjoyed the sledding, but I think he liked wrestling with his friend Spencer more. Spencer is 2 years older than him, and a bundle of energy - he's also Adam's hero. Adam is always imitating him.
After the sledding we went back to our friend's place - another family was going to join us for dinner and guitar hero. Just before this other family showed up, the power went out in our area, due to the incredible deluge of snow that we were experiencing.
We decided to pack it in and head home, as we were all pretty tired from the Arctic air. As we were driving home, I realized that our garage door opener operated on electricity... and our house now had no electricity. We sat in our driveway staring at the useless door.
What about the front door, you might ask? Well, the front door has an inner latch that we lock from the INSIDE. I could unlock it, but it would only open a slight crack before engaging the inner latch.
I couldn't believe it. It was freezing, and we were locked out of our house, until the magic elves at BC Hydro turn the power back on. So, we headed over to the other set of friends that were supossed to come over to the first set's house.
The first set of friends were also there - so we had a spontaneous fellowship time over green thai chicken curry and kokanee beer. I kept checking the BC Hydro web-site - it said the power would come back on at 10:00. When I checked again at 10, it said 6 AM.
So, our friends let us stay the night - they set us up with beds, toothbrushes, and even pajamas and diapers for our kids. It was an incredible display of kindness and tru community. Very profound in fact.
This morning we got back safe and sound, thanks to the kindness of our friends.
The Pastor
This brutal snow-storm saw our lowest attended Sunday since I've been there - 45 people out of our normal 100. I was reading the blog of another pastor who is also in the Northwest. Except, his church has several thousand people. In one of his books, he wrote that senior pastors of large churches really need to withdraw from the congregation and sort of only preach and lead by casting overall vision - associating only with senior leadership and a few select friends from the congregation.
His church also had a very low turn-out, but was probably still at least 1000, instead of there normal 4-5000. At his first service there were 80 people in a sanctuary that seats 1300.
Now, here's the interesting part, after every service that day, he spent time meeting new people and encouraging the volunteers. Usually he preaches and then leaves the stage and isn't seen by anyone else, until he preaches at the next service. But, this day he went out and did what I do every Sunday - actually talk to people. In my mind, he was actually being a pastor, instead of simply being a talking head far removed from the members of his church.
A pastoral model that removes the pastor from the actual lives of its members is no longer truly pastoral. It is instead, an administrative, exhortive and a model of encouragement - pastor as cheerleader with a megaphone, but removed from the actual rythym of the lives of its church members.
Just my humble opinion. I might change my mind when my church reaches 5000.
After the sledding we went back to our friend's place - another family was going to join us for dinner and guitar hero. Just before this other family showed up, the power went out in our area, due to the incredible deluge of snow that we were experiencing.
We decided to pack it in and head home, as we were all pretty tired from the Arctic air. As we were driving home, I realized that our garage door opener operated on electricity... and our house now had no electricity. We sat in our driveway staring at the useless door.
What about the front door, you might ask? Well, the front door has an inner latch that we lock from the INSIDE. I could unlock it, but it would only open a slight crack before engaging the inner latch.
I couldn't believe it. It was freezing, and we were locked out of our house, until the magic elves at BC Hydro turn the power back on. So, we headed over to the other set of friends that were supossed to come over to the first set's house.
The first set of friends were also there - so we had a spontaneous fellowship time over green thai chicken curry and kokanee beer. I kept checking the BC Hydro web-site - it said the power would come back on at 10:00. When I checked again at 10, it said 6 AM.
So, our friends let us stay the night - they set us up with beds, toothbrushes, and even pajamas and diapers for our kids. It was an incredible display of kindness and tru community. Very profound in fact.
This morning we got back safe and sound, thanks to the kindness of our friends.
The Pastor
This brutal snow-storm saw our lowest attended Sunday since I've been there - 45 people out of our normal 100. I was reading the blog of another pastor who is also in the Northwest. Except, his church has several thousand people. In one of his books, he wrote that senior pastors of large churches really need to withdraw from the congregation and sort of only preach and lead by casting overall vision - associating only with senior leadership and a few select friends from the congregation.
His church also had a very low turn-out, but was probably still at least 1000, instead of there normal 4-5000. At his first service there were 80 people in a sanctuary that seats 1300.
Now, here's the interesting part, after every service that day, he spent time meeting new people and encouraging the volunteers. Usually he preaches and then leaves the stage and isn't seen by anyone else, until he preaches at the next service. But, this day he went out and did what I do every Sunday - actually talk to people. In my mind, he was actually being a pastor, instead of simply being a talking head far removed from the members of his church.
A pastoral model that removes the pastor from the actual lives of its members is no longer truly pastoral. It is instead, an administrative, exhortive and a model of encouragement - pastor as cheerleader with a megaphone, but removed from the actual rythym of the lives of its church members.
Just my humble opinion. I might change my mind when my church reaches 5000.
Comments
I'm so glad you are the kind of pastor that goes out and talks to people. I'm not sure if churches were meant to be 4-5000 people each. I know I've never experienced such churches but in theory, I don't think they make that much sense. I think pastors need to be involved with their congregation (it's their job and it's 24*7 and it's harder than most people think it is).
I went to a fairly small church in Bangalore a few weeks ago and was the only new person visiting (they make you stand up if you've never been before). I've never been the ONLY person visiting before. This is a small church clearly, I thought. Not that I hadn't noticed but this reinforced that initial thought. (Not more than 200 people that Sunday). Still, people were so warm and welcoming. I even got to sit and drink tea with the pastor. It was great!! Now I'm not going to go back since I don't live in Bangalore anymore but I still felt good about the fact that the pastor invested some amount of time on someone who might never become part of 'his church.'
For a church to work, each person has to count (not overwhelmingly but at least a little). I love the fact that sometimes one of the pastors of Pearl City joins some of the young people by drinking tea in a roadside stall. He doesn't try to preach or 'hang out' or 'act cool.' He's just there being a regular guy and I do respect him so much more for it.