ALL: the footnotes

Okay, here's the follow up to my last blog. Because there is something that we begin to infer when we talk about ALL. Sure, we say, hurray for ALL. Let's reach all people. Off we go...

...only to learn, if we haven't already, that you cannot be all things to all people. Really, you can't. We are finite creatures, and the truth is, some people just are not going to connect with you. Or me. That doesn't make you or me, or them, bad people. It is just a fact of life. It doesn't mean we aren't caring or compassionate, or always seeking to share God's love. It does mean, for example, that someone who has overcome an alcohol addition themselves may be (not always, but often) better able to relate their faith in God to someone in the throws of an addition.

Abraham Lincoln once said something like this: You can please some of the people some of the time all of the people some of the time some of the people all of the time but you can never please all of the people all of the time.

That, I have found, is quite true. When it's pleasing people or connecting with them. We also know this from study, time and again. We may not like it, but it's true. We can either fight against this, and proclaim it's untruth, or accept it and decide to work with it.

Here's an example. Experts tell us that in terms of church, especially new church starts and attracting new people, pastors can really only effectively and consistently bring in people 5-10 years older or younger than themselves. That doesn't mean that 20 year olds only grow under the pastorates of thirty and twenty year olds. But it does mean that we should accept the fact that a fifty year old pastor probably cannot, on their own, increase the young adult population of their church all that much. Now get a younger clergy, staff or lay person involved, even under that direct leadership of that same pastor, bingo. It of course depends on the personality of that pastor, but your chances have just gone way up.

All of this is to say that what we as a church family ought first to do is take stock or who we are. We can change that, but we need to be honest with ourselves first. The default attraction of our congregation will be people who are similar to us. What would that be? We need to figure that out. Let's start with this...take a few moments yourselves to honestly describe yourself. Your age, race, culture, economic status, length of living in Frederick, on and on. Do you have kids? What activities do you enjoy? Humans are attracted first to people most similar to themselves. There are a lot of caveats to this, of course. And the group that most defines us may be different. For some it's their faith, for others their race, others yet, their education level or economic status. SO don't even assume you know someone's key identities. But do be honest about who you are and who you connect best with.

We cannot, sad as it is, be all things to all people. We CAN be Christ to all people, but not everyone will be attracted to us. That's okay. There are reasons you are part of Calvary and not another church family. But let's get really clear on who we are, so we can really reach out to those people who are looking for something we have to offer, so that with them we can also grow more diverse within the community that God has formed here at Calvary.