Holston Conference of the United Methodist Church

Let Us Hear It From the Outside

January 10, 2008

In the second year of my appointment to St. Mary’s Road United Methodist Church in Columbus, Ga., we decided that we needed to develop a vision statement. I can’t remember where I got the idea but I decided that we would invite persons in our community who were not members of our church to be a part of the Vision Discernment Team. There were some who objected to this. But, when we discussed this we decided that it would be good for us to hear from the very people we were seeking to win to Christ and to our church.

So, we decided that at least one-third of the team would be people not affiliated with our congregation. This was an interesting and fun-filled venture. But, it was also a very scary time for those of us who were members of St. Mary’s Road. There are some interesting observations I would like to share from that enterprise:

1. It was clear from the beginning that our view of what God was calling St. Mary’s Road to be was different from those from outside of that church.
   
2. It was difficult to get some of the members on the Team to think about the needs of the community. They chose to concentrate their energy around nurturing each other.
   
3. Those who were not members seemed to concentrate on moving us toward what we could be for the community.
   
4. It was a fruitful process for both parties. We learned that the church is too inwardly focused, and people from the outside walked away with a deeper appreciation for the potential of the church.
   

The Jan. 9 edition of USA Today included an article, “Survey: Non-attendees find faith outside church," by Cathy Lynn Grossman. The article points out how people on the outside of the church view us on the inside. I would encourage United Methodists who want to reach the world for Christ to read this article. But, before you do let me ask you to pray and to ask God to give you spiritual eyes. Secondly, ask God to help you to not be defensive. And then finally, ask the Holy Spirit to help you understand the implication for us as we seek to make disciples for Jesus Christ.

Let me offer at least one observation how this information can be helpful to us. The article points out that 38 percent of those surveyed believe, “There exists only one God, the God described in the Bible.” Another 33 percent disagree with this statement. This means that at least 71 percent of those who are “unchurched” at least believe that God exists. So, "God talk" is not irrelevant with most people, and we may need to find new ways to communicate with a population that thinks about and has some concept of God.

The result of another question really fascinates me and starts me to thinking about how we might respond in ways that might help the Church to be more appealing to the unchurched. Fifty-three percent of those surveyed strongly agree with this statement, “I think Christianity today is more about organized religion than about loving God and loving people.”

How can we live out our faith in such a way as to help people see that we do love people and love God? Well, I believe by inviting the unchurched to dialogue with us at St. Mary’s Road, we learned a very valuable lesson. The only way others can know that you love them is to go out of your way to express it.

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