July 18th’s morning reading from Morning and Evening:

“They shall go hindmost with their standards.” — Numbers 2:31

The camp of Dan brought up the rear when the armies of Israel were on the march. The Danites occupied the hindmost place, but what mattered the position, since they were as truly part of the host as were the foremost tribes; they followed the same fiery cloudy pillar, they ate of the same manna, drank of the same spiritual rock, and journeyed to the same inheritance. Come, my heart, cheer up, though last and least; it is thy privilege to be in the army, and to fare as they fare who lead the van. Some one must be hindmost in honour and esteem, some one must do menial work for Jesus, and why should not I? In a poor village, among an ignorant peasantry; or in a back street, among degraded sinners, I will work on, and “go hindmost with my standard.”

The Danites occupied a very useful place. Stragglers have to be picked up upon the march, and lost property has to be gathered from the field. Fiery spirits may dash forward over untrodden paths to learn fresh truth, and win more souls to Jesus; but some of a more conservative spirit may be well engaged in reminding the church of her ancient faith, and restoring her fainting sons. Every position has its duties, and the slowly moving children of God will find their peculiar state one in which they may be eminently a blessing to the whole host.

The rear guard is a place of danger.There are foes behind us as well as before us. Attacks may come from any quarter. We read that Amalek fell upon Israel, and slew some of the hindmost of them. The experienced Christian will find much work for his weapons in aiding those poor doubting, desponding, wavering, souls, who are hindmost in faith, knowledge, and joy. These must not be left unaided, and therefore be it the business of well-taught saints to bear their standards among the hindmost. My soul, do thou tenderly watch to help the hindmost this day.

There are some big churches who seem to be marching in to conquer the Promised Land with great resources,  filled with capable people who seem to have it all together.  But many of us smaller churches find ourselves in the tribe of Dan’s position – bringing up the rear and gathering those who have wandered away or who have been left behind in the march. We have an awful lot of people in our congregation who have been hurt by churches. Welcoming them is a really important calling, and one that smaller churches may be uniquely qualified to handle.

It may not be glamorous, but Jesus had different ideas about position and status than we do. In Matthew 19:30, he tells us that “many who are last will be first and many who are first will be last.”  I believe that helping those who have been left behind by those ahead is something Jesus celebrates.

Have you thought of starting a new (small) church? I love the idea of small churches being so appealing that they multiply like bunnies.

It’s really a reasonable thing to think about too – a different model for ministry.  Assuming that God continues to bring growth, there will probably come a time when our church would make the decision to start a new church rather than growing endlessly…

In fact, someone who has been through a similar transition with a church suggested that we consider allowing the older people to have their more traditional church and taking the younger people to start anew church.  But we believe we are called to be a multigenerational church – which is counter-cultural and not the easiest way to grow a church in a world where many seek “instant community” through a common context.

You could still split a church to form two small churches that could seek to serve God in their own separate ways.  I think if we served a large geographic area, that would be a very wise thing to do. But right now, I think we want to stay together and gro together.  Also, we have a pretty big vision.  We see more unmet need in our community than we have resources to address.  We have more ideas for ways to help people grow and serve than we have people to lead them.  And we have have yet to reach a critical mass of younger families and young adults.  We thank God for the pioneers who don’t have to be part of a larger group, but we know that people are more comfortable in a community when there are others their age in the mix.  We strive for diversity and also for enough people that people can also find others who share things in common with them.  (Right now, several parents are helping each other with childcare, for example.)

So I won’t rule it out, but I don’t think that we’re being called to start another small church right now.  It will be very interesting to see what God does.

For those who are interested, we decided yesterday to start a Sunday evening worship service at 5:00 p.m., followed immediately by the Alpha Course (at least for the first 12 weeks).

You can read an article on my talk “Pastor Advocates Speedboat Ministry” at the Presbyterian Outlook Website.  Feel free to comment!  The comments on this site were broken, but KC Wahe clued me in and they’re fixed now.

Our church has experienced a lot of growth lately and we’re having growing pains.  That’s partly because our building is way too small.  It was built in a time when a) churches didn’t have parking lots – they expected to fill the whole property with buildings and b) neighborhood churches were the thing.  There was a plan for a bigger building across what is now grass and parking lot, (it would never be approved under current building codes), but the small “chapel” that was built first was the only worship space that ever made it off the drawing board.  On Christmas Eve or Easter or at the memorial service of a beloved person we can fit 144 people in the pews (6 per small pew), but nobody will sit at that density the rest of the time.  The more realistic four per pew yields 96.  The subtract the first three pews that nobody wants to sit in (maybe they don’t think I bathe) and you have 72.

We almost always have more than 72 people.  Adding the Trinity Cafe, our video venue with coffee and snacks, we can get 120 people on a good Sunday at our 9:00 service.  At 11:00, people don’t sit in the cafe so it’s stuck at about 100 tops.

So we need to do something to make space to grow God’s family!  How do you do that in a small building?  The simplest plan is to add another worship service.  That means either reworking the Sunday morning schedule and maybe shrinking the existing services and fellowship time to make it all fit.  Or it could mean installing seating that would allow more people in the same space (you can fit 20% more people in separate chairs than you can in pews).  Or it could mean moving an existing worship service off site to a bigger space.

The things least likely to mess up what we’ve got going already are adding a new evening worship service and changing the seating in our sanctuary.  Adding a service is a big commitment and it requires a number of committed people to keep it going.  Buying new chairs is expensive (maybe $20,000 to get 150 nice-looking, comfortable seats with wooden legs that hook together).  I find both of those daunting – mostly because the needed resources are out of my control.

There’s that word again!  We’re called to make leaps of faith and to allow God to do great things, but God rarely writes the plans in the clouds of the sky or delivers the plan engraved in stone tablets.

We meet tomorrow to see what the group’s discernment (fancy theological word for looking for God’s will) has been.  We may be able to make a decision and then move ahead with making it happen.  I’ll keep you posted.

What we’re not going to do is sit idly by and allow the momentum that God has provided to die.  We do not plan to “quench the Spirit.”  We will do something and it will be risky.  But – whether it succeeds wildly or fizzles – God will be there with us.

If you read this, please pray for us (and me personally) as we step out in faith!  Where are you headed, Lord?  We want to follow you there!