Do you have a community of active participants?

How many meetings have you been to and wondered, “Who is going to do all of this?!” I have been to my fair share. I know how it feels to ‘organize’ volunteers and suddenly realize no one has committed to anything. Or, as the much quoted legendary statistic says, you have the ‘top 10%’ do everything.

In many cases, the other option is spectators. Or at least a whole group of people watching and waiting for ‘someone’ to do ‘something’. Church is filled with this predicament of active participation and passive spectatorship.

“Most of our members are bored. Not with our worship services and not with our sermons, but with the entire church process. Every day, our members take care of their own lives and lives of their families, but when they come to church, they are encouraged to sit down and enjoy the show. The assumption by most people is church is what happens on Sunday morning in the sanctuary. If we aren’t able to attend on Sunday morning, we say we have missed church.”

Mike Glenn, “What the church should do…” (https://scotmcknight.substack.com/p/what-the-church-should-do)

Post-pandemic, post-lockdowns, post-all kinds of things, we find ourselves in a place of discontentment in many social interactions. There is much to be said about this new era of ‘polarization’, where it is no longer about disagreeing and discussion, rather is now an absolute ‘yes’ or ‘no’, at the very least. What it also has brought to light is the freedom to choose and acknowledge openly what has been good or bad in the past, and even further, what people have simply been putting up with out of simplicity or fear of social harm.

Many people are ‘missing church’ because they are not OK with the idea of a stage show being the whole of their value of being church.

If we look at it from a generational perspective, you may have noticed how differently Gen Z operates compared to their Millennial predecessors. We have officially entered their space when it comes to work and leisure. In general, if the values do not fit, if the activity associated does not match the values, and there is not a direct correlation between what is advertised and how they can be part of it, then they are not involved. This is not a selfish or ‘lazy’ act on their part, it is simply calling a ‘spade, a spade’ when it comes to what is important. 

Active participation is coveted and can be hard to teach. People need to believe in what needs to happen in order for action to follow. That means a convicted alignment of:

• Values
• Purpose
• Vision

Are you part of a participatory group? Even during healthy times it is a good idea to understand why you are all on the same page. When we understand what it means to get on the same page, we can learn through our difficult times as well.