Last weeks post got me thinking about what I've come to think of as "The Worship Conundrum." The Conundrum is this: Worship is supposed to be about God- adoring, exalting, and dedicating time, attention & energy to God. But the reality is that strangers will only come to check us out in worship, and we need to attract strangers to survive. The normal way to get strangers to come is to find a need they have, then tell them how you meet that need. But once you attract people, you have to deliver on meeting those needs, and then worship can become about the people in the pew and not about God. Thus, the Conundrum: how to attract people who will only come to worship without compromising what worship is supposed to be.
My thought about how to navigate that conundrum is that we try to attract people to worshipping God. That instead of trying to attract people to worship by advertising that they'll be better parents, learn to manage finances or whatever, we try to attract people who want to worship God and do all those things that worship is supposed to do, but haven't found the right community to do that in.
That's not to say we don't try to meet other needs. That has to be part of it. We'll have a meal after every worship- that's right,
every worship. We'll do that to help people connect so we can form clusters in which their other needs will be met. That meal will serve as the bridge to help who come to worship find ways to have their other needs met.
But the advertising is about the worship, what it will be like and how we will worship, rather than sermon topics and what people will learn. That's what I'm thinking, but I'm hoping to get some responses about this because I remain unsure. This is difficult water to navigate, and I am going to keep praying and see what else God has to say about this. I look forward to hearing what others have to say as well.
