MLK Day

We had an MLK service at church this morning. To celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. we had a drummer and Bass player and sang lots of Gospel and civil rights hymns. This congregation has enough people of black heritage (perhaps a third of the congregation) that these themes resonate deeply. I'm blessed with a truly diverse congregation. Like last Sunday, there was a lot of joy and energy and warmth. I feel really good right now about the way things are developing here at the church. More than one person has commented that they feel like the community is very close right now.

I believe strongly that the way to achieve growth for us, besides focusing on ministry to kids and focusing on the local neighbourhoods needs, is to create a tightly bonded and loving community. In fact, that kind of tightness and enriched community life is probably prerequisite for the kind of Mission that we want to do.

You see, many people talk about how churches need a "critical mass" in order to grow. Without that mass there just isn't enough energy or people to reach, attract, and integrate new people. It is said that you can achieve this critical mass either by being in a demographically growing area or by merging congregations together, but I think a third way is by making your existing congregation denser. That is, to enrich the interconnection and intimacy within your existing community. In that way, even a very small congregation can achieve such warmth and love that growth will be almost inevitable.

I know, this probably seems like an obvious thing, but actually shifting a congregation's social culture is very, very difficult. From a leadership perspective, I think it's probably very important that the new way of being together be modelled from the top-down. It's also important to be very firm about maintaining the boundaries of psychological safety. What I mean by that is that if Pastors want warm communities they need to police bad behaviour like bullying. I know so many congregations that have a dynamic poisoned by bullying!

A colleague who is leading a fast-growing midtown congregation told me the other day that one of her recent learnings is how fledgling, emerging, or newly growing communities, especially, need pastors willing to protect them from the wolves. You have to have some sense as the Pastor about what kind of behaviour you are willing to accept or not accept. Otherwise you'll end up harbouring all kinds of nastiness.

Back to this morning. I asked Marili (my Honourary Assistant) to preach. I'm glad I did as she gave an excellent sermon about social justice and the legacy of MLK. She could even talk about visiting King's church in Atlanta. She was excellent. I'll post it when I get a chance.

Another highlight this morning was being visited by a family looking to have their child baptized. Considering how well the last two baptisms went I'm feeling fantastic about a third. I know that many pastors feel badly when families disappear after having their children baptized, but we haven't had that problem yet. I'm really proud at how well our community has integrated the new families that have come to us. Usually in Pastoral-Sized congregations it's the Rector that does the work of integration, but I feel that here the congregation itself has done that remarkably well. The new families have even started volunteering for different projects and programmes. That said, I think I probably need to beef up my baptism preparation stuff. For example, a lot of congregations have handouts they give that cover a lot of basic groundwork and get things going. On the other hand, the more informal style of COTM is part of our appeal.

Now I'm getting ready to go home to take the rest of the day off to watch the NFL Playoffs. Life is good.

-t