Streaming System
Photo: Parish Administrator, Jeff Boardman, points to the new ten foot by seven foot monitor recently installed in the sanctuary at Holy Cross Lutheran Church on Pilgrim Road in Menomonee Falls, WI at a cost of $9,000. It is composed of 20 modules about (18 ¾” tall by 25” wide), and within each of these modules are 6 led panels for a total of 120 LED Panels. LED panels are held in place within a module by magnets, which, with the vacuum tool, can be quickly pulled off and easily replaced. The Video Processing Control module is a NovaStar VX1000. (Photo Courtesy of John Sumwalt)
When I visit your church for the first time, consider the possibility that I might be looking for a church home. I’m a good-looking old guy with gray hair. But I dress down in the summer, so don’t be put off by my cargo shorts and tank top. Talk to me!
Leave your circle of friends who are gabbing about the price of gas at Kwik Trip and say hello before I sneak out the door. Smile as you approach with outstretched hand. Introduce yourself.
After a few pleasantries, ask, “What brought you here today?”
Listen closely, on a heart level; I may not tell you the real reason. After all I will be suspicious that you are just another over-eager door-keeper type hoping to find new blood to serve on some committee.
Do not ask, “Are you new here?”
Keep smiling; I might tell you why I really came. It might be something like, “I just moved here and I am looking around for a church.”
Resist the urge to move in closer like a used-car salesman to close the deal, with your hand on my shoulder. Keep listening. I might say something like, “I am going to have surgery next week and I just wanted to be in church today.”
Keep listening. Let me talk.
Do invite me to the pancake supper next month. And because I’m new in the community and don’t have any friends yet, if you are really serious about offering hospitality to a stranger like the Good Book says then invite me to your house for dinner next Thursday night. Just say you are having some friends over and would love for me to meet a few people.
I am hand-over-my-heart serious about this. In this age of declining church attendance we must do better at inviting. And that means doing things that take us way beyond the comfort zone, where solid Sunday Christians have never gone before. Invite me to your home!!!
You can also do a couple of things for me that will make me more inclined to come back and stay. Invite yourself to the next Worship Committee meeting and ask them to ask the preacher to stop starting the worship service with 11 minutes of announcements. I just came to worship and don’t care to hear about all the plans for the rummage sale. Save the announcements for the end and then no more than 90 seconds worth.
Ask the committee to be sure the lay liturgists are well-trained and have actually read through the Scripture a few times before the service. Remind them they do not need to say “Good morning.” The pastor already said that. And warn them, on the threat of purgatory, to never make comments about how lovely the choir anthem was – or any other personal comments for that matter.
Encourage the committee to go ahead and recommend the purchase of a big screen for the front of the sanctuary – that purchase they’ve been talking about for the past three years. It should be an actual electronic monitor big enough to be seen from the back pew. Yes it’s expensive and a few people will grumble, but the money in the memorial fund will do nobody any good if everybody dies before it’s used. It’s as important as the $8,000 you spent to resurface the parking lot this past year.
As to communion, I don’t know how you do it here, but I hope you use real bread baked by a member or from a good bakery. I like to have a generous chunk like when Jesus broke the bread himself. Spare me the cellophane-wrapped plastic cup and the miniature-hockey-puck wafer. Save them for the next pandemic. And I hope the pastor avoids those long, ponderous communion rituals. The few simple words Jesus spoke will do.
Speaking of long and ponderous, I appreciate an invitation from the pastor to share prayer concerns followed by the “Lord hear our prayer” response. I’m glad when the pastor doesn’t repeat it all again. Long pastoral prayers put me to sleep.
Don’t mention that the pastor’s sermons are way too long. The Worship Committee probably can’t do anything about it anyway. It takes much longer to prepare a short sermon than a long one. And the pastor probably doesn’t have time, what with all the hospital visitations and funerals nowadays.
I have a long list of pet peeves about worship done badly, but the one that will keep me from coming back for sure has to do with the children’s moment. If you must have one – and you don’t; there are many better ways to include children in worship – be sure it’s very, very brief. Don’t put the children on display facing the congregation, or use them to get a laugh by asking rhetorical questions. Tell them a story on their level, but something that will resonate with us older folks too – or have that nice boy from the youth group play his guitar and sing them a song.
And be sure to tell the worship committee what I said when you asked what brought me here today.
“I’ve been watching your service on Facebook for a few weeks.”
Keep live streaming! I want to be able to worship with you while I'm in Florida next winter.
John Sumwalt is a retired Wisconsin Conference United Methodist pastor and the author of "Shining Moments: Visions of the Holy in Ordinary Lives," This is an original article written for Agri-View, a Lee Enterprises agricultural publication based in Madison, Wisconsin. Visit AgriView.com for more information. This version is republished with the author's permission from his Facebook page.