After some positive feedback on the Visit 1 post, we decided to try a mid-week follow up post to capture some of our thoughts as we reflected on the experience.
The level of detail we shared may have been a little overwhelming. It was like we wanted all of our friends to be right there and experience this with us (which would have been really nice). However, the order of service is a fairly standard formula in both the tradition of the Christian Churches, and especially in the contemporary/relevant church (see contemprovant video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RJBd8zE48A). So consider that the baseline, and from now on we will only post significant deviations. This will give more space to observations about cultural nuances, exceeded expectations, warm welcomes and humorous anecdotes.
One thing we did see in visit#1 was a population of people with developmental disabilities that were brought to the service, with nursing assistants to assist them. We applaud the effort to reach out and serve this population. It was interesting that the entire group (probably from a group home setting) was lined up against the back wall (in a dedicated handicapped seating area) of the auditorium during the entire service. It was not clear that there was any assistance provided to the group members to comprehend the service and message. The group members appeared to be quickly moved out of the auditorium after the service. Without any information about the specifics of the ministry provided to this population of adults, it is dangerous to draw too many conclusions. However, as a first impression it communicated a contradictory message about the value of these people, and an "arm's length" approach to integrating them into the community and providing for their growth in the faith. It begs the question, how are we (the Church) providing programming that maximizes learning (i.e. sitting through a 45 minute message?) and community within the local church for people with different physical/cognitive abilities. At one point in the message (the reproductive rights soapbox moment) the preacher drove home the point that we all bear the image of God. It is convicting to think that when we visualize human being made in the image of God, are we inclusive of the those who would be categorized as having "disabilities"?
By the way, we also found it odd that the auditorium emptied out "en mass" during the closing song. We will track this disturbing trend on other visits to see if Tennesseans are so inoculated to live music that they are given to rudeness.
Another side note - after years of working with staff and leadership to continually find new ways to try and get new people to give us their contact information - there was no attempt at all during visit#1. No tear off, no greet your neighbor moment, no appeal to sign up for our newsletter, no welcome table in the lobby - nothing. They were advertising a Visit 1 church "101" class (bulletin, slide and preacher announcement) so there must have been somewhere to sign up for that, but we did not see it. I suspect a bit of southern Calvanist theology at work here - If we were meant to join that church, God would not have let us out of there before someone had signed us up for the 101.
One last thing, then we will let Visit 1 fade into the background. There was a retractable queue line (think banks or airport security) in the lobby, directly parallel to the path to enter the auditorium. It did not wind back and forth, like queue barriers that keep people in check when they are trying to get to somewhere they want to go. It just went straight down the middle of the corridor, like there were two sides that you could approach the sanctuary from. There was no signage or instruction, just the web of nylon fabric that seemed to require you to know which side you should be on. Was it to keep in bound traffic separate from out bound? Was it to keep the rabble from entering with the VIPs? It was weird. I am sure it served some very practical purpose that I was not able to comprehend, but it just seemed odd. It made me think, are there things that we place in the path of people coming to church, coming to God. They may be obviously practical to us because we understand why they are there - we know the history and the purpose. Do we consider what these "barriers" look like to an outsider, to the person who is in a rush to find God, find community and finds something weird or odd in their way. It reminds me of Acts 15. It reminds me that we ought not be in the business of barrier placing.
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