Now, let’s ask the embarrassing question. which is your church more like: the office funny guy repeating something that someone once thought was amusing, or the brilliantly subtle, detailed creation of a physical-world Kwik-E-Mart?
Much of the time, my rants about attention to detail and communicating carefully and responsibly and deliberately, are drowned out by a culture of casualness, spontaneity, free-wheelin’ yada yada yada. Hey, spontaneity and relaxation and freedom are good things, I approve of them. But attention to detail — by people who know what they’re doing — makes a difference, and viewers, visitors, congregants can tell (even if they can’t articulate the difference it makes). I didn’t see Diana Butler Bass when she passed through town (she was here only in father-daughter time), but it sounded as though she was saying similar things: that congregations grow not because you belong to the Single Correct Side of a theo-ideological schism, but because you realize that the work of living as a congregation, as a Body, requires care and attention to detail. People can tell the difference.
Attention to detail. This is something I struggle with every day, and something that’s just as likely to make me run and hide under the covers. And yet it’s something I have to do, and now I’ve taken on a new role as “chairperson” of one of the four new “ministry teams” (translation: small committee with a limited mission) at Holy Moly, it’s something I’ll have to deal with.
I’m kind of worried we’ll fall into the “office funny guy” trap if we’re not careful – we need be mindful about how we go about things.
Not only that, but what we’re doing on the Inviting Committee is learning to pay special attention to how we tell our story to people in the hopes of attracting them to be part of our community. And what we do leads directly to the Welcoming Committee, whose mission is to make sure people feel like coming to us was a good idea and to make it seem like a good idea to come back and all that kind of “Christian Formation” stuff. And that leads to the Nurturing Committee, which I’m also on, and we’re supposed to be taking care of people’s needs and offering various kinds of pastoral care. And finally if people feel really good about becoming part of the community, the Generosity Committee is there to make sure that people give generously of themselves and so forth.
And if we don’t pay attention to detail, this process will get derailed, potential new people will be unhappy or dissatisfied with their experience if they visit us, and we don’t grow. Thanks, AKMA, this actually helps! I’m going to get two blog posts out of this: one here, and one at the Holy Moly site. That is, the Blog of the Church Soon To Be Formerly Known As St Nicholas With The Holy Innocents. We’re planning a discernment period for figuring out which of the 3 choices we’ve identified is the best one. We have to pay careful attention to this and not screw it up.
I totally get how Kwik-E-Mart, that is, 7-11 has paid a lot of attention to detail in their tie-in promotion with The Simpsons movie, as documented in a colorful Flickr set showing the hilarious (and subtle) posters and inside jokes that 7-11 has come up with to make at least one of their stores a spot-on real-life analogue for the Kwik-E-Mart we know and love. They’re showing the love to the trufen, and also to the nonfen who know enough about The Simpsons to get most of the inside jokes in 7-11’s promotion. But not all – no joke is too obscure for 7-11 to have used for one of their posters – in some cases, the reference is to just one episode, that only trufen would recognize (and be able to cite by title, original broadcast date, and guest cast).
What I do not yet get is how to show this love to potential churchfen, so that inviting, welcoming, nurturing, and giving back are one seamless, fulfilling, consistent process. But I’ll be thinking about it this week.
And remember: A Twizzler is not a Sprinkle! A Mounds is not a Sprinkle! A Jolly Rancher is not a Sprinkle!
[tags]The Simpsons, AKMA, Flickr, Kwik-E-Mart, 7/11, Episcopal Church[/tags]