We've talked about the ministry needs addressed by our new church vision. We've also talked about the vision itself, what the parsonage would be converted into. Another question we need to answer: what's so special/helpful about doing it this particular way? Also: why us and not somebody else?
The major growth in our church's ministry over the last few years has been accomplished in small groups. People feel more attached to our church, God, and each other through things they've done in gatherings of 6-20 people. The description has been "feeling like family" or "feeling like church is home for me now". That doesn't happen the same way in gatherings of 60-100. Those small group moments make a huge difference.
The same has been true of youth ministry. We do run events a few times a year where 20-40 kids come. But most of the bonding happens when 6-12 people show up at the church on a given day. The event attended by 30 serves to publicize those smaller gatherings wherein new people get to know us better.
This is not going to change. Nobody nowadays wants to join an institution. People don't want to belong to a committee. Folks aren't looking to acquire another label to stick on themselves. Instead they want friends, comfort, human interaction. These things are missing in their daily lives. Defining God as welcoming, warm, intimate, and interactive is the best way to reach our friends and neighbors.
Now step back and look at the vision for the parsonage. Every room, every piece of furniture, every proposed use is designed to say the same thing: "Welcome home! And isn't it great?" Without a word being spoken every person who walks in will know that somebody cares. The intimate nature and interactive purpose of each room reinforces that message, providing opportunity for participants to jump in and interact not just with the environment, but with each other.
This differentiates our vision from most attempts at youth ministry. Churches have different priorities when pursuing youth ministry. Some go with education first...what happens in a desk or in front of a blackboard matters most. Others go with entertainment or just giving the kids something to do so they'll "stay out of trouble". All of these approaches assume youth are people to be acted on instead of with, thus they are to be educated or entertained or kept busy. It's almost like they're objects we're trying to manipulate.
The physical spaces church design (or designate) for youth reflect this mindset. When a congregation doesn't care much about youth ministry you get a leftover room somewhere in the back of the church, perhaps furnished with an old couch. The kids have "permission" to "decorate" however they wish because nobody else is going to set foot in that room.
Other congregations go the opposite direction, building special places for youth. The first impulses are, "Well, they'll like a pool table and foosball so we better have a room for that. And classrooms with desks. And a gym!" The kids may like all of those things but the rooms generally end up huge and feel clinical. It's almost as if somebody were speaking in a monotone robot voice, "Here is the pool table inside this room. Is that not nifty for you?"
For us, youth ministry isn't about stuff, nor about making kids think/do/feel a certain way. Nor is it about keeping them occupied so they'll "stay out of trouble" (as if they were hooligans just waiting to turn our town into Lord of the Flies). Our youth ministry is about relationships. Through our holy, amazing, and fun relationships with each other we discover how holy, amazing, and fun God is. The things we employ--games, technology, food, physical space--are there to serve the relationships, not the relationships to serve the things. The same is true with space...it's there to facilitate relationships between people, not just to provide a floor and walls in between which people can do tasks.
That's why this parsonage vision fits so well. We need exactly what the parsonage gives us: intimate, home-like space in which to do our thing together. It feels like home because it was designed to be a home. In this vision we're still using it for that purpose. We're just increasing the number of people who call it that.
This also distinguishes our vision from the drive for a community center converted out of the current Catholic church center. That is a good project too. I hope it succeeds. Our town needs something like that! But it's much different than what we're talking about here.
Look at the purpose for which the Catholic center was built. It was a school, right? That involves large, square rooms. No matter how you redecorate them they're never going to feel like a home, any more than the rooms in our own church basement do. Using the Catholic center for our type of youth ministry would be the same feeling we already have, just in a bigger building.
A community center would actually be great for certain events. Those 30-40 person youth events that we're straining to do in St. John's would work fantastically in a community center. They could probably also house a pool table or ping pong or other things that we'd like and wouldn't have room for. But could a half dozen guys text me at 7:00 at night, then come over and we all go over to the Community Center at the spur of the moment to watch a movie in comfort, feeling like it was their place? Even if we could get access on that short of notice, even if the technology to watch the movie was already set up and they had a room dedicated for that purpose, even if they didn't charge us for the heat and lights we'd use, it still wouldn't facilitate the same kind of bonding. The guys might feel attached to the movie (the task) but they wouldn't have the same kind of interaction and personal feeling they'd get in our converted parsonage.
In some ways our mission statements for use of space would be 180 degrees opposite from a community center. (One of the reasons that having both could be a good idea!) The center would be looking to serve as many people as possible at a time and thus fashioning their large public spaces to be multi-use oriented, covering many purposes with the same rooms. That's the only way such a project will make sense.
We, on the other hand, want to target a single use for each room to facilitate a small number of people using it at any given time. The living room is for talking, the theater for movie-watching, the computer room for playing or study. Many different types of people can use those rooms, of course, but the rooms themselves are 100% dedicated, decorated, and set up for that single purpose.
The community center model is stronger if you're trying to get 60 people to use the building at once for a variety of things. (And obviously they'd have the space to do that too, where the parsonage wouldn't.) But our model is far stronger when gathering 6-20 people for a single purpose, particularly if that purpose involves cozy, intimate interaction.
Neither approach is better than the other. It all depends on who you're trying to serve and how. 40 people eating lunch? Community center. Big pool tables and running around? Community center. 6 guys playing a game? The community center is too big and alien-feeling compared to a comfy, familiar couch with a stocked fridge nearby, both of which they can call their own.
The community center is a good idea, but there's zero chance they'd be able to provide to the tailored, small-group needs of our youth, Sunday School, and counseling ministries. They couldn't afford to dedicate their space to that narrow of a focus group, nor to meet the special concerns of each individual within that group. But we can, and in doing so we'd fulfill a need that's not being met anywhere else while still being able to support the activities and programs they could provide.
Everything we've talked about is already going on in our youth ministry. That's why it works! We welcome all comers, make sure the pop fridge is stocked with their favorite flavors, invite them to check out the food in the kitchen as if it were theirs. We also use my house extensively to make them feel intimate and at home. Our vision simply formalizes that process and brings it to completion, putting our money where our mouth is, helping our space serve our vibrant ministry and its eager participants.
First up next week...what will this all cost and what steps would we need to take to get there?
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
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