Changes Afoot

Mt. Tam Christian Community had barely imported its new pastor from Southern California when he determined that a number of changes need to be made to make the church fully seeker sensitive. At a hastily-convened leadership meeting, Pastor John started off by taking direct aim at the small group discussions that took place before the Sunday morning sermon (you may recall these discussions as a series of probing questions about one’s spiritual life).

“That’s crazy,” John said. “Put yourself in the place of a visitor who doesn’t know anyone. How would you like being forced to sit in a circle with a bunch of strangers and answer personal questions?”

At that moment, it was all I could do to restrain myself from leaping up and throwing my arms around our new pastor. If John accomplished nothing else but getting rid of those infernal discussion groups, his ministry would not have been in vain. But he didn’t stop there.

“And what about the name of the church?” he asked. This was already a sore spot around Mt. Tam, which had endured some criticism from seminary leaders for not having the word “Baptist” in its name. But that missing denominational tag was not the source of John’s complaint.

“What does an unchurched person think when they hear Mt. Tam Christian Community?” he asked. “It sounds like some hippie commune.”

And so it went. Every detail of our worship service was analyzed from the standpoint of the unchurched person and altered with his or her needs in mind. John’s goal was to “restart” the church with a whole new image, employing his proven arsenal of Southern California methods in the Bay Area. The plan was to put the church through a full seeker sensitive makeover, mail out thousands of carefully designed invitations to unsuspecting Marinites, and go public on Easter Sunday as Mt. Tam Community Church.

Could it work? No one except John was quite sure, but we were all thrilled at the thought that unchurched masses might soon be descending on our humble congregation. Wouldn’t that be something?