THE ELECTRIC FENCE

Pastors are forever discerning the boundaries related to what they can get away with before their church members become too anxious or oppositional. It varies from one place to the next, from one year to the next. If you are new to a place, or to a denomination, it’s easy to misjudge the boundaries. The electric fences are often invisible and you’d never know they were there unless you bump into one… and then ZAP… you know! Once in a small town I dared to hold services on the church premises the same day as the annual cemetery day, which sent some of the old-timers into orbit. Two life-timers quit their membership over that infraction. ZAP!

Often we are trained to a certain set of boundaries in a conservative rural church early in ministry. And we carry that unwritten sense of what is permissible and what is not to places where there is no electric fence along the same tree line. This can really harm our churches two decades later.

There is no arena in which we do this more than with worship. What can we sing? What can we say? When can we laugh? How much can we simplify liturgy? How far can we go with gender neutral language? When can we introduce projection screens? What is beyond the pale?

As I continue to reflect on why some churches are growing in worship attendance in 2022, when most have shrunk, I see that vibrant worship services often push the envelope wisely in terms of what the leaders can get away with, and respect the places where the change isn’t yet worth it. It reminds me of an Andy Warhol quote: “Art is what you can get away with.”

Dying churches are commonly marked by a somber tone in worship, and a narrow bandwidth of acceptable tone, emotion, humor, etc. This all gets justified in the name of reverence. But to the public it just comes off as boring.

Vibrant and growing churches these days are often marked by joy, playfulness and good humor, alongside moments of quiet and majestic ritual - in short, they offer a wider range of emotional expressiveness in worship. At times this may be criticized as irreverent by those who long for something more somber.

Just because we learn where the electric fence is in one place, dies not mean it will be in the same spot in the next. Often great pastoral leadership requires us to push the boundaries in worship. Occasionally, it requires a pastor to dial it back a bit from what she/he could get away with in the last place.

In general, boundaries are moving outward in American churches. A wider range of emotion may be expressed in worship, reflective of growing informality in the culture. Beer and wine can sometimes be added to the acceptable beverages in the fellowship hall. Queer people can be much more public and transparent about their lives. I noticed the pastor wearing bright sneakers under his alb last Sunday. I found his shoes endearing, humanizing. And yet many of the people I pastored in the 1990s would have been unnerved by the shoes. And by the beer. Certainly by the queer. By the lack of organ music! On and on. By so much of what helps us in 2022!

It’s an art: what one can get away with. And the electric fence can knock one back for sure! But to fail to push the boundaries in 2022 is to choose death over life for one’s church.

We had a church member quit the other day. The welcome to the worship service was too silly, too playful for this person’s comfort. We responded gracefully, showing love to the disgruntled church member, while continuing to honor our mission to bring God’s party into our valley.

Blessings to you in these waning days of summer. Keep it playful! And keep it real … in 2022 terms!