One of the familiar refrains I hear as I coach pastors across North America and the UK is about how difficult church folks can be when asked to process change. It is easy to denigrate the people who are backbones of our churches as selfish, as thinking more about what they like personally than what would be effective in our mission.
However, in one coaching conversation recently it dawned upon us that this maddening resistance to change is rooted in something good - it is rooted in something we have worked to cultivate in people’s lives: we want them to approach Sundays as habit. We want them to approach their financial contributions as habit. We want them to approach their volunteering as habit. We reward people in ways both subtle and not-so-subtle for being habitual in their support for their congregations.
It stands to reason that extreme creatures of habit would be disproportionately represented in the remnant population that continues to resist all of the other good opportunities thrown their way on Sundays. How are church people different than the general population. Are they kinder? Probably not. Do they pray more? Maybe. Are they more stubbornly habitual? Very possible. These people are also among the most likely to go to the polls and vote. They are people who show up, again and again. No study has been done, but I bet they also are more likely to do their grocery shopping same time each week, and to turn on the 5 o-clock local news. Routine comforts some folks more than others.
The people who hung on through the Sunday disruptions of the pandemic - disproportionately older and disproportionately creatures of habit! I cannot prove (with limited data) that the people who play golf or who enjoy brunch with the same friends for two plus decades are less habit-driven as a group than the church crowd. But, given how absolutely boring and tedious many worship services are (most worship services?), why do these backbone folks still show up each week? A major factor is long-established comforting routine, reinforced over many years as being a mark of a life well lived.
My mother is exhibit A, B and C of this phenomenon. She moved a few years ago (in her mid 80s) to a new city, far from the home she loved. All the friends she enjoyed at her church over many decades are gone now. Yet she pulls her Altima out of the garage each Sunday at exactly 7:40 and ventures further away from home to go to church than she will venture to shop or to eat. I have attended with her a couple times and really find her 8 am service to be low energy, with only a handful of souls sprinkled across a giant room. She says the traffic is lighter at 8 am. So she goes to church. And she always drives through McDonalds on the way home and orders a sausage McMuffin. She still sends her tithe (as in ten percent of income) to her former church back in Dallas. She is a dependable soul. Please, Pastor, don’t pull the rug out from under Sonia Nixon!
She has also been a legendary Bible teacher across the decades, and a person who was supportive of her pastors and her church’s vision. More than once, she has served as an interpreter of new-fangled mission strategies to people in the old guard who did not ‘get it.’ So, when I lead training events, I have said, “Whatever changes you contemplate in your church, especially regarding the worship service - please do not pull the rug out from under Sonia! She wants to be your best ally!” She and many in our churches are really good sports - and more than willing to cheer for innovation and to welcome new kinds of people, just so long as we leave some semblance of a comfort zone for them, where they can live out their spiritual habits without unnecessary disruption. Mom sits in the same pew each week, and parks in the same spot, next to a Harley Davidson. She and Mr Harley are both there almost every Sunday, same time, same parking space. She walks in the same door and speaks to the same greeter. She also sits on her screened porch at the same time each morning and talks to the same lizard, and the same birds. Mom delights in a good routine!
Sometimes lately, her arthritis keeps her home. You know she is hurting when Sonia misses church.
Take away the Sonias in our churches, and the rug would be pulled out from much of what is left of organized religion.
Some would say that rigid habits can become addictions. We will save that for another column. But let’s go a bit easy on the creatures of habit in our churches. They do keep the lights on! They do pay the minister’s salary. And, almost universally, they do love the Lord.
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