Pictures, Prayers and Promotion
What I do before Sunday worship
As most of you know, I’m the pastor of a small congregation in the Twin Cities. About two years ago, we sold our building and now share space with a Lutheran congregation in suburban St. Paul. Being a small congregation, one of my many jobs is to set up the church before worship. I get to the church about an hour before the service starts and set up these mix-and-match chairs. Once I’ve done that I will snap a picture on my iPhone and post it to Instagram and Facebook with some form of the following phrase: “May God bless this worship service today.”
The post is always a prayer that God guides this worship service. It’s a reminder for me that this isn’t about how great I preach or how good the music is, it is about how God will work in this moment in time. It reminds me that this is not up to me as much as it is up to God.
What I’ve noticed in the months that I’ve done this practice is how it has changed me. I’m not so worried about how the church service will turn out or even who will show up. I’ve learned to leave this to God. What happens is that I see how God works during this time of worship. I’ve actually seen more visitors show up at church. I haven’t done anything special to bring visitors to church other than make sure the webpage and social media is updated. I know it has to be the Spirit that is working in all of this. It is not about what I’ve done or what the church did in order to get the word out about us. Instead, I simply pray to God that God will work and God does.
I’ve also realized something about the photos. It shows a small circle of empty chairs which reveals something about us: we are a really small church. A small church like ours is usually a point of shame in our culture that praises bigness.
But this is who we are. Do I want to grow? Sure I do. But I’m also fine with us being small in number but still faithful to being a community of believers.
All of this might go against what I do for a living during the rest of the week. I’ve worked as a communications professional for nearly 20 years, working mostly for nonprofits and churches where I’ve created and maintained webpages, created graphics, and managed social media- all in the effort of promoting the church or non-profit. There’s nothing wrong in making sure a church has a good website or a compelling Facebook page. But having a great website isn’t what brings people to your church. I mean, it does in one sense, but for the most part, what brings people to a church is God. Our role as the church is to point to God and what God is doing in the world and not make the story about ourselves.
My picture isn’t going to bring people to church. It wasn’t meant to do that. It’s not about promotion. It’s about prayer and about leaving this up to God. I think God might be a better promoter than me.