Last month, on a particularly bad-weather day, I walked into
our church from the outdoor sweat factory that plagues any coastal city in the
spring, got my coffee, and sat down at one of our service tables to enjoy a
relaxing moment of looking at my Twitter feed…and I nearly spat out my drink.
Staring up at me was probably the most incredible bit of
satire I had seen since early Babylon Bee
You can check
out the full threat here.
As I thumbed my way through those pictures, I would send
pictures to friends who celebrate the denominations that they were poking at.
One of my favorites was the Lutheran gif
The response I got back was laughter. In fact, every time I
got a reply, it was something goofy, something that recognized “yeah, that’s us
alright.”
One of the things that gets under my skin about working in
churches is that our churches spend a great amount of time divided because of
small details. We argue over the details of things like baptism and communion, but
at the end of the day, those things do one thing: they get in the way of the
mission Jesus has for us in our churches.
This thread is a satirical piece showing Michael Scott, one
of the lead characters on The Office, accentuating some of those details that
get us riled up and separate our churches from each other.
To me, things like this are hilarious, and I loved picking
out the posts that related to me the most, particularly the college ministry,
Non-denominational, and southern Baptist tweets.
Reading through these tweets made me wonder if we couldn’t
all be a little more like Michael Scott, and no, I don’t mean running into a
megachurch with a foam finger, yelling “Swag!”
Michael is Friendly, and so should you!
It’s excessively easy to be friendly with people who are
like us. That’s literally how you found the Nerd Pastors webpage. After all the
mayor of Coolsville probably didn’t just wind up here on a whim.
We gravitate toward people who are like us, but what if we
became more like Michael Scott in how friendly we were.
What if we took it upon ourselves to go out of our way and
diversify our friend group to include people of other denominations? What would
our growing community of authentic believers look like if we went beyond only
tolerating people not like us, but actively pursued friendships with them?
It’s easy for pastors to say we love everyone. It’s in the
Bible so we believe it to be true about ourselves. But if we are honest, 9/10
times the people we reach out to are people we think will benefit our churches
the most. People who don’t have a church home or who are new in town, or who
already have a leaning toward Christianity. People who would fit into our
circles with ease.
Michael would be ashamed, because he regularly expressed the
value of a diverse crowd in the office. “Do you think Stanleys grow in trees?”
There is no replacing the authenticity of diverse friendships, and there is no
substitute for effort in making those happen.
“’You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take’ -Wayne Gretsky” -Michael Scott
Have you ever tried to teach your people how to do
something, and it felt like it kind of went in one ear and right back out the
other? Have you ever taught something and literally had that happen to
yourself?
I remember about a year ago when our church was teaching
about “The Art of Neighboring.” Our church laid out the whole process of
getting to know your 8 closest neighbors, and we even handed out instructions
on how to create an organize a block party.
It was all really great stuff, but a month later I had an
incredibly embarrassing conversation with a member of our church. I went to a
totally normal meeting with them, coffee and breakfast, and they asked me the
dreaded question, “so how has it been, getting to know your neighbors?”
I stumbled through it, like I had just introduced myself to
them but we hadn’t got together yet sort of thing, but I hadn’t set a good
example of what it was like to develop good neighboring habits and it made it
far less likely for them to do it as well. I hadn’t put into practice the
things I wanted my people to start practicing.
We can talk until our faces are blue about diversifying
friend groups, being more accepting of others, and loving the people who are
hard to love, but until we set that example and branch out of our comfortable
friend groups, it’s all going to be white noise.
We have to work hard to bridge the gap between our churches.
Reach out to someone in our Facebook community, or reach out to someone
different from you in ANY community and set an example of friendliness and
unity. Don’t let the small, denominational details get in the way of making an
impact and working together.
Will we ever totally agree with each other on the best ways
to do church? I doubt it because our opinions still matter, and they probably
won’t ever line up perfectly. But while community is messy
Be like Michael Scott.
by Percy Hudson
Percy is a pastor and a podcaster in Houston, TX
