Its 9.30am and 15 of us stand around looking at each other wondering if maybe there’s been a secret ‘church boycott’ and other than the music team and paid staff everyone else is staying home today.

‘Church’ starts at 9.30, or so it says on our website.

When you lead a smaller church in 21st C Perth where attendances are now more sporadic than ever, you never quite know what to expect at that time of day. Some Sundays there is a ‘quorum’ – a sense of ‘enough people present to kick off’ and then other days, the sparsely filled room leaves you wondering if you actually should be doing something else too.

I was updating our database today and discovered that we have 90 adults who would call QBC home as well as 76 kids. I had no idea we had that many people in the community. ‘Calling a place home’ is my own way of determining who’s ‘in’ and who’s not – its basically self selecting in that it allows people to make their own declarations of allegiance.

But even then, what does it mean to call a place ‘home’?

Does it mean ‘Even though I’m only there every 2 months, its the only church I am part of so in that sense its home?…’ Or, does it mean ‘I belong here and I am committed to being with the family, to becoming like Christ with these people?’ I have used the normal curve to answer this question in the past, because it is about the only way I can come to grips with the anomaly of home being a place some ‘visit’ occasionally while others see it as a central point of life.

Of the 90 adults in our church, 31 would be considered ‘members’, (a Baptist way of defining who is allowed to vote on bigger decisions). Theoretically members are more committed to the community – they agree to give their hearts, time and cash to making the church community healthy, and generally that is the case. But not always… What do you do when ‘members’ don’t do what they have committed to?…

We don’t push membership, but we invite people into it when they show that they are ready and willing. The number ’31’ reflects the higher expectations and the diminishing number willing to take that route. Some would say we don’t ‘push’ membership hard enough, but seriously – if people need pushing to join up then we are getting off on the wrong foot and we should expect that to show up in trouble down the track.

Perhaps what is most perplexing to me in this scheme of things is the question of how we make disciples. Today I ran the numbers – for the first time in 6 years – yes really – I never count how many turn up as I really don’t care about that stat.

But I do care about the type of people we are becoming.  A more significant question would be ‘of the 166 people involved with QBC how many are on an intentional trajectory of faith development?’ How many would be pursuing the leading of God in their lives and seeking to align their lives with his kingdom?

The problem comes in that this is very difficult to measure. I guess its why we revert to bums on seats as our metric. Seth Godin has an excellent post on the topic of measurement here where he says:

Measurement is fabulous. Unless you’re busy measuring what’s easy to measure as opposed to what’s important.

So true.

We can count bums on seats every week and that will tell us one thing precisely. That one thing is exactly how many people were in the building that week. It does not say anything of the state of their lives, their reasons for being there or their reasons for not being there the following week. It is simply a ‘raw’ stat that we interpret through a familiar and common grid and in doing so we draw some conclusions which may or may not be accurate.

It leads me to seriously question the expression of church we run with. Are we hoping that somehow by attending, that those who have a ‘recreational’ faith will move to a stronger more substantial place of discipleship?

I’ve learnt over the years that church is a remarkably inconvenient form of community. Its probably more accurate to simply say that community itself is inconvenient. In the surf club or the sea rescue group, the expectations are also high, but unlike the surf club, footy club or other more rigorous groups, we rarely call our members to account when they fail to perform, because that would be considered ‘ungracious’ or ‘judgemental’. We just ‘understand’ them… life is indeed ‘very busy’… and people do have ‘good hearts’ after all…

I think at this point Jesus might just call ‘bullshit’. He might just point back to some angular and tactless comments about crosses and dying to self. He might ask ‘what was complicated about the sermon on the mount?’ Which part of ‘follow me’ still needs explaining?

So, are we wasting our time running Sunday services?

Maybe we are.

If the Sunday gathering is an end in itself – if it is considered ‘church’ – then its time to slice it up a thousand ways and say ‘NO!’ If Sundays genuinely contribute to our discipleship rather consumer-ship then we are travelling well. But too often I sense the distinction is tenuous and we may even be losing the battle.

The difficulty with writing a post like this is some folks will read it and feel guilty (maybe even appropriately guilty) and will decide to attend church more often… which would of course be missing the point entirely.  Its ironic that people will feel guilt over missing church, but can live in a state of continuous miss-cipleship for years on end with no qualms. What does it say of our spiritual formation processes and our primary message that people will see absence from church as more of a problem than absence of discipleship?

Feels like its time to rock the boat a little.

About a year ago we bought some new couches – our first new lounges in over 20 years of marriage and we decided to go for electric recliners. They were on special at Freedom who were having a two for one sale, otherwise I doubt we would have ever considered them.

We’ve loved the new couches – nothing quite like putting the feet up at the end of a hard day – but over the last year as we have held our church leadership meetings in our home I’ve found myself feeling uncomfortable about how they have reshaped the tone of our meetings.

So we’ve held our last few meetings around the kitchen table, and it has shifted the vibe back in a direction I would see as more healthy. Prior to the ‘recliner meetings’ we already had a very relaxed and relational approach to meetings. With the recliners we actually didn’t seem to ‘lose’ a lot by way of interaction and decision making, but I sensed we were working against ourselves and ultimately would begin to accomplish less. We hadn’t got to that place yet, but something was sitting badly in my gut.

The kitchen table is less comfortable – no question – but it brings us close together – it is ‘intimate’ almost and as a result we function a little differently again – a bit like a family… funny that…

I don’t think a lounge room is a bad environment for a church meeting. I’m certainly not up for a ‘board room’, but the kitchen table kinda gives the best of both worlds – an attentive posture, an intimate tone and a sense of connection that comes when you sit closer and ‘lean in’ rather than ‘lean out’.

I realise none of this is rocket science, but its only when you mess around with the physical dynamics of a meeting space that you actually begin to notice how it impacts on actual performance.

Over the last few weeks at QBC we have been teaching and leading the crew in a congregational discernment process, seeking to help people listen to God and hear his voice on a particular issue we are processing as a church. The issue is one where its important that we get people’s contribution, but also their considered, prayerful input, rather than their ‘best gut feel’ when they have a spare moment. Its been good to re-visit this subject and attempt to put in place some thoughts for how we can do this as a church in future decisions.

As I began teaching on this stuff I came to the topic with the view that ‘we need to get the people in the game’, more when it comes to discerning. But the more I have delved into this biblically the more I seen and felt the need for leaders to step up to the plate and offer some clear spirit led direction.

Last week as we looked at decisions in the book of Acts we saw that there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach to this. We go from the replacement of Judas in Acts 1 with what is in effect a ‘coin toss’, through to the more rigorous and nuanced discernment process in Acts 15 where the discussion revolves around whether Gentiles need to be circumcised.

But what is common to virtually every decision made is significant leadership involvement and guidance. In Acts 6 where they choose a 7 men to serve, the apostles tell the people to do it, but they are then brought back to them for commissioning. In Acts 10 when Cornelius comes to faith and the Holy Spirit zaps him Peter makes a ‘captain’s call’ and declares them ‘in the game’ because of what happened. He acts alone, but not without accountability as in Acts 11 he gets grilled by the rest of the crew.

Clearly when we are leading people we need to meet them where they are at and lead from there – which can be tricky because people are in different places. But one of the challenges in involving others is paying too much attention to those who don’t have enough to say – or who don’t have ‘considered input’.

Its difficult not to be somewhat blunt in saying this, but truth is that some people don’t pray much, think much or take the time to really contribute. That’s how it is… Some folks attend church and that’s as much as they do… Others take the communal responsibility seriously and offer some great insights.

But leaders by necessity as well as by desire, will engage in the processes in depth and as a result their thoughts should be highly regarded. In a culture that has become increasingly skeptical of leadership and of agendas that can be difficult. But my read of Acts suggests that leaders have a prime role in discerning God’s direction and hopes for the church.

What does that mean for the people in the church community?

I don’t believe we ever get to a place where leaders just make calls and people go with it or suck it up. But I do get the sense that if people are going to participate in discernment processes then they need to do so with some rigor, otherwise it can actually undermine the work others will have done. We can’t have people turning up to a congregational meeting, opening the ‘church file’ in their brain and saying ‘right… where were we?…Oh yes that’s right…’

In issues requiring discernment I believe we need leaders to lead and also to listen to those who have taken the time to listen to God themselves. But primarily we need leaders to lead.