The Everyday Church

“As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 2:4–5, ESV)

Everything’s Canceled

There seems to be a continual feeling hanging over our culture at the moment: Everything’s Canceled. Many people are still mourning the events, vacations, and programs that have been canceled because of the pandemic. It seems like many of the things we loved to do and looked forward to each summer have been taken away from us. 

Churches Love Programs

The same thing is also happening in the church. Many churches are being forced to cancel their summer VBS programs. Many churches have had to cancel their youth missions trips (or reimagine them). Programs seems to be “dropping like flies” this summer. 

This is a painful reality for the church. We like programs. Yet, why do we like programs so much? Eugene Peterson has this to say about programs:

“People are uncomfortable with mystery (God) and mess (themselves). They avoid both mystery and mess by devising programs and hiring pastors to manage them. A program provides a defined structure with an achievable goal. Mystery and mess are eliminated at a stroke. This is appealing. In the midst of the mysteries of grace and the complexities of human sin, it is nice to have something that you can evaluate every month or so and find out where you stand.”

(The Contemplative Pastor, 57)

This has been my experience over the years. We like programs because they give us something to evaluate. We can look at our church website and show people we are a successful church because of “this program and that program.” We can feel like a successful church because this program is “reaching” a certain number of people. 

Churches Without Programs

This leads to the current uneasy felt in the church during this pandemic. Many of the programs we used to evaluate our “success” have been cancelled. Many of the metrics we used to evaluate “success” are gone. It causes people to feel uneasy and wonder about the current “success” of the church. On the other hand, many people are working diligently to get the old programs “restarted” or to create “new programs.” 

Yet, I wonder whether we should learn a different lesson. What if we reimagined the church without programs? What if this season is a season of pruning, removing aspects of our congregation that have been using tremendous amounts of time and energy, but producing no fruit? 

The Everyday Church

God’s Kingdom has continued to come without our programs. Much more ministry has happened during this time of cancellations. People have been freed from previous commitments and obligations and have lived out their faith each day, ministering to those God puts in their path. 

Sure, we can’t measure and evaluate the ministry that has happened. This style of ministry involves mystery and mess. There’s a mystery surrounding the impact and results of our everyday actions. It’s messy when people are learning to minister in new ways. Yet, ministry is happening. The gospel is being brought into our communities through our words and actions. That’s effective ministry, even if we cannot measure it.

This is what it looks like functioning as “a priesthood of believers.” We are no longer relying on the “priest” of a particular program to do the ministry. We have been forced to see ourselves—each one of us—as a priest of our own ministry; a priest to the people God puts in our path. God is working in our hearts through the Holy Spirit to build us up into this priesthood—every single member of the church. Everyone is the “priest” of a ministry, and that ministry goes with them wherever they go—every single day. 

So, in the midst of this pandemic, all the programs are being canceled, but ministries are expanding. As someone scans the church website, they may see that you have 0 programs happening right now. But that doesn’t matter. How many members does your church have? That’s how many ministries you have. When do they happen? Every day of the week.