Connection in a Large Church
April 21st, 2008 | by Noel |After my recent post on “Intimacy in a Large Church,” I received an anonymous note that made me think a bit. Here’s an excerpt…
I think that one of the things that draws people to Riverview is the feeling of familiarity and belonging. All of you speak to us so intimately about your lives and struggles it forges a deep personal connection. It makes people feel like they are not alone; someone else is going through the same thing. All of you have a charisma about you that enables you to deliver the message of Jesus directly to a person’s heart in a way that is crystal clear. The teachings often feel as though they were tailored to me as an individual. The ability to speak to a large crowd and make each person feel as though you are speaking to them directly is a gift from God. When someone walks into Riverview because their life is drifting, that gift will pull them back down to earth, get their attention, and show them the rock solid truth of their salvation, worth, and safety in Jesus. That is how Christians are made…
Members don’t just want to know you, they want you to know them; their names, their lives, their struggles, and their triumphs. We want to have the feeling that you care on an intimate level. I think that as Pastors you all do an awesome job of this. That is one of the things about Riverview that makes it so special, and one of the reasons it has grown so rapidly over the last 8 years or so. Back to my request; please, please, please do not lose that intimate touch when the church grows. Please continue to know us, e mail us, ask us how our kids are doing, etc…
Sometimes when your business is saving souls there is nothing wrong with being a little consumeristic, as long as it still fits within the teachings of Jesus. That is how Riverview grew this big in the first place, it offered something that people wanted; along with something that people needed – salvation.
This made me think about the idea of “intimacy” and it dawns on me that “intimacy” is not what people are looking for. Rather, they are looking for “connection.” There are only a handful of people in my life I am intimate with: my family, a few close friends, etc. In a church of our size, it’s just not possible to be intimate with everyone. In fact, if I had dinner every night with a different family from our church, it would take almost three years.
Not to mention that I suck at even simply remembering names…
So how do we foster connection in a large church?
There are a lot of ways that I can think of: community groups, mid-sized groups, serving, etc. But one thing struck me in this note: people want a connection with the pastor who is teaching.
At Riverview, roughly 2000 people a week attend services and I frequently get the same response as this note:
All of you speak to us so intimately about your lives and struggles it forges a deep personal connection. It makes people feel like they are not alone; someone else is going through the same thing.
I was thinking about this when I was driving my kids to school this morning when the song “Brass in Pocket” by The Pretenders came on. One line struck me:
I'm special, so special. I got to have some of your attention, give it to me!
That’s it! Each person at Riverview is special and yet I am not able to give each of them the attention they desire. I have a unique relationship with each and every person at our church, whether I realize it or not. When I teach, I connect with people at a certain level. Not through my words (I’m sure), but through the work of the Holy Spirit, people feel connected with me and yet I haven’t met most of them. I would dare say that I will never meet most of the people in our church face to face.
So, here is my question for all of you who read this blog…what can I do to help foster that connection as we grow larger? I have a few thoughts, but I will save those until later this week. I want to hear your suggestions first.
Tags: connection, intimacy
By GaryD on Apr 21, 2008
I’ll bet that most of us Riv’ers feels the same as the person who left the above [great] comment. Many times driving home from church one of us says, “Wow, it’s like Paul/Steve/Mark/Noel/Dan was talking specifically to me today” and the other of us says, “No it’s like they were talking to ME!”
So there is no doubt that we do feel a connection in spirit if not in person with the pastors. I’ve heard it discussed that what we want to keep through the up-sizing is the character of the church, how it feels to people. I agree & I think that this has always started with the pastors & over time has filtered out through the various ministries, workers & volunteers, everyone carrying basically the same message, which is pretty awesome.
I believe that some of the reasons that the Riv works so well is because the pastors are real human beings who are not perfect but who are humble and honest, who struggle like the rest of us do every day. Not talking down to us from on high, using humor as a learning tool, being all inclusive; everyone is welcome - especially non-Christians. You are all approachable, even though some in the congragation will never screw up their courage enough to come over to talk to you, they all know that they can if they really need to. That’s important.
There are lots of pieces that make up the church, what is changing is the room that we sit in, that shouldn’t mean a change to the character of the church itself. Seems to me that the building isn’t even close to being the foundation of the church, that’s Jesus!
I think that God has given you a recipe for success, now you will be just “feeding” more people with the same recipe!
I give thanks for the new building & pray that God will use it as He has all of the other spaces that Riverview has met in over the past 30+ years.
Sorry for rambling on…
By Art on Apr 23, 2008
Agape. What’s “church” without it? Cigars, strong drinks, poledance exercising, burning new technologies, or 10 miles to the gallon vehicles; if someone sees it as being in Christ there’s no need for fuss, eh? I guess a large church just needs to keep fostering Christ’s agape, right.
On the other hand when Steve mentioned drinking citations and a 2×4 to the head I felt he called me out. But after this barn comment maybe my story isn’t so strange on the farm.
By Doug Watkins on Apr 25, 2008
Noel, you’ve made an excellent observation, distinguishing between intimacy and connection. We all have a need, but limited capacity, for intimacy. On the other hand, we have an almost unlimited capacity for connection with others, occurring at different levels of “deepness,” being made more freely and being more transient — relationships made and unmade as we go through life without the intense pain associated with the breakup of a truly intimate one.
Pastors connect, of course, when teaching relevant material in an engaging manner and letting the Spirit speak. However, I’ll offer that pastors also connect when being “real” about themselves in the pulpit, showing how much in common they have with those listening. For example, knowing that our pastor has friends and neighbors in and out of the congregation with whom he hangs is enough to reinforce a connection, even though I may not be one of them. This helps create a pastor-to-person connection.
He also creates a conduit that lets people approach him when admitting the possibility that something he may say on a Sunday morning could be wrong. He points out the church’s vulnerabilities and ministry areas that need help. He invites questions about things we might notice about the church that don’t appear right to us. This encourages us to be involved, having a sense of responsibility to and ownership in the ministry and vision of outreach. This helps create a person-to-church/community connection.
Finally, by not putting himself up on a pedestal but acknowledging imperfection, our pastor fosters an environment allowing us to do the same amongst ourselves — this is the soil in which friendships are cultivated. By nature, people don’t “put on their Sunday best” when attending Orchard Grove; but, “bringing Sunday” into their lives during the week is not always as easy. I believe natural, unforced personal friendships go a long way toward promoting discipleship. Even opportunities for casual friendliness, such as the “turn and greet those around you” moment, are important and help create a person-to-person connection.
Finally, don’t forget the person-to-God connections being made as people grow in listening to the Spirit and worshiping. Maybe this is what glues all the other connections together.
Thanks for letting me share my thoughts.
By Noel on Apr 25, 2008
Awesome thoughts, Doug.