Worship is Mission

My mandate was clear when they called me to be their pastor: “Help our church to grow.” Looking back, I was very naive. It honestly never occurred to me that the members of a congregation would, on the one hand, say they want to grow, and, on the other, resist the changes that would facilitate growth, such as welcoming people different from themselves and involving newer members in leadership. Many of the members seemed to do whatever they could to preserve the congregation’s self-identity as a “small church” and the ways they related to each other and made decisions as “a close-knit family.” I failed to recognize these behaviors as the natural-even expected-ways people protect their world of meaning and respond to change and the losses change brings.