Meeting With The Captain

Lynn White, the senior minister of TCC, has been trying to get me for a one-on-one meeting. This morning I met him for coffee and conversation. Somehow I found myself doing all the talking. He only asked me a handful of questions, and I dutifully recited my experiences with RCC. I went over RCC's ruling cabal, my misadventures in Sunday School teaching, my committees, duties, practices, observations, behaviors, and ultimately, my departure. Then I covered my church search, what I had seen at different churches, my misadventures at the Hospital Church. All that is well and good, but after I finished my recitation, Lynn started talking.

Lynn seems anxious if not desperate to integrate me, well, anyone really, into the day-to-day goings on at TCC. Now I know why. TCC has a membership problem. They don't have a lot of members. They have some productive members, some not-so-productive members, and some people who contribute to the church but are not members. Two conspicuous examples are Chuck Burns and his wife, Paulette. Chuck is the minister who was forced out of RCC--the minister under whom I joined the church. Chuck is heading up the membership development committee at TCC, and yet neither he nor his wife are members. Lynn considers me somewhat out of the ordinary in that I have a sense of situational awareness that tells me that if I am to be a part of an organization, then I should be a formal member of that organization. I think I impressed him on this point.

I hope I also impressed him by my honesty. Brutal honesty might better describe it. He asked me why I joined the church. Or, more accurately, what drew me to the church. I told him it was Yizong, and that I transferred from a church that was an active impediment to my growth to one that, currently at best, is indifferent about me. Honesty has always been a simultaneous virtue and impediment in my adult life, but I think it's the best way to approach things. In this situation I think it is especially necessary considering that this church will hopefully be ministering to me.

Or not. Lynn was quite frank in identifying a single adult ministry as a definite weakness at TCC, and this is where the real crux of the matter of TCC exists. TCC is a church that is trying to find its way in a quickly and radically changing way, and I think Lynn has identified that the old models of religion and church operation may not work in this new environment. I believe he's right. The problem he has is the same one I have. How does a church in this new environment attract, develop and minister to single adults? That's a toughie, especially considering the post modern mindset that he and I both identify as being something that the church will deal with on an increasingly common basis.

One potential idea that has been put forward is something termed by Chuck as "Contagious Christianity." I've heard that term before, I just don't recall where. The bottom line is how do you market Christianity and the Church? Looks like we'll have to start thinking fast and hard.