Are We Doing Too Much?

At a glance of the title, and knowing where I'm going, you can already get a sense that the question is redundant.

I had a conversation with a mother today; she's new to our church, only having attended for a couple months, mainly to find a place for her son. There have been an influx of Koreans into our community, it seems, and this mother is among them. Though her family is an interesting case because she married a Chinese man, so she still has that connection to the Chinese culture.

In getting to know her, she's slowly begun to open up to me about why she started attending Newbern with her son. For several weeks, all she ever revealed was that she wants her son to find a Chinese church where he'd enjoy attending.

After service today, I sat down to see how they were doing, and she finally opened up more of what she's been looking for. Through her broken English, I did what I could to understand and allow her to speak; but one thing was very clear to me from everything she said. When she first mentioned it, her concerns about churches in Vancouver instantly gripped me tightly.

From her point of view, she essentially thinks churches seem to be trying to do too much. Everything feels very overwhelming, to a point of having so many programs that really push people to be here, be there, be everywhere. The mom told me that she really just wants a place where she can worship freely and experience fellowship the way it should be done. In her humility, she said she prefers simple and doesn't like the unbelievable amount of program/activity. She continued to say that in her search for a church, big and small, she felt very strongly about the lack of God's presence in many of the church communities.

By this point, I'm completely encaptivated by what she's saying. So I decided to take a step further and ask her why she's kept coming to our church with her son. After stumbling on her words, what I heard was basically that God wants them to be here. For a pastor, there aren't many other words I would rather hear than those that she had spoken.

In 5-10 short minutes, I felt incredibly humbled and challenged to review what I've been doing at Newbern. Do I tend to focus so much on programs that I completely forget about the presence of God in all my ministries? In being asked this question, I am determined to help this mother and her son find what they are looking for. But I can't help but think that there is a lot of truth to what she said. Not out of poor intention, but so many churches are so keen on trying to revive their church that they will resort to so many programs just to attract attendance. When we camp around building programs, people leave when programs leave. If we camp around Christ and his presence, lives are changed and Christ goes with us where we go. So much to dwell on.

The fact that her son said that he enjoys being here already brings me great joy. She helped me understand that her current goal is ultimately to find her son a church where he can belong, and then to find one for herself. In some ways, I hurt for her that she better understands and prefers Korean, but we're unable to provide that for her. So in seeing her sacrifice to break cultural barriers in order for her son to be in touch with the Chinese side of his heritage is very heartwarming to me. I need to do what I can to help her in her journey as well.

While this mother and son have been finding joy and a willingness to be at Newbern, they are actually the ones who are blessing us with their desire to be here.