Lessons From the Back Room

The time has come to resume posting here. It's been quite some time since my last post and it's been quite an eventful time for me. For the past six months I've had the opportunity to observe the world as the majority of Americans now experience it...without almost no reference to or influence from the church.

In September I began working in the back room at Walmart overnights. There I've met a wonderful and wildly diverse group of people. My co-workers are Bosnian, Polish, Filipino, Hispanic, African American, Caucasian, Korean and Albanian. They are straight, gay, married, divorced, single parents, early twenties through early fifties. In short, a cross section of the melting pot we call America. And, like America, very few of them attend church. Those that do on a regular basis are the older ones.

There's no animosity toward church that is particularly evident. In fact I've prayed for and with several people in my time there. I've had some very good conversations about faith, spirituality, the Bible, and God. But church has almost no relevance in the lives of my new friends. Some grew up attending church. I've met one who not only attended Willow Creek but worked there for a time on the janitorial staff. Another grew up attending church and went on summer mission trips in high school.

For most, however, church is now just a memory...cherished or not so cherished. And there's no longing for it or any sense that it might someday become important to them again. Being with these folks day in and day out is the most stimulating breath of fresh air I've experienced in a long time.

This isn't a cautionary tale or the prelude to a great story about evangelizing people with the Gospel. It's the real world. A world where most people don't consider church relevant, necessary, important or interesting. God fascinates them. Jesus impresses them. Prayer comforts them. The Bible intrigues some of them. Church is inconsequential.

All the while shrinking, dying churches continue meeting every Sunday doing over and over and over again the same things they've been doing for centuries hoping for a different result. Hoping for revival. Hoping to become relevant again. But here's the problem churches seem unwilling to address...

If nearly all your activity is anchored and takes place in a building to which hardly anyone comes how can you become relevant in the lives of those who never give church a second thought?

And encouraging "your people" (a quaint church concept) to invite friends to church is akin to inviting them to a museum. It might be an interesting place to visit as a relic of your past but it will never be much more than a rare nostalgic distraction. So that's not an answer to the problem. Assuming the church thinks this is a problem...and there are some who don't seem to think it is.

So in the back room at Walmart I pray with people and for people. I talk about God with people. I encourage those who are interested to read the Bible. And people who used to go to church sometimes reminisce. But I never invite them to church because...it's irrelevant.