What's so special?

Outreach (that jargon word for bringing folks into our church) was the topic last night and, in a larger sense, it's the topic for our parishes and the Episcopal Church as a whole. It doesn't take much insight to see why this is an important topic either: the ECUSA as a whole is shrinking and getting older, and our parishes (St. Matthew's and Grace) are part of that trend.

We've got an allergy to the "E-word" (evangelism), largely because we've been on the receiving end of so much abusive preaching.

It doesn't have to be that way. Here are several basic propositions that I have in the back of my mind as I think of bringing folks in:

• Whatever we do must be true to who we are. I've been in a church where the newcomer experience was an incredibly warm, inviting social potluck kind of thing, but once people were actually part of things, that small group vanished and the ongoing experience was cold, isolated, and distant. We can't do that. We can't bait-and-switch, and we can't try to turn into something alien.
• If we try to copy other local churches, we will fail. There are certainly enough praise band churches and enough churches where the only point is the social gathering. If someone wants that sort of thing, we cannot do a better job than the ones who are already out there. And we'll hate ourselves for trying.
• Someone out there is looking for a church just like us. Several of our most recent additions have said, in one way or another, "I was looking for a church like you and I'm glad I found you."
• If we figure out who we are, it's worth the trouble to become better at it. In the words of the Mad Hatter from the Johnny Depp version of Alice in Wonderland, we can work on our much-ness. We can become muchier.

Last night's brainstorm tried to answer the question, "What is unique about us? What do we do better than other churches?" (If I were trying to start a new hamburger stand, the bank would ask, before granting a loan, "Why should customers come to you instead of going to McDonald's or Wendy's?" That's the sort of emphasis we were working on.) Here, in no particular order, is what we came up with:

• Tradition: We've been around a LONG time. We were in this country before it was a country and at that point we were already a church with a long history. Outsiders who don't really know us tend to say, "Oh! You're Roman Catholics without a pope!" But we've been evolving along a separate path for more than 400 years and there are a lot of things about us that don't resemble the Roman Catholic church. We've got our own very rich tradition, and it's a lot older than 1972.
  • Music: I'm sitting here on a very snowy Saturday, listening again to Christmas music (Yes, I know I'm in the wrong season.) and most of those old traditional songs come from the world of English hymnody. We have a lot of variety and it's an intense part of our worship.
  • Liturgy: Surprisingly, many of the people who come to the Episcopal Church are attracted by our form of worship. We don't see it as dry and formalized; we see it as reverent, varied, and appropriate. It's got a depth that is hard to find elsewhere.
  • Prayers: The Prayer Book (and indeed the whole church year cycle) is actually a very welcome structure for many of us.
  • Reverence: We appreciate the idea that one doesn't always buddy up to God; some things really are holy and deserve our reverence.
• Celtic Roots: There are three great streams of Christian spirituality: Roman, Eastern, and Celtic. The Greek Orthodox Church is an example of the Eastern stream. Almost everyone else in town somehow came out of the Roman/Latin tradition. The Celtic background is unique to us.
  • Narrative: As we proceed through the church year, it's an ongoing story. We love that. We're soaked in Scripture, but it's worth noticing how often the prescribed readings for a day are narratives. We wouldn't be as happy with the 196 questions and answers from the Westminster Larger Catechism of the Presbyterians, and the concept of presenting newcomers with the Four Spiritual Laws just doesn't feel comfortable to us.
  • Environment: We frequently pray for environmental issues. We recycle and use energy-saving light bulbs as a matter of spiritual discipline and obedience, not just an attempt to be trendy or prudent.
  • Animals, children, etc.: (No, I'm not saying that children are animals.) We see God's world as a big, joyous place that deserves our care and should be welcome in our church. Because we're Celts, we think it's appropriate to bring our animals in for blessing.
• Art is very important to us. It's important to make church buildings and our homes into sacred, beautiful spaces.
• Intellectual life: As my "Top Ten Reasons For Being An Episcopalian" coffee mug says, "You don't have to check your brain at the door."
• Gay Welcome: It's actually difficult to get Episcopalians talking about this one. Welcoming gay people is such an ordinary, unremarkable part of our life that it's a boring topic—like practicing good dental hygiene or something. This one is, though, revolutionary to outsiders. An amazing number of gay Christians would love to simply go to church and not be an issue or a discussion point or a sermon topic.

There's our brainstormed "this is us" list. I don't see a lot of little bullet points though. I see a coherent picture. Now the question is how to let others, the ones who would like to find us, know who we are and how to find us.