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My dream for Southern Baptists

Here is the dream. A dozen or so pastors get together online and hang out. Each one of them knows he must change or die. You might discuss this book together. You might discuss what is happening in terms of music at your church together. You might discuss how you are dabbling and experimenting with home groups. You might pray together. You might watch an Andy Stanley podcast and then discuss it together.

You are all encouraged to invite your friends. When the group gets too large you divide—keeping groups around the size of Jesus’ group, around 12. Over time the groups become more and more specialized. Over time the groups have more and more in common.

Each church is a center of innovation. Perhaps not capital-I innovation, but little-i innovation. Each church is trying one hundred things to discover what might work in their setting in this generation. Occasionally, each will find something. We will try lots of stuff, and keep what works. But, here is how the groups can help. I don’t have time to try everything. We need everyone trying and failing and swapping stories about what works and what doesn’t.

For example, we have had a few small wins at our church. In another life, I am a wedding photographer. So, I had this idea to do a mother and child photo shoot on Mother’s Day. I set up the lighting and a backdrop and we invite moms and their kids to take pictures. The church provides one 8 x 10 and all of the pictures in digital format.

It has been a huge hit. We have had quite a number of people come to church on this Sunday to get their pictures taken.

One more. In a previous life, I played a little bit on the piano. Note the word little. A year and a half or so ago, my Minister of Music was warming up. He leads with a guitar. I know a little guitar as well. I had an idea. I love ideas. In retrospect, I believe the Lord gave me this idea. I thought, “what if I were to play along with Wayne on the piano.” I know Wayne, like a lot of guitarists, only actually plays a handful of chords. When I play piano, I play like a guitarist. I don’t read notes, I only play chords. It occurred to me that my style of playing the piano, could dovetail with Wayne’s style of playing the guitar.

There is a funny thing about music. You notice this in choirs. You can take 20 singers, none of whom sing very well, and put them in a choir. Somehow, magically they sound okay. You would not want to listen to any of them sing a solo, but somehow when they all sing together they sound much better than any of them would sound alone.

I was thinking that the same dynamic would be true with Wayne playing the guitar and me playing the piano. We have added a couple more singers and the music is substantially better. The music from all of us is far better than the music would be from any of us.

One of the things that small churches struggle with, is just to get enough sound in the room. If there is enough sound in the room, people sing out and there is still more sound. People don’t like to hear themselves singing, so if there is not enough sound in the room they will sing very quietly, if at all.

With Wayne playing guitar and singing, me playing piano and singing, and a couple more people singing, we start to get the critical mass of getting enough sound in the room that the congregation as a whole sings out. After a while, I bought a new electronic keyboard that has an arranger feature. It actually plays along with you, reading the chords that you play and providing an accompaniment complete with drums, guitars, strings, and so forth. Enough about me.

Now, I am guessing this whole story is actually not that interesting to you because in your church you have plenty of musicians. You likely have paid musicians that are far more skilled than I will ever be. But, if you are a pastor of a church of 30 farmers in the country this story might be interesting. You might like to ask me questions. You might like to ask if it is possible for someone who doesn’t play the piano all that well to contribute in this way. You might like to know more about that technology of the arranger keyboard. You might like to hear about my sons’ church that use the background tracks discussed in the chapter on music. My guess is if you are the pastor of a small church you are interested in any ideas to make the music better in your church. Music is one of those things where the larger the church the better it is. And, generally speaking, the smaller the church, the worse it is. If you are the pastor of a small church you are likely desperate to know about ideas that will make the music in your church better.

My previous church experience was on staff at a middle-sized church that was trying to learn from Saddleback and Willow Creek. We would have loved to fellowship with churches that were in a similar situation. We didn’t really have that much in common with new churches that were pure Saddleback or Willow Creek models. But, we didn’t feel all that much rapport with churches that hated Saddleback and Willow Creek. We would have loved to have fellowship with churches that were like ours.

I’d like to give you an assignment. I’d invite you to start a Facebook group of like-minded pastors. Get familiar with the technology of Google hangouts. Talk about how you are innovating, experimenting, dabbling, experimenting, growing, and learning. Swap ideas. Talk about what is working and what is not.