Keeping the Back Door Open

by Lisa Creech Bledsoe

The more I place myself on common ground with people outside the church, the more our language inside the church strikes me as strange, or even scary. I was at a state conference of pastors and leaders and heard an entire presentation centered around churches working to "close the back door." When did the language of “closing the back door” show up in the church, and why? How did the notion of drawing people into our communities, and then locking all the exits, become standard operating procedure?

Does the church have something that we think might be stolen or vandalized? Is the effort to close the church’s back door driven by a desire to make sure the institution has enough captive workers to keep profit high, loss at a minimum, or to stay in operation?

On the church’s best day I think the phrase arises out of a desire to keep people from restlessly moving from one faith community to another, consuming the best of the buffet and never really experiencing spiritual growth or exercising their faith. But the simple fact is that the mission of the local church is not to perpetuate the institution, but to make disciples of Jesus (Matthew 28:19-20), even if those disciples never become attending, contributing members of that local church. When did we Jesus-followers decide that we would only take on God’s mission if there were a direct numerical benefit to the institution or the local congregation?

Recover the Mission
The way to retake this ground starts with a very simple idea: rather than continuing solely as a “come to us” institution, the church of Jesus Christ must also become a “go to them” people.
The reality is, people don't stay in one place as much as they used to. The back door to most churches is open whether we want it to be or not. So what does it look like to be a local church with an intentionally open back door? There are several keys to creating this kind of environment in our churches.

From NIMBY to Networks
Churches with a NIMBY, or “Not In My Back Yard” attitude, feel threatened that another church near them might “steal” members which they should be getting, or undercut program attendance by offering something better.

But one of the marvelous things about an open back door is that not only do we not feel threatened by other congregations doing Christ’s work around us, we don’t have to feel pressured into having something for everyone. Instead, we are freed to see other communities of faith as a tremendous resource, meaning we can have someone for everyone, even if that someone belongs to a different congregation.

All of the leaders in our congregation take off at least one Sunday every month. Once a month I worship or lead in another community of faith. Not only do I find this deeply refreshing, but it also means we are well-networked with other churches in our area. If you look out our back door, you will see a number of well-traveled paths between these churches, and we are all stronger because of it.

From Committees to Communities
Our church is also notable for the fact that we don’t have committees. What we have are communities – small relational networks or groups where the people are friends with each other, sometimes because of age and stage (new parents), a shared affinity (music), or even because they work for the same corporation. These communities are not only doing the work of leading the church in various areas, they also grow the church. The lead pastor or teacher is not the one responsible for “bringing in new families” or “doing the follow-up on visitors,” or even providing pastoral care for the entire congregation. Instead, a community will often make the connection with a visitor, naturally doing follow-up and giving care according to their ability.

Communities have permission to be on mission, and rarely need to “run anything by the pastor.” If an individual is struggling and sends out a cry for help, our first two questions are: With whom is this person connected? What does their community need to support him or her?

And because of our open back door, we might help someone who seems consistently at loose ends in our midst to comfortably follow the many tendrils we have connected with other communities of faith in order to find the experiences and relationships which will help them grow toward Christ.

From members to missionaries
Not incidentally, we also don’t have members. But we do have people on mission. When there are multiple entry and exit points to a community of faith, the people in the church have no trouble getting out on the field with Jesus. The whole body has a flowing, breathing feel.

In one new church plant I hired a worship leader who was also an incredible baseball coach with a gift for sharing Christ with the young boys on his teams. The teams he coached sometimes played on Sundays, and rather than condemning such a league (Have you done that before? I admit I have), or refusing to allow the worship leader to lead (Have you made 100% worship attendance mandatory for church leaders before? I admit I have), we made it our practice to “send out” our worship leader on a regular basis as a missionary to the ball field. The result was win-win: our worship team grew (it had to!), and the boys heard about Jesus.

Granted, this way of living with each other is necessarily messy and largely uncontrolled, and it certainly takes work and struggle. Our church looks more like a herd of cats than a well-oiled machine. But because we try to keep so many doors and windows open, we end up with lots of growing edges!

Christ called us to gather, and we do need some definition and boundaries. Not all structure is bad. But a structure that seeks to constrict and control by closing and locking all exits may be courting disaster. Instead, throw open a window or two. Hang around a church's open back door; you may be surprised at the Friend you meet there.