I saw this over the weekend from a church in Eagle Rock, Calif., about eight miles outside of downtown Los Angeles. Christian Assembly has been in Eagle Rock for decades and although the size of the church community has grown substantially, they refuse to move or expand their current “campus” (if that’s what you call a cluster of rag-tag houses, mobile dwellings and offices crammed into a corner lot, steps away from a busy street). The sanctuary looks the same today as it probably did 30 years ago, including the carpet and pews. Love it.
In their weekly bulletin, which includes announcements, a ministry spotlight, sermon notes, a financial summary and core values, there was a section titled “How we play nice at [Christian Assembly].”
- How we play nice at Christian Assembly
- 1. We park at the mall because we don’t want to upset our neighbors by blocking driveways or crowding streets.
- 2. We are a big family so we wear name tags.
- 3. We give up any saved seats at the greeting time because admit it, they aren’t coming.
- 4. We reserve the last two rows of the section in front of the upper room for parents accompanied by small children… they might need a quick exit.
- 5. In our church family everybody serves in some way.
I’m drawn to this simple approach to remind people about how to behave. It may be a little juvenile to some, but I think it has an appropriate dose of pant-kicking persuasion.
Adam Rushlow
August 4, 2009
Cool thought. I like the approach too. The church we attend now is a very “considerate” church. We decided to stay there when we were searching for a place because of this very reason.
Christians need to play nice a lot more often.
Jim
August 4, 2009
when you sit in the same place every Sunday and then visitors show up and take your row and your family has to move…we kind of enjoy it…breaks up the monotony…
Brian
August 4, 2009
Great stuff.
We ditched the name tags because we had some people who refused to wear them and it ended up being more of a distraction than anything. We might bring them back in the future, though, if God grants us that kind of growth.
I love watching the faces of people who have to find a different place to sit. Some don’t mind, some hate it (and it causes me to wonder about their heart for reaching new people…).
And we do the reserving the last rows thing also. I think it’s courteous to families with small kiddos, as well as to late-comers who don’t want to have to walk down to the front after the service has started.