Confessions of an Amoeba

"We're like Fort Apache," Wayne said. "They got us surrounded!"

Wayne is a faithful member of my congregation and a volunteer sexton. He and I often chew the fat over the future of our tiny little Lutheran parish--an island of Reformation theology adrift in a vast Roman sea. Faith Lutheran Church of Northeast Philadelphia is actually surrounded by six enormous Roman Catholic parishes, each claiming about nine thousand families. Additionally, we fall in the catchment area of at least two non-denominational evangelical mega-churches.

If the power and glory of Rome and the splash and flash of the megas isn't enough to pound us into insignificance, we have to deal with a rather unfortunate physical location. In a masterpiece of miscalculation, our founders placed us on a one-way street barricaded by a freeway and Interstate 95. We sit in full view of pretty much nothing at all, making our property an ideal location for drug deals, trash dumping, vandalism, and other assorted pestilence which plague the urban parish.

Now don't get me wrong. I love my parish, but I'll be the first to admit that the architecture--if you could call it that!--is a nightmare mixture of lousy fung shui and ghastly aesthetics. The upside is that the building is paid for, it costs relatively little to heat and cool, and it looks pretty full when you get about sixty people or so inside it (Our average Sunday worship attendance is in the low 90's). So, overall, I'd have to say that God has been very good to us. After fifty-two years, we've still kept the doors open. There are still kids in our Sunday School, and we still do the best we can.

Recently, our local non-denom mega-church, the Bethel Church of Franklin Mills, invited me to attend the Global Leadership Summit. This was a two-day satellite feed conference presented by Bill Hybel's Willow Creek Community Church outside of Chicago. I really enjoyed the summit, and I consider it one of the few continuing education events I've attended from which I actually learned something. However, being in the Bethel Church, a converted movie theatre with hundreds of seats which worships over 1,100 people each weekend, and watching the feed from the 7,000+ seat Willow Creek Church, gave me a bit of an inferiority complex. Who was I and how significant was my ministry compared to the fabulous success of these titans of the faith? I was but a pitiful amoeba, lost in the shadow of these behemoths of ecclesiastic grandeur.

Fortunately, Rob Tarnoviski, the senior pastor at Bethel Church and a very gracious host, reminded me, "We're not trying to build congregations, Owen. We're trying to build the Kingdom of God."

Okay. Good point.

Shortly thereafter, Cindie, a member of my parish and one of the cheeriest little Lutheran ladies one is likely to encounter, told me a story about a recent visit she had made to a new couple in our congregation. Jason and Doug live in South Philly, but they commute all the way up to the Northeast every Sunday to worship with us. Jason's brother, Cindie tells me, worships with a non-denominational mega-church and can't understand why Jason makes the journey to our tiny Lutheran parish. The brother boasts that his church is filled with hundreds of people, has a team of pastors leading small groups, a terrific and professional praise band, and three giant projection screens which make everyone feel part of the service.

To which Jason replied, "But my pastor knows my name."

Well said, my friend. Jason reminds me that even though some people will crave the excitement and energy of the mega-church (or perhaps the anonymity, too), there will always be those who will yearn for the family feeling only the small parish can provide. I think of Mother Teresa's quote: "We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less fat without that missing drop."

I will never be a Bill Hybels or a Joel Osteen or a T.D. Jakes. But then, I am not called to be. I remind myself that what I am doing is what God has intended me to do. Where I serve is where God intends me to serve. And who I am--to the best of my sinful ability--is who God intends me to be.

"We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose."
                               Romans 8:28