Not For Us.
Not long ago I read Dave Browning’s book Deliberate Simplicity: How the Church Does More by Doing Less.
In it, he tells the story of his church paving the parking lot. It was the early 90s, and their weekly attendance only ran about 50 people:
“One Sunday morning Pastor Steve Mason looked out the windows and noticed the vehicles in the parking lot, mostly four-wheel drives. The dirt lot was full of potholes and ruts. As Steve describes it, ‘The parking lot pretty much defined the constituency. If you didn’t have four-wheel drive, you weren’t going to be able to worship with us.’ Steve brought the issue up to the people, and the people became concerned. They decided to pave the lot, not for themselves but for those who were about to come. They had already proven that they would come to church with the parking lot in its current condition. They decided to pay the price for others.”
I love this story, because it’s the very essence of guest services in the local church. It led me down a rabbit hole of the other ways we pay the price for others:
- We train our volunteers, not because they need to know how to be friendly to their friends, but because they need to be intentional with outsiders.
- We choose inconvenience, parking away from the building and attending less-crowded services, to open up space for others.
- We break the huddle, temporarily giving up our existing friendships because we know weekends are for new friends.
- We explain ourselves, not because we don’t understand the shorthand of our worship services, but because we want our guests to feel like they do.
In the local church, a guest-friendly culture will always pave the lot. Not for us, but for those who haven’t yet showed up.
