Wired for Connection
Dear Church,
I’ve spent my entire professional career in churches. I have no experience in the boardroom or a for-profit, never perused the stacks of a law library or a medical school laboratory. I’ve only flirted with Silicon Valley in my head when I didn’t see that ministry road ahead clear enough to keep forward progress. I dreamed a little about the restaurant business, but alas I am utterly an “early bird,” so that was out. If I think about the one question most frequently asked of me in Texas, Washington D.C., California, and now Wyoming it’s most certainly, “how do I get involved, how do I get connected, how do I become a member, how do I belong?”
And, I get it. Each of us is “wired for connection,” as author Brene´ Brown contends. I believe it. I feel it. I experience it. I know WHY you ask me that question. I know WHY there are scores of church programs built around helping you get to know each other and feel like you can lay down some roots at church.
Lately, my response to that question is something along the lines of “ah, alas, there is no easy way, no hot-wire or trick, to getting connected. You’re just gonna have to do the good hard work of making some pals around here.” It’s a response that nobody really WANTS to hear, but it’s honest.
Yet, there is a way to make the road a little easier and maybe a little shorter. I suppose there is a trick. So, if you’re looking to connect, belong, fit in around here, my very practical suggestion to you is to volunteer! Join the altar guild, become an usher, learn to be a reader or acolyte, come and sing with the choir, plant flowers in the summertime or help up at the Chapel, join the finance committee, pray for people with the healing team, rock a baby in the nursery and give her mom and dad a break.
Volunteering at a church is not about getting the work done. It’s about connecting.
Becoming a functional part of the machine, a moving part that’s integrated with the other parts, and known! Don’t buy it? Give it a shot.
Love,
Jimmy
