First Church of Wal-Mart and NASCAR, Parking Lot Campus
Posted by Shannon on March 9, 2008
With the late winter blast that left many parts of Kentucky covered in snow from between 4 to 8 inches, many churches in the south central region of Kentucky opted to cancel services. Early this morning, it was probably a wise decision as some back roads in some parts of the region were still covered with snow. We even opted to cancel evening services. These were all smart moves.
But, I noticed something as I was driving from church back to Wilmore. Along the route that I take back home, I have to pass a Wal-Mart shopping center. It was roughly noon and the parking lot was full as if it was a beautiful day and there was no snow on the ground. In other words, there was enough snow to keep people from church, but not enough to keep them from Wal-Mart. The economy thanks them, I suppose.
However, it got me thinking in my anger of “why is the Wal-Mart parking lot full and the church parking lot bare?” Maybe we need to do something to change how we minister to people on Sunday mornings. Of course, some people have addressed this for years by offering Saturday night services, 8:30 a.m., services, 9:45 a.m., services, or even late Sunday night services. But, I’m thinking of something totally different.
Why not offer services where the people are on Sundays? Why not offer a place in the parking lot to reach the masses?
Or even take it a step further. Why not have a church in the parking lot of a NASCAR race or a NFL contest? There are ministries that are geared towards the participants (such as drivers, players, etc.) but I rarely see any that reach out to the fans in the infield?
What I’m getting at is we, as a church, need to make changes in how we are the church. No longer can we be so focused on a programmatic approach to attracting people to Christ. We must be authentically relational and incarnational in our approach. We need to get our hands dirty.
Too often, myself included, sit on our hands and wait for the people to come to us. It’s time for the church to go on a road swing and go to the people and be real about the love of Christ. And if it means changing out things “have always been done” then so be it. Adhering too much to tradition can be a bad thing anyway because it prevents changes that are needed to prosper and grow. Maybe that’s why we are in the position we are in as a church today with congregations slowly losing members and the faith of the North American church seemingly to be stuck in mud and not going anywhere.
Regardless of what we do or how we do it, we have to change the mindset of the American church and we have a long road ahead of us.
