Welcome to the Sardis Experiment

I want to tell you a story about a church as it nears its thirtieth birthday. It’s a healthy church, or at least, it fits my definition of healthy. Its debts are paid. All of them. It owns its building and property outright. Its budget is met faithfully every year. Its committees have been filled with relative ease. It has five staff members, all devoted and called to its mission, and all collegial – actually better than collegial – friends who love and respect one another, and challenge one another, too. It gives faithfully to missions in Charlotte and beyond. In the last twelve months, it has had direct involvement with more than two dozen organizations seeking to do good in the world.

Its community members care for one another: they feed each other; they contemplate theology and life; they sing with one another, and laugh with one another, and grieve with one another; and pray for another. Lay and clergy plan worship together, and lead worship together. And lay and clergy go and do good in the world: for God, and for neighbor. And people feel safe to be themselves.

All are welcome at their table. All are encouraged to ask questions, and seek the path that works for them. And special events are acknowledged for every individual: dedications, baptisms, graduations, ordinations, weddings, funerals, retirements and other special events are all recognized in intimate and personal ways. And worship is a gift, not a presentation or performance.

It’s a church that gets a lot of things right. And to be fair, it gets a few things wrong, too. But what it does, it does together. And there are stories of healing here – that means that people are able to surprise one another; it means people can love one another, and hurt one another, and forgive one another, and love one another again; it means that people can disagree, and dissent, and even annoy one another, and STILL see each other as children of God.

I’m describing a group of people, a healthy group of people who minister to and for one another. And I’m describing a group of people, who believe, really believe, that individual and collective acts of love and justice can bring about God’s world, and all of its possibilities.

But we live in a show-me world. And we live in a world that has too many preconceptions of what it means to be a healthy, vibrant, and relevant house of faith.

We are Sardis Baptist Church. And we’re tucked away from the road – if you pass us, you may not even notice we’re here. We’ve got about a hundred active members, and not a ton of likes on Facebook, and no full-time staff, and no fancy holograms to beam the gospel to parts unknown. And because we’re not so visible, or maybe because we’re a place where you can’t be invisible if you visit, you’ll drive on by, looking for a bigger steeple, or a more programmatic house of worship.

But if you’ll give us a chance, we’d like to tell you our story. We think it’s a good one. And it’s a story we’d love for you to be a part of, because it’s not one we want to hide. We want to tell you about a healthy church, a loving church, an open church, a church for 2018.

Introducing, the Sardis Experiment, a blog with stories about our church family, anecdotes from a small-church pastor, and reflections on sacred texts.

Check back regularly at http://sardisbaptistcharlotte.org/blog