A few weeks ago, my husband and I drove over to Landover, Maryland and into the parking lot of what used to be the Hechinger home improvement store. While the shell remained, the guts of the building had become the site of a fast-growing church called First Baptist Church of Glenarden, and while First Baptist has moved into a larger sanctuary seven miles up the road, the old Hechinger's building functions as a second campus for the church. The building is a marvel, not just in terms of finding new uses for abandoned retail spaces, but for the thriving, passionate church community that arose inside of it and whose members I encountered as we crossed the threshold on this particular Tuesday night to witness the baptism of our seven year old nephew. We were greeted warmly with kind words, firm handshakes, and, in several cases, hugs. As we made our way back to the baptismal chapel, I could smell the chlorine in the full-immersion baptismal font that was about half the size of a lap pool.
The room was packed, save for about 50 empty reserved seats off to the right side of the room. We joined my family and not a minute too soon as the various ministers and deacons assembled at the front of the room and we began singing a medley of hymns. There weren't any hymnals as most people knew the words, and if you didn't, you soon picked them up and joined the chorus. As we concluded the last verse of the last hymn, my sister grabbed my arm to tell me that her son and the others to be baptized were entering the room. Clad in white t-shirts, white sweatpants, and white socks, these 50 or so boys, girls, men, and women entered swiftly and softly, as if on cat paws. They took their seats and soon, one by one, they made their way up the steps to the baptismal font, stating their name and their belief that Christ had died to take away their sins. They then stepped down into the water where ministers gently submerged them in the waters of baptism. They emerged soaking wet and beaming, with a cadre of volunteers enveloping them in white towels and leading them down the steps, down the carpeted aisle that had been covered in thick plastic for the occasion and down to a warm dressing room. Once our nephew had made his way down the aisle to my sister and I, she signaled that we could all leave as families of the yet-to-be-baptized were waiting in the hallway and standing along the walls.
I heard that around 70 people had been baptized that night. That's an astonishing number considering the continuing downward membership rolls of mainline Christianity in the United States. At my own church, 70 baptisms in one day would trigger a visit from the Presiding Bishop and the entire House of Bishops, as well as coverage on the 11pm local news, and a write-up by The Washington Post and the New York Times. And a packed sanctuary on a Tuesday night? Well, that would be its own miracle.
I must admit to a little evangelism envy. When you see churches with thousands of people in attendance on a Sunday morning and hundreds of those people committing to and showing up for worship, committee meetings and Bible study throughout the work week, it's hard not to measure your own church against theirs and to ask "what are we doing wrong?" But, as the former dean of my university chapel used to warn us preaching students, I have to be careful lest I substitute heat for light. While large numbers are seductive - I mean, who doesn't want to be at a party where everyone else seems to be? - they are not the sole measure of the health of a congregation. The question, to quote a line from an old spiritual, is have you got good religion? So, if numbers, alone, aren't an accurate barometer of the state of your congregation, the level of engagement that each parishioner feels should be another component to add to the mix. In his book, Growing an Engaged Church, Albert L. Winseman defines "engagement" as:
emotional at its root, and the emotional commitment is a state of “being” that leads to rational commitment, which then leads to right “doing.”
In my personal experience at the parish and pastoral level, I define engagement as that sense of connection to the mission of your church and to the individual members of your church. Engagement exists at so many levels - it can mean greeting a parishioner when you run into them outside of church, or showing up at the hospital room of a parishioner undergoing tests just to pray with them. But, engagement is not evangelism, rather, engagement is a part of the foundation on which evangelism is built. An engaged parishioner doesn't just show up for church on Sunday, they delight in the deep connection that they experience in worshiping in their church community. They pray for each other and check in on each other because they are a family of faith. Needless to say, my sister's church has a lot of parishioners who experience high levels of engagement to their church and its people. But, engagement is hard to achieve because it requires vulnerability and trust and faith. It requires that I shed all of the things that serve as a barrier between me and the person sitting in the pew next to me and get real. It is standing up and saying to the fellow parishioner who you run into at the grocery store, "Please pray for me," and having them respond, "Let's pray together right now." When our dad was sick and in the hospital, random people from my sister's church would stop in and pray with us in his room. Some were there to visit with their own relatives, and stopped in afterwards, but others came especially to see Dad and to visit with us. This is engagement, and this is the answer to the question of how so many people could come to a church on a Tuesday night. So, have you got good religion?
