A Fusion System

"Fusion" is the title of one of the books I pulled off my shelf a couple weeks ago.  I had it in my library...I mean, I remember ordering it months back, but for some reason, it rose to the top of the stack when I was scanning my library the other day.  I love fusion.  Jazz fusion that is.  The blending of rock, funk, R&B elements with the freedom and wild, barely dissonant harmonics of jazz chord phrasings and improvisation.  Put it all together in a creative blend, and you have music that has a familiar, even catchy hook, but that takes the listener on a musical journey that pushes the boundary outward without fully breaking out of the box.  That's what I think I like about jazz fusion.  It creates a "box" all of its own, which sounds familiar enough to keep you interested, but when you decide to listen further, you find yourself on a musical adventure that pushes you to the fringes.  It all depends, of course, on the skill of the lead musician.  

I used to listen to the legendary tenor sax player, Michael Brecker.  I still do from time to time, whenever I'm in the mood for simply being "wow-ed" by a saxophone virtuoso.  Michael Brecker passed away a few years back, but everyone remembers his musical legacy.  He had a way of improvising that left you dumbfounded.  I'm not even talking about his straight-ahead jazz projects.  I'm talking about the soul, funk, blues stuff that he used to do.  His solos, woven together through some pretty basic blues/rock chord progressions, would push the envelope just enough to make you want more.  In other words, while the musical chord progressions were something quite familiar to the listener, Brecker's solos would start out within what made sense musically, and then he would develop them in a way that moved you just beyond the fringes.  And just when you thought he was getting a little too "chaotic" or beyond what was tolerable, he would take you right back into the flow of things.  Just that little trip to the outer realm or border of that song was what kept me rewinding the CD, listening again and again to his phenomenal artistry.  

OK, back to the book.  While the main title of the book made me think about the kind of music I have loved for years, the book was actually about "hospitality and stewardship".  The full title is, "Fusion: Turning First-Time Guests Into Fully Engaged Members of Your Church".

Not exactly related to jazz-fusion in the very least.  The book highlights the importance of a well-functioning assimilation system for the local church.  Or, the system for how a church moves its guests week in and week out from being first-time attenders, to second time attenders, to regular attenders, to fully participating "partners" or members of the church.  

Of the many ideas the book presents regarding the "first impressions" of any given local church, one that caught my attention was the "7 Minute Rule".  In essence, this rule says that, on average, the people that come to your church for the first time make their decision as to whether they will come back again OR NOT within the first 7 minutes of stepping foot onto the church property.  That's because to a first time attender, who presumably has not been to church before, or has not been to church for a long time, everything communicates.  Everything from how well the grounds are kept, to whether there is adequate signage to help them orient to the facility, to whether there are friendly people showing respect and making them feel at home.  And all of this happens before they even hear the praise team sing or the preacher preach.  By the time they are seated in the pew, they've already subconsciously made a decision about whether they would come back or not. 

Fascinating.  So, from a numbers perspective, let's say over the course of one year, we grew as a church from 150 to 170 members.  So, we added 20 new members to the congregation in one year.  But the church records show that we had over 150 first-time visitors to the church during the course of that same year.  That's about a 14% retention rate.  What happened to the other 130?  While there are probably a whole lot of good reasons the 130 didn't return for a second visit or become a member of the church, the bottom line is that most of them probably fell through the cracks.  Or more particularly, the church did not have an adequate follow-up system to invite them, connect with them, and encourage them to further participate in the life of the congregation.  So, they moved on.  No harm, no foul, no blood, no ambulance, and no growth.

But what if...What if these 150 people were actually results of God bringing people in through the front doors of our church?  No matter how they came, what if they were God's gifts to us?  What if God expected us to be more hospitable, and better stewards of these new attenders?  And what if, by being better stewards of these new people, we boosted the retention rate from 14% to 50%?  I know, it's a numbers game of sorts.  But the numbers can actually mean something if we put it in the right perspective.  The numbers could actually reflect that we are becoming better stewards of the people God is sending our way.  

Actually, the first thought that came to me when I started seeing it like this was, "Lord, I repent".  I repent for neglecting the "gifts" of people that you've been bringing to us.  The neglect, of course, was not a personal or intentional one.  It was the neglect that creeps up on you when you start becoming "inward-focused".  Only then did it occur to me that one of the ways in which our church can start becoming more outward-focused is by changing the way it treats new attenders.  Sure, there's a community "out there" to reach.   But maybe God is telling us to start in our "Jerusalem" with the people that, without any real evangelistic effort on our part, He is bringing to our church week in and week out.  

So, in the end, I think there is some similarity between a Michael Brecker solo and the assimilation system of a local congregation.  In the same way that jazz-fusion artists like Brecker play their solos within a set "system" of basic chord progressions, so too, the local church needs a basic system in place in which to "assimilate" or "blend" if you will, new attenders with the local culture of that congregation.  Ultimately, this blending or fusing is about making disciples and fulfilling Christ's commission.  So this basic system of assimilation needs to point to that end.  But regardless, without such a system, new attenders will continue to fend for themselves and fall through the gaps.  And we will continue to steward poorly the people God sends to us.   

Furthermore, in the unique way in which a Michael Brecker solo pushes the envelope and points the listener outward toward the fringe of the musical limits, any of the already committed members of a local church can embrace an attitude, intentionalize and action, and take a step of faith toward the fringes within the very congregation they are a part of.  

The way they do this is simply by taking on a mentality that they will be intentionally hospitable, respectful, helpful and appropriately friendly to any new attender on any given Sunday.   Easier said than done, I know.  

But a system is just that...a functional process by which some purpose can be accomplished.  It cannot and will not work without people.  It will not work without leaders who initiate it, administrators who maintain it, and implementers that try it, evaluate it, improve it, and apply it consistently till it becomes part of the DNA of that church.  So here's another take on the question of what we're all about at New Life Center.

It's all about Jesus, right?  Right.  It's also all about people.  Stewarding the gifts of people that God gives us as a church.  It's about fusion.  It's about the "jazz" of assimilation in the local church...the fusing of new people into the life of a community of Christ-followers called the church.   Fusion...I like it.  Sounds like it could become another core value for our church.  I think I'm in the mood to listen to some now...