I first made this discovery at work but then noticed it in my own life.
As you can imagine, I’m a little schizophrenic at the National Youth Workers Convention. I hold several different roles simultaneously, which keeps me constantly moving and shifting from one role to another. And during our general session– I’m all over the place in that room. I’m welcoming people as they come in. I’m backstage saying hello (and thank you) to our speakers and artists. I’m making sure we’re capturing all the media we’ll need for the next year. On and on.
The net result is that I’m typically working during the entire general session… I have to be very intentional about sitting down and listening to the speaker. (This year I need to listen to the speaker since I’m interviewing them right after their talk with some follow-up questions.) It’s a crazy transition to have my mind moving at a million miles per hour and then to just sit down and listen at 100-120 words per minute.
It’s in that hectic, moving about the room, that I made this discovery.
There’s a big group of people who willfully don’t sit in chairs during general sessions. It really is like a middle school dance. The vast majority of the people are having a good time, laughing and dancing and highly engaged in what happens on the stage. And the “teachers” are all hanging out on the fringes loosely engaged at what is going on– but firmly in observation mode. My movement around the room is completely invisible to those engaged in the general session. But to those who are just observing on the outside, utterly disengaged, they watch me. They wave at me. They wave me over to say hello.
Those observing and not engaging are present but not connected. The implication is that the session isn’t for them… they are just present.
That discovery has haunted me the for weeks as I realize how many times I slip into observation mode during church.
- I engage in worship, but disengage during the message.
- I engage during the social times, but disengage during communion.
- I engage when we do announcements in Spanish, but disengage when they are given in English.
Sure, I don’t sit in the back of the room. But I willfully disengage as if to say, “This isn’t for me.”
Problem #1
This habit of disengaging began as I worked at churches. Much like I have to work during general sessions at NYWC, most people who work at churches are working during the church service. Sure, the staff may be present… but they often have a million things on their mind. They are thinking about the lesson they just taught or are about to teach, or what they will say when they have to go up front, or keeping their head up to make sure that stragglers make it back in the room… if they are gone too long they feel they ought to go see what’s going on.
The end result is that few people who work at church ever get to fully participate in church.
Problem #2
Problem #1 leaves us with a pretty strong contradiction. We want to create an atmosphere where people engage with God and yet our staff is utterly unable to do so in the same space. So, our actions are actually teaching people that if they want to be leaders in our ministry they need to be really good at looking engaged when, in fact, they are merely observing.
The end result is that our actions are teaching people that in order to be a leader you need to be able to disengage at church.
