Opening Doors5 min read

This summer, our congregation has, quite literally, opened some new doors. God has blessed us, between our church and our school, with two distinct and separate locations for ministry. Our historic church building is located downtown, while our school building, which houses both our K-8 school and our Early Childhood Center, is located in a residential neighborhood approximately 10 minutes from downtown. In each location, we recently installed some brand-new doors.

For decades, one of the more visible features of our downtown location was a set of bright red wooden doors, which served as the main entrance to our building. As a result, our church was known by many in the community as the “church with the red doors,” a designation which had become a source of pride to many of our members over the years. Recently, however, we made the decision to replace our aging red doors, largely for safety and security reasons, with glass doors. The old doors had become challenging to lock and unlock at times, and they did not always latch reliably. In addition, particularly because of our downtown location and foot traffic, we came to recognize that it would serve our members well to be able to see what was on the other side of the door before exiting, rather than having to exit blindly.

At the same time, our new glass doors are giving us the opportunity to be reminded that, not only do they allow our members to see outside, but they allow those on the outside to see inside our building. It can feel intimidating to enter a building when you’ve never been inside, and you can’t see what’s on the other side of the door. While our old doors were certainly recognizable, they sometimes caused our building to feel a little bit like a fortress. Fortresses can appear impressive, maybe even beautiful, but they don’t necessarily feel inviting or welcoming. It is our hope that our new doors will help our congregation to convey to our community that they are welcome inside and, in addition, help our members to enter our community with greater boldness and courage.

At our school building across town, we also recently opened some new doors. An important part of our congregation’s five-year vision is to bring some much-needed unity to our church and school staff by providing space for our church staff in our school building. This is also intended to serve the goal of building up our ministry to our school families (many of which are unchurched), which has long been our congregation’s core ministry. In order to accomplish this, one of our classrooms was designated and, thanks to the dedication of some amazing volunteers, divided into multiple office spaces.

Beginning this school year, one of those spaces, behind another new door, now serves as the pastor’s school office. A second space, behind yet another new door, sits empty for now. It is waiting to be filled by a future family-focused staff person whom God has not yet provided. A third, larger space houses our church office manager several mornings each week. It also serves as a meeting space, as well as a small gathering place for staff, school parents, students, and church members. During the school day, the door to this larger space (which is not brand new but did receive a new coat of paint) stands open. That open doorway, into our main school hallway, is intended as an invitation to enter, to say hello, or to ask for help. It also allows our church staff to see and more easily interact with our students, parents, and school staff walking by in the hallway.

While both sets of new doors will take some getting used to for our members, our prayer as a congregation is that they will, in turn, open more doors, both to our downtown community and to our school community. Establishing new doorways—or repurposing old ones—may push us out of our comfort zone a bit, but doing so also provides some new opportunities for ministry. In our case, those opportunities were already there, but our new doors are now helping us to see them a little bit more clearly.

As I suspect is true for many of our District and Synod congregations, our congregation is not what it used to be. Our numbers, both church and school, are significantly smaller than they have been for much of our congregation’s history. At times, that can be discouraging, particularly for our members who have spent much, if not all, of their lives here. It can be tempting to think, or even to pray, “If only we could get back to what we once were!” Those were the days!

As I was beginning my ministry here, I felt compelled to tell our congregation that I believe our best days are, in fact, still ahead of us and not behind us. I also told our congregation, however, that I suspect the future isn’t going to look quite like the past. Not quite three years later, I stand by both statements. One of our biggest challenges, I believe—and I’m sharing this in the event that the same is true for you and your congregation—will continue to be to focus less upon what we used to be and more upon what God is calling us to be right now and into the future. But as long as He is leading us, it’s okay—even exciting—if the future looks a little bit different.

It is much easier, of course, to see what’s behind us. It is much more difficult and uncertain to see what’s ahead of us, to walk through a new and unfamiliar doorway. Doing so requires us to trust that our gracious Lord goes before us. Even better, He’s already there, waiting to help us embrace whatever challenges, opportunities, and surprises may lie on the other side of the door.

_{Photos courtesy of Trinity, Jackson}