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Jimmie Stewart Goes To Church
By Glenn A. Lucas
In the summer of 1993 I became the pastor of St. Paul Evangelical Lutheran Church in Los Angeles, CA. It was then and now an upper middle income and well educated black congregation. At the time we had a reputation for being bourgeois (not exactly a compliment in the black community). This elite attitude manifested itself in the way we received guests at the church. The ideal guest/potential member was a well dressed family with professional parents in their late twenties to early thirties with one to two children. When that family showed up it was warmly welcomed by everyone. The less than ideal guest/potential member was a low income single mother with one or more children who weren't so well dressed. This family while not ignored simply didn't fit in as well and rarely returned after their first visit. The congregation didn't respond the same way to the latter.
I observed this culture in the church during my first year there and brought it the attention of the elders, church council, and the vision team I had assembled. It was acknowledged as a reality and we determined that we would no longer be that kind of church. We confessed and repented publicly of such sin. Certainly, you've heard the saying, "Be careful what you pray for. You just might get it." I'm sure God chuckled even as he sent Jimmie Stewart to St. Paul within weeks of our determination to be a different church.
In 1939 Jimmie Stewart starred in Mr. Smith Goes To Washington. He played a naïve man appointed to the senate who fought and changed a culture of corruption. In 1995 Jimmie Stewart went to church at St. Paul. Of course, it wasn't the same Jimmie Stewart. Our Jimmie Stewart was a six foot tall, slightly over weight, moderately socially and mentally disabled man who lived in a group home in our community. God used him to change our culture.
I remember his first Sunday with us. He wore a light blue suit, a tight fitting dress shirt, and loosely knotted tie. When he signed the guest book (which he did every week), he wrote his name in two inch high letters, Jimmie Stewart, across the page. I was leading worship and during the responses in the liturgy and prayers there was one voice that was always a word or phrase behind. It was Jimmie. He couldn't read so he parroted the responses. It wasn't the first time he'd been to church but it was his first time with us. The best way to describe his initial reception at the church is to say it was neutral. He wasn't the first person to wander in from the community but they rarely came back and only sporadically. Jimmie didn't know that he wasn't expected back so the next week he returned, and the next, and the next. You get the picture. I learned later that he had attended other churches in the community but was quickly invited not to return after a couple visits.
During the ensuing weeks we learned a lot about Jimmie. He liked donuts, sugar and cream with a little coffee. (His caregivers soon asked us to regulate his intake of coffee and sugar because he was returning home hyped up.) He really liked pretty women; so much so, that during the service he would stand up and walk over to a woman new to him, extend his hand, and introduce himself, "I'm Jimmie Stewart," anytime during the service. Many times I had to say from the lectern, altar, or pulpit, "Not now Jimmie. Please sit down." His usual reply was, "Okay, pastor," but sometimes an elder had to escort him back to his seat. As he became a part of our community a few of the older women would corral him into a pew and sit with him during the service; if he managed to sit by himself the elders would watch to make sure he didn't disrupt the service too much; and the whole community policed his sugar intake.
A year after he started worshiping with us we received new members into our church. Jimmie was one of them. He often brought friends from the group home to church with him. One of his caregivers came to see what was going on and became a regular attendee at worship. He was a part of our community for several years until he moved back to Detroit to live with his mother.
Jimmie was the first fruits of a new culture that welcomed people as they were. We opened a preschool at about the same time as we received Jimmie into membership. Through that ministry we welcomed single mothers and their children. They were no longer invisible or less than welcome in the church. I had the privilege of baptizing many of those children and a few of the parents and see them mature in the faith and become servant leaders in the church. The culture in our church had changed. God sent Jimmie Stewart to St. Paul not so that we could teach him about Jesus but so that he could teach us about Jesus.
In working with churches I have yet to meet the second friendliest church in town but my experience has taught me that most churches have both an ideal and the less than ideal of what a member should look like. That ideal member is rooted in the very culture of the church and how it interacts with people. Many are not aware that they discriminate and don't do so consciously but that doesn't change the reality. It is important that a church monitor how its members interact with all guests of the ministry. Who is returning and who isn't? What is the basis for their decision to return or not? Remember the church isn't welcoming unless its guest say it is. A church can change its culture and may need to do so in order to be effective in outreach. |
