​A new face is looking out from the pulpit these days at Westminster Presbyterian Church. And it’s not necessarily the face you’d expect. A few weeks ago, having recently arrived in Auburn, I was running some errands when someone asked what had brought me to the Finger Lakes area. After I told her that I had been called as Westminster’s new pastor, she looked at me quizzically and said—perhaps with a little more candor than intended—“Oh, I guess I usually think of pastors as old and wise.”
I’m neither, I suppose.
It’s a comment I’ll probably be hearing a lot. And it’s true: I am young. Probably not as young as you think I am, but still young. I’m 31 years old, and that’s young for the church these days. Almost one in four Americans identify with no religion at all, and that number jumps up to 35 percent when talking with my generation of Millennials (those born between 1981 and 1996). Even fewer go to church on a regular basis. At its best, church is regarded by many with indifference—useful perhaps for its nursery school and special holidays, a gathering of decent but not particularly exciting people. At its worst, church is seen as (and unfortunately often is) an insular and stuffy social club built on the back of economic and racial divisions, a bulwark that has hurt and excluded, an anti-science, anti-equality, anti-thinking (anti-fun?) relic of the past.
So what am I—a young person passionate about social justice and the arts, the son of public school teachers, an ally of the LGBTQ community (and a proud Eagle Scout), a feminist and community organizer, an avid hiker, a fan of Bob Dylan, Dar Williams, and Mumford and Sons—doing here?
I could say I’ve been called by God, which is true (I hope). But we in the church use that phrase so much that I’m not sure we still know what it means.
I suppose the simplest answer is that I’m here because I’m in love. And people do crazy things for love.
I’m in love with a scarred and messy God who took on flesh to walk among us, who suffers when we suffer, who stands with the poor and the abused, who will turn the world upside down to find us who are lost. I’m in love with a God I met first as a boy scrambling through woods and then later as a young man kneeling at the side of a hospital bed or as a chaplain in a prison. I’m in love with a God who loved and knew me, without condition, before I could even say the word love.
I’m also in love with a church—Westminster—which, while by no means perfect, is eager to swing wide its doors and embrace this community. I’m in love with a church that you can call home, a place where you’ll know you’re wanted and cared for, a group of people who want to use our God-given brains and intuition as we wrestle with some of life’s hardest questions. I’m in love with a church that invites me, through music and worship, through conversation and mission, through children’s and youth programming, to live life more passionately and for the sake of others.
There’s no doubt that Westminster has a long way to go before it achieves this vision; I’m not sure we’ll ever completely get there. After all, we’re just people—flawed, messy, beautiful people. But this church has a fire in its bones to be more . . . and, in a society that asks no more of us than what’s in our wallet, I love that.
I’m also beginning to fall in love with the community of Auburn—with its neighboring lakes and woods, with a hardy and welcoming people who continue to dream and labor for a better life in spite of some devastating losses, embodied in the husks of the once buzzing factories and manufacturing plants that pepper Auburn’s landscape. This community has lost jobs, has lost people, has faced truly hard times, and yet, I have encountered more smiles, more love, more strength, than I can recount.
And now I get to be a part of all that. This place is going to change me. It’s going to show me God.
And I guess that’s a pretty good reason to be here.
 
Rev. Patrick David Heery is the pastor of Westminster Presbyterian Church and the former editor of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s denominational magazine Presbyterians Today. A graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary, Patrick lives in Auburn with his wife, Jenna, and their two dogs, spending much of their free time hiking the countryside.
 
 
 

“Our doors are open” reads a sign that often stands in front of our church. It is meant to be literal and figurative, both as a sign to “come on in!” and also a message that we are open to everyone of all ages, race, sexual identities, economic levels, faith understandings and family configurations. There’s probably not a church anywhere that doesn’t say something of this sort; all churches claim they welcome everyone.
I saw a post on Twitter a few months ago by a blogger who was looking for photos of churches with open doors. But she was specifically looking for photos of churches with their doors opening out, looking from the inside out. She had googled “open church doors” and discovered many lovely photos of churches with their doors open, all looking welcoming and inviting. But she noticed that the perspective of all these pictures was of people going in, not of church members going out. She asked for churches to send her photos of church doors opening to the outside, and she posted them under the hashtag #openchurchdoors. I sent a photo of my church, Westminster Presbyterian, which she included in her project, and which I’ve attached here.
Her project made me think. It’s true that most churches spend a great deal of time and energy thinking about attracting visitors. “If only we had more people in worship,” we say. “What can we do to attract young families?” we ask. “Remember the old days, when the pews were full,” we say. Now, there is nothing wrong with wanting to share our church with others. In fact, it is a good thing, and I’d be the first to say that the worship, fellowship and educational opportunities at my church are wonderful and worthy of checking out. But if all we do is wait for people to come through our doors, then we are missing the point of what Christian life is about.
Jesus’ commandment to his followers was very simple: “Love one another.” Over and over, he repeated this message in many ways: “Love your neighbor.” “Feed the hungry.” “Comfort the grieving.” “Clothe the naked.” “Heal the sick.” All his instructions were very direct: Do something! There are very few stories of Jesus in church (in the temple, that is), and the few there are end badly, with Jesus saying something that irritated the faithful and enraged the church leaders. Jesus did most of his preaching out where the people were, on the beach, on the hillside, in the streets, in the poor areas or in friends’ homes.
Churchy people have terms for these different perspectives — churches are either “attractional” or “missional.” The “attractional” model tends to focus on programming (more classes and groups, better music, etc.) in the hopes of making the church experience better for its members and more likely to draw people in. The “missional” model says “get outside your doors and be active in your community, developing relationships with people where they are and helping and serving others.” Attractional churches tend to be internally focused; missional churches tend to be externally focused.
The irony, we are told, is that churches that shift their perspective from internal to external are churches that will grow. Churches that focus more on meeting the needs of others than on meeting the needs of themselves will thrive. On the extreme end, some modern churches abandon their buildings and take to the streets, worshiping in public places and doing more mission and service work than programming.
I admit that I’m somewhere in the middle between being an internally and externally oriented Christian. I love the worship and education at Westminster, and I believe that we need collective worship and faith formation to nurture the spiritual growth that helps us to go out and live our faith. I also believe that our building is a house of God which serves the community in many ways. But I also know that our real call as Christians is to follow Christ’s example to serve others and to love our neighbors, and that requires walking the walk outside the church doors every day of our lives.
So, I invite you to “come on in” to Westminster or any other church in our community, but also to “get out there” and serve others outside the church walls. Church doors open both ways.
Jill Fandrich is a ruling elder and clerk of session at Westminster Presbyterian Church, 17 William St., Auburn, where she edits the newsletter, church website (westminsterauburn.org) and Facebook and Twitter pages.