Communication is crucial in any church. If we get this wrong, then genuine care and growth cannot go forth.
But as you may have experienced, communication is increasingly harder in a fast-paced world.
So what are the problems that relate to the problem of communication?
The more people, the harder the communication
If the church continues to increase in number, it makes communication more complex. Each time you add a new person, it creates multiple communication lines.
For example, have a look at how communication lines grow exponentially when you add a new person:
2 = 1 line
5 = 10 lines
12 = 66 lines
Imagine what 100 people would look like? This is not saying that larger churches are wrong, but it is saying that communication will be naturally more difficult when you increase in size.
What this means is that if you are at a church where there are numerous communication lines it will mean that there are more people for you to try to get to know, and more people that you do not know.
They say that after 20 people communication gets difficult.
Now the question is : Am I supposed to know every single person in my church? Because if the answer is yes, then that will be difficult to do in a larger church.
The more people, the less communication with the pastor
The pastor is said to look over the souls of those in their charge. What if you have hundreds of people? Would you be able to get to know them well to look after them? Even in a church of 40 people that would be difficult.
So there are many churches where members say that they have never spoken to their pastor, or that there is no such communication with them one-to-one. The only interaction may be through a large screen or seeing them on stage giving a talk or shaking their hand at the end. The question is : Are they your pastor? How are they looking after you if there is no direct communication?
Monological teaching leads to less communication
The way that we do teaching breeds less communication. Many churches adopt a monological approach to teaching (sermon, homily) due to the size of the congregation. I can understand the pragmatic value in communicating to a large mass of people at once through one person. But it means that everyone isn’t communicating at that point.
Making the sermon more “dialogical” (asking questions, people reading out things, others sharing the microphone) does increase communication, but again it can only go so far. A true conversational discussion with a smaller group of people would increase communication tremendously.
Again, if the sermon is one that isn’t communicated well, then the whole teaching experience goes missing for that church service.
Buildings affect communication
The setup of a room can increase or decrease communication. When you walk into a traditional church building you’ll notice that all the pews face one way. Even when they encourage people to have a “chatting time” for 3 minutes before a sermon, it’s very difficult to turn around and face them on a pew. Things like the walls, the colours in the building do play a part in making someone open or closed to communication.
Some churches, to counter this, make church into a cafe-style setting, with small groups sitting together in rounded tables. That helps communication a bit, but can only go so far. Even when the service does end and people start to mingle, the setup of the building still makes it difficult to have conversation.
People hang around pews or stand in the aisles. It’s not ideal.
In short, conventional church buildings scream “no communication in here please.”
Communication is generally shallow
Just the sheer way we do church is not conventional. First off, there is the “formal part”, which some would say is the meat of the church event. There is the sermon and the singing or notices. Mostly you will not be communicating with someone else for that hour or so. You may be singing but everyone is singing facing a big screen. Not to each other. The idea is to be as quiet as possible in order to help the small amount at the front communicate to you.
Then, the “informal part” of church begins with people chatting over coffee and such. Usually this part of church can range from a couple of minutes to about an hour. A lot of people do leave church straight after the formal part, but there are some that hang around.
When you are there, the communication is generally “shallow” about the weather or football. Talking about theological things or really opening up rarely happens. The simple reason is that there are just too many people around and again, the setting of the building doesn’t help. On top of this, it’s hard to communicate deeply with people you don’t really know.
Church is too short for good communication
The lack of time spent doesn’t conduce to great communication. At most, services go for 3 hours. And even that only happens once a week. It’s difficult to get a good roll on with your communication if it’s not frequent enough.
Because the service is so short people instinctively know not to get into deep conversations.
It may be considered rude to start one with John Jones, knowing he is on his way out the door. Now some may say that they need to get back to their own homes as they have enough things to do. But I would ask, “why wouldn’t you want to spend more time with your church?” Just the shortness of church will equal less communication and that of a poorer quality.
If we are going to do church well we need to communicate well. But I believe the current way does not conduce itself to good communication. Things need to be les formal, more frequent, more family-like, and less facility-like. We may have to radically change what “church” looks like in order for all people to be able to communicate well to everybody there.