c. 2007 Religion News Service

NEW YORK _ New Yorkers, like people elsewhere, rarely have just one conversation.

Except when a high-profile disaster strikes, people sort through multiple topics such as jobs, weather, shopping, family, movies, parties, apartment-hunting and celebrity-watching.

Religious institutions compete to be one of those topics. If they can claim an hour or two of attention on Sabbath, they feel productive. Some churches compete even more effectively, claiming Wednesday evening, too, in addition to Sunday morning.

One way to measure a congregation’s effectiveness is to ask how many minutes per week it can occupy members’ time. A win is getting a member to church twice a week; a loss is to have them present, say, one hour a month.

Congregations continually wonder how they can spice up weekly worship to draw more people more regularly. They try more engaging music, better preaching, better sound systems, larger auditoriums that create an air of excitement, diversity in the clergy seats.

A better worship experience certainly helps, and lively music is better than dull music. But as I talk with people and hear their religious yearnings, I hear a hunger for content. They want preaching that touches deeply and addresses important questions. They crave worship that reaches into life and offers a glimpse of depth, hope and Godliness.

I hear people crying, “Say something that matters!”

I hear a desire for depth of relationship. Deeper than brand loyalty, deeper than fondness for a particular congregation. Draw us into something life-transforming, they say.

When people bring their actual hearts and minds to us and walk away unfed and discouraged because we have talked of other things, we have failed them.

If the church cannot address the looming recession, a young adult’s loneliness, new parents’ joy, a citizen’s confusion, or late-career doubts, why should they stay?

We claim to have a global message to all of life, but then we zero in on the miniscule and self-serving _ as if battles over church property mattered more than the angst and hunger of our people.

Content is a complex matter. Last Friday, for example, a friend invited me to Central Synagogue, a large congregation in midtown Manhattan. I found the service profoundly moving. I’m not sure I fully understood why. But some elements included these:

First was two cantors who smiled, radiated enthusiasm, and presented music that was excellent and heart-touching, backed by instrumentalists and choirs who seemed thrilled to be there, not trapped in stiff self-importance.

Second was a consistent message that we were family, bound by our common humanity, not an elite tribe gathered in a superior place.

Third was enthusiasm in the pews. Worship can’t be a please-me spectator event. I sensed a buzz in the pews, a palpable joy at being together.

Fourth was a sense that they were taking people’s needs seriously. This worship was thoroughly planned, as if leaders had sat together and asked, “What needs will people be bringing with them? How can we respond?” They weren’t just going through familiar motions.

Finally, I felt my heart being touched _ not manipulated through calculated song and image, not stirred to rage by defaming some cultural enemy, or moved to pride by disdain for outsiders. Instead, I was touched by a shared awareness that we were in God’s presence.

I plan to return next Friday.

(Tom Ehrich is a writer, church consultant and Episcopal priest based in New York. He is the author of “Just Wondering, Jesus,” and the founder of the Church Wellness Project, http://www.churchwellness.com. His Web site is http://www.morningwalkmedia.com.)

A photo of Tom Ehrich is available via https://religionnews.com.

KRE/RB END EHRICH