Expectations

We, as individuals, have expectations about many things. We expect good service when we go to a restaurant. We expect to learn something when we go to a museum. We expect to hear platitudes when we hear politicians speak. We expect our children to behave in public. We expect more things that we could possibly list here.

We also have expectations when it comes to the church. Some of these are great expectations — we expect that worship will feel familiar. We expect to hear music we know. We expect a certain style of preaching that we have become accustomed to. We expect to receive communion on a regular basis.

And we have aspirational expectations — we expect God to show up. We expect that people will get on board with a vision. We expect everyone to be engaged in the life of ministry. We expect the church to deal with difficult issues.

And we have many unspoken expectations that aren’t necessarily bad, but we’ve never really explored them to see if they still make sense — we expect the pastor to do certain things (and only the pastor). We expect that someone else will answer the call when a need arises. We expect that people will meet the financial obligations of the church if we just say how bad things are. We expect that the young people will return. We expect people will come back after the pandemic and once we get rid of the online church thing. We expect that everyone else thinks that going back to the way it was at some point in the past is ideal.