You may have laughed at the title of this article: "Of course, like most churches, we have plenty of empty pews for new people!". But I am not talking about physical space, but rather emotional, programmatic, worship-style space for new people who don't share our heritage and our traditions.

The early Christian church faced a dilemma. As they began to reach out to the Gentile (non-Jewish) world and new people started following the Way of Jesus, many church leaders felt these newcomers needed to follow all the Jewish customs and practices in order to be part of the congregation. A great debate raged, and eventually the early Church decided that Gentiles, having a very different background, could come into the church in their own way.

We face the same challenge today. As your church looks at your mission field, and discerns who you can connect with, you will quickly discover that many people have no church background or a bad church experience. Others have a different generational, cultural experience. We sometimes assume that anyone new is going to fit right into all the things we like to do; sing our favorite hymns, serve on committees and engage in all our traditional activities.

But most of the time, new people will have different needs, lifestyles, and questions. The challenge for every church is to create enough space to allow new people to do things in their own way. This could mean adapting worship or starting an additional service. It might mean altering our cherished traditions and not expecting newcomers to do what we have always done. This means change, and like the first-century Christians, we need to find the courage and faith to adapt.

If the early Christian Church had tried to force Gentiles to follow all the Jewish customs and traditions, there is a good chance Christianity would have remained a small sect near Jerusalem and you and I wouldn't be here today. If we want our churches to grow and be there for the next generations, we need to listen well to the needs of the un-churched world and younger generations and create space for others to journey with us. Our church won't look quite the same, but it will thrive. And that is so much more important than any of our well-worn traditions.