What do they know?

Churches hold within them tensions. All of them. Everywhere.

This isn't a sign of ill-health or conflict, it's just reality.

As I've written previously, these are different to problems since they are not designed to be solved, but managed.

One tension involves the congregation and staff/ministers.

The following is a tension I've seen and heard at every church. All of them. Everywhere.

The tension? What do the people know?

Lately, I've come to realise that this tension will never go away since
a) people are complex and retain/value different information,
b) new people (ideally) should be continually joining the faith community and
c) you can't teach everything about God, discipleship and the church immediately.

What I can to to manage the tension? Stop complaining about it and systematically work on point c).

If you don't intentionally teach those in the pews, you can't be annoyed when they are lacking in knowledge...