Photo by Matt Nelson on Unsplash

Do you want to know if your work as a pastor is having an impact on the community? Do you want to know if your church is transforming the lives of those outside its walls? If so, stop counting how many people attend worship or walk through your doors during the week. Rather, adopt this new metric: how many dogs did you meet this week?

A couple of years ago, I walked out of the church on a marvelous summer afternoon to take a call on the church steps (old stone walls zap my cell signal in my office). After my call, I sat on the steps for a few minutes to soak up the sunshine. About a minute later an elderly neighbor and his dog, a feisty Scottish terrier, walked in front of the steps. As soon as the dog saw me, he scampered up the steps and nestled into my lap. The owner smiled and apologized. I waved off the concern as I scratched the dog’s belly and rubbed his ears. I said to the man and the dog, “I’m Travis, the pastor of Judson Church.” The man replied, “We’re Bart and Buddy.” The dog looked at me with a “yeah, what he said” look.

After they left, I sat on the steps trying to replay the scene that had just unfolded, because I wasn’t able to discern which one was Bart and which one was Buddy. In the midst of my dilemma another neighbor, a young mom, approached pushing her baby in a stroller with her dogs, two slow-moving basset hounds. Sure enough, the dogs came up the steps and into my lap. I suppose they needed to investigate where Bart or Buddy had recently been. This time, however, I wanted to make sure I got the names of the dogs right. I said to the young mom, “I’m Travis, the pastor of Judson Church and who are these wonderful pups?” She responded, “They are Abbott and Costello.” Abbott and Costello sniffed all over me, slobbered on me, and let me scratch their ears until the baby in the stroller started getting antsy. I said goodbye to everyone and went back inside to clean up.

Over the next few weeks, I noticed that most of the neighbors walked their dogs around 10 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. Therefore, I started hanging out on the church steps at 10 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. Sometimes I disguised my reason for being on the steps by taking a book with me, sometimes I would go to scroll the Internet on my phone, sometimes I would go to eat an apple. Sure enough, every time I went out, I met people and their dogs.

When I was young, my father stressed to me the importance of remembering people’s names. He said, “People will grant you a lot of grace if you can remember their name. And rightly so, remembering their name will make them feel important.” Ever since, I have prided myself on the ability to remember names. But as I got to know more dogs and neighbors, I found I could only remember the names of dogs, not the names of the owners. Luckily, it didn’t matter. People really only cared that I remembered their dog’s name.

As I got to know the dogs of the neighborhood and they and their owners got to know me, something else happened: people started telling me personal stories. Ask any counselor, parent of teenagers, barber, or beautician: human beings, in certain situations, will reveal parts of their deepest selves as long as they are not looking at the person they are speaking to in the eye. Go for a walk with someone, or a long drive, or pay attention when you’re in the beauty shop and notice how people will open up and say things they never would if they were looking you in the eye. The same phenomenon happened while I got to know the dogs of the neighborhood. As I knelt down, said the dog’s name, and petted the dog, the owners would start telling me stories about their lives. Parents would share how they worry about their kids, middle-aged people would talk about the struggles of caring for their elderly parents, kids would share about how much they worry about their friends at school. I’ve heard about divorces, upcoming surgeries and complications post-surgery, and problems making rent. There have been uplifting stories too: weddings, births, new jobs, favorite restaurants, favorite teachers, moments of forgiveness, and even when a school loan was paid off.

These conversations work their way into the prayers at Judson Church on Sundays. I only share names if the person requests to be identified. Most Sundays I simply say, “A neighbor has asked for prayer concerning _____.” Though one time I did say, because I only knew the dog’s name, “Lucy’s owner has asked us to pray for her brother.” Since I started this experiment, no one has joined, or even attended, the church because of these interactions. But on a few occasions, while I am petting a dog and talking to its owner and another neighbor will walk by, the dog owner will say to the neighbor, “Do you know my pastor, Travis? He’s the pastor of Judson Church.”

A few weeks ago, I was scratching the ears of Matilda, a golden Labrador, when I asked her owner if she knew Bart and Buddy. She said, “Oh yeah. I know them.” Then I asked, “Which one is Bart and which one is Buddy?” She thought for a minute, “That’s a good question, I have no idea. But I’ll find out for you, pastor.”