Who are we saving it for?

Once upon a time, I know this because my mother told me, women used to take showers and after they had washed their hair, they would put curlers in. Then they would put on their clothing and go out to buy the groceries, pick up the laundry, go to the library, and generally run their errands. All the while the curlers stayed in the hair. My mom used to say about this situation, "I wonder who they are saving it for?".

I didn't really understand her point. I was a kid after all, and my deal was hoping she would buy a barrel of monkeys, or color forms or some other inexpensive form of entertainment and leave my brother and I in the car while she bought groceries. I am fairly sure this was way before either of us was in school. These days one would be arrested for this. Anyway, I thought all adults were somewhat odd looking and whether there was stuff in their hair didn't seem to matter much one way or another.

My mother felt differently. Going out so all of the town could see you in your curlers didn't make up for having nice hair at dinner for a few guests. I will have to admit that now that I am a grown up, I will have to say I concur. It doesn't really seem sensible. In fact the only way for this economy to make sense is to only value the opinions of the small group who you are having for dinner. That means the the vast majority of the people you encounter you have no value for at all. Kind of frightening when you say it that way.

That same kind of frightening vision has overtaken the church. Have you ever stopped to wonder who exactly we are saving it for? Who is it we are cleaning up to entertain? Our neighbors, the people in the grocery store, the library? I don't think so. Some of the people in the neighborhood don't even know we exist. Pastors seem to have no burning desire to share the good news, many who don't even see this as their job. We have churches full of nice people who do nice things but don't wish to be too religious and don't think it's any ones business how they live. We like to keep the walls high and the crowd select. We want the right kind of people to come to worship, we need to keep the building in good shape, you know.

Recently I attended a training event for small churches where we discussed how we could do small church better. The workshop leader invited people to say the things in worship they found distracting. I suspect he meant music done poorly, responses that were meaningless, sermons that weren't well researched and delivered painfully. Instead people said they didn't like kids in worship because they got up to go to the bathroom, or were noisy. They didn't like people who coughed or sneezed or made it hard for them to hear. I finally said, apparently the biggest obstacle we have in worship is that we let other people come. I think that while there were some chuckles, there were people who thought I was being serious and agreed. We all agree we are in decline but our answer is we need to keep out those annoying outsiders. People, who are we saving it for?

Our base is declining, it is elderly and it no longer can reproduce to sustain itself. The youth are moving on. They have no loyalty to support an institution that finds them an inconvenience at best. The financial support is also declining and monies that used to find their way to the collection are finding homes elsewhere. There is much anger and frustration over budgets being underfunded and people's dream of coasting into retirement dashed, but they are still wearing their curlers in public and valuing only the small group of people they will have dinner with later. I guess if we are saving it for ourselves I have to wonder why we aren't enjoying it more.

Who are we saving it for? Its time for us, all of us, to decide if we are in the disciple making business, or in the self preservation business. We have been in care taking mode for much too long. It's time to throw open the doors and invited the community in again. This is a party for everyone. Lets get the curlers out of of hair and be about the business of inviting a few more guests to our Fathers banquet table. Let's make the church be about being the church, let's be salt, and light. Let's pick up our crosses and follow, let's be faithful and let's mean it when we say, here I am, send me. Let's stop farming out our people to other places to get deeper spirituality. Let's find ways to meet the needs and allow God to use us as a means of grace to the world around us.

Wouldn't it be cool if we went around in curlers at home, with the family that already loves us, so we would be ready to look good for the company? Just a thought.

Thicker than water

There is something about the family of faith that makes it challenging to live in. I think I know what it is, it's the family part. I have been to enough family gatherings; reunions, weddings, funerals and so on, that I believe I can say without hesitation, the only reason some of those people get in is because they are related. You do too know what I mean. The family forces a smile and everyone talks politely and the entire trip home in every vehicle is about weird Uncle Buck or Aunt Phyllis.

My own family is no exception. I had a great uncle named Logan who was the source of all kinds of discussion through out all the generations. We kiddos found him very funny and would practice walking like he did, debating whether he was still breathing, betting on the exact time he would move. My parents generation and older took offense at his laziness and expectation of being served. Rumor has it my grandfather threw a folk at him once for expecting my grandmother to get up and get him something for the billionth time. I don't know whether this is true but it is told even today and still brings chuckles. Logan's history was equally delightful for my cousins and me. He married once and wouldn't leave home. At some point his wife did and he decided not to repeat that mistake. I wonder if she did too.

But I digress. The point isn't that families have characters like Logan, the point is that we tolerate and even find some affection for the Logan's in life because after all we are related. They are a part of us because we are connected through blood. It gives us identity, it gives us a history and a sense of belonging. Even if you look at your family in horror, and what adolescent hasn't done that and prayed that they were either switched at birth or stolen by gypsies, it says something about who your people are. While this isn't always a good connection, in fact if all of us look far enough back we are bound to find a ancestor or two or ten that make us shake our heads, it's a mark we carry and learn to deal with in life.

This is no different for the Church universal. We are also connected by blood, Jesus' blood shed for all. This makes us all one enormous family, belonging because we are related. We like to exclude various branches of the family - they are too liberal, too conservative, too fundamental, too flaky, too serious, too high church, too low church, too touchy feeling, too traditional and on and on and on. I don't know that we have open feuding on going, unless its denomination verses nondenomination, but we do have our own little family branches we tend to honor more than the whole. Like a huge family reunion where each family can see each other and will perhaps wave but they all sit separately and tell their youngest members," Stay away from the Bertie Jones family. They aren't really family, they aren't our kind of people."

I just went to see Michael W Smith and Steven Curtis Chapman in concert. I don't have a clue how many people were there but lots. Like as far as the eye could see lots. I had great seats. I never have great seats but I had a friend who took care of me and I had great seats. The concert was amazing and at some point we were standing and worshipping. Michael W Smith was playing something everyone knew and everyone was singing and I turned around and saw the auditorium filled, the first balcony filled, the second balcony filled. Everyone on their feet, everyone singing, many with their hands raised, their eyes closed. The music was incredible but the connection with my brothers and sisters in the family of faith was so powerful it brought tears to my eyes. I haven't got a clue what members of the family were there. I don't know what family branch they sprang from. I don't know theologically that we agree at all on the issues we debate with such enthusiasm. I just know this, for a moment in time the focus was the connection, that we are related by the blood. We were all made heirs the same we, and all of us belong.

I know we can't live here. In fact, before I got home I got a funny text message from a young man I worship with regularly who said, "hey do you mind sitting down? We are in peanut heaven and you are blocking the stage!" We have other contacts that aren't so funny and God's grace is essential in keeping us from killing each other. But wouldn't it be wonderful if we could spend just a little more time worshipping together in the presence of God, focusing on the things that unite us instead of the issues that divide us? It's the blood you know, and it's thicker than water.