I woke up on Sunday incredibly excited about the days events. Mission breakfast at 9:15am. Worship at 10:30am. I was ready to go. I got up at 5:30am to put the final touches on my sermon and to pray. I was excited to celebrate the Lord’s Supper. I was excited to go to church.

My Father-in-law, two of my kids, and I got in the car and headed out. We made a quick stop at Starbucks for a Grande Christmas blend and a couple of hot chocolates. Everything was working out just how I imagined it would. Sipping on Christmas in a cup on my way to celebrate the Christ that came in a manger. Perfect.

As we made our way down the road, my picture of a picture perfect Sunday faded quickly. It had just started raining a few minutes earlier creating some icy roads. We began to see cars in ditches and wrapped around trees all over the place. There were stranded motorists on their cell phones calling for help. We drove by with our windows rolled down asking each person if they needed help secretly hoping they would say they were fine. Because we were on our way to church and that was important.

We drove a little further and approached a hill. At the bottom of the hill we saw an overturned car with a man walking away limping from it. He said he was fine and help was on the way. We continued on and watched in panic as car after car crested the top of the hill unaware of what they were about to face. Each car began their unplanned and out of control decent down the icy road that would end up in some sort of collision. We watched as if in slow motion an SUV begin to lose control, climb an embankment and crash head on into a tree. At that moment nothing else mattered. Someone needed us. The mission breakfast seemed unimportant. Unloading the trailer and setting up the church didn’t cross my mind. Preaching the sermon that I’d spent hours crafting seemed meaningless. The only thing that mattered was the people in that car. We pulled off the road and ran to the scene of the accident. Thankfully the woman and her two little girls were all ok. She recognized me as she had visited our church a couple of times, which I think comforted her to know that the person helping her was not a axe murderer or something. We didn’t do much other than give them a dry place to wait until the road was reopened. Then we drove them home.

After dropping off this family my 4 year old said, “Dad, are we going to church now?” To which I responded, “honey, we just did church. What we just did, in helping that family was church today.”

I tell this story not to make myself out to be some hero that swooped in to save the day. I wasn’t the hero. I was the student. God reminded me of something valuable. I re-learned that while going to church is a good thing that obviously we need to do, it’s not nearly as important as being the church. I never want to go to church at the expense of being the church. I never want to serve in a scheduled ministry at the expense of a God-directed appointment. I never want to be so focused on the good things that I miss out on the greater things. Instead I want to be ready at a moment’s notice to be the church. I want to carry out my day to day life with an asterisk(*) beside my to do list that reads…

*This To Do List is subject to change with or without notice

What recent event in your life triggered a re-learning experience for you? Please share it.

We want our guests to feel welcome don’t we? We understand how important first impressions are. So we launch a greeting ministry complete with “My name is…” name tags. We go after the bubbliest people that we can find and we strategically place them outside and at the front door. (If you are a smoker it’s a double bonus. You get to smoke and greet…two things you love to do at the same time.) Then, just to make sure that people feel welcome, we force you to stand up in the middle of the service and shake someone’s hand and pretend like you are happy to see them. As you are shaking their hand, you might as well say, “Hey, aren’t you the same person that I walked by and completely ignored earlier as I was in a hurry to catch up with my real friend?”

We do a pretty good job of being nice to our guests. But they aren’t looking for nice, they are looking for friendly. And friendliness cannot be achieved through a program anymore than lowering your cholesterol can be achieved by eating a Big Mac. A nice greeting program in an unfriendly church is like putting a pretty bow on a cow patty and thinking that we’re giving someone a nice gift.

Wouldn’t it be awesome if our church was so friendly that we didn’t need a greeting ministry to make guests feel welcome?

We’ve got change this! If the Church is God’s plan to bring the gospel to the World, being nice isn’t gonna cut it. We need to stop thinking that the world revolves around us and start genuinely being excited and honored that a guest would choose to step out of their comfort zone and visit our church. That’s a big deal! It should excite us to no end to think that a guest would choose to visit our church, giving us an opportunity to share the love of Jesus with them. The natural response should be authentic friendliness, not forced niceness.

How do we change this in our churches?

What can you do to help change it?

Human nature is to take the path of least resistance unless there is a compelling reason not to. The job of the Church is to engage people and give them a compelling reason to avoid the wide path of least resistance that leads to destruction and take the narrow path of most resistance that leads to eternal life.

How does the Church engage culture and give a compelling reason to take the path of most resistance?

_

_

This video got me thinking…As followers of Christ, we need to play hard until the whistle blows. God holds the whistle and no one else. We play to please Him. When we stop playing before the whistle blows, we risk one of two things.

1) We risk celebrating a false win. Or…

2) We risk giving up just short of a win.

Anytime we celebrate the win before the whistle blows, we are celebrating a false win. Our spiritual enemy loves to deceive us into celebrating a false win. If he can get us to celebrate early, we let go of the ball and take our eyes off of the goal. He tries to steal our victory. When the enemy tempts you to celebrate, keep going until the whistle blows.

From a different perspective, there are times when we are tempted to quit…to give up. When everything looks bleak. While everyone else is celebrating a false win. You be the brave one. Risk looking foolish. Pick up the ball and run!  The game is not over. It’s not over until you hear the whistle blow.

No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us. Philippians 3:14-15

I had an opportunity to see U2 a few weeks ago. As always, it was an incredible show. The stage, the lights, the showmanship…all very good. The stadium was sold out. In fact, it was the biggest crowd ever assembled at Giant’s stadium.

80,000 fans came to hear songs that they love from a band that has been together for over 30 years. But they heard more than songs. They heard a deeper message. They heard about the urgent need to put an end to poverty. They were asked to take a stand against tyranny and oppression. They didn’t come to hear this message, but they did…all 80,000 of them. They came to hear the music, but they got the message.

For Bono, music is a means to accomplish his life mission, but is not the mission itself. He’s using his leverage as a musician to fulfill a greater mission. In other words, music is what Bono “does”, but a humanitarian is who he “is.” He uses what he does to fulfill who he is.

As a follower of Jesus, you are called to leverage your influence to spread the gospel. That means whether you are a carpenter, electrician, salesman, stay at home mom, or a teacher. You are to use what you do to accomplish who you are. Don’t keep what you do and who you are in separate buckets. Use one to fulfill the other.

The better that you do whatever it is that you do, the more influence you will have to accomplish whatever it is that you were called to be.

Paul says in Colossians 3:17, “And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus…”

U2 can leverage your influence for the sake of the gospel. Use whatever measure of influence that U have been given! They are coming for the music, but use your influence to give them the message.