Everyone
loves a deal right? For those of you
regular shoppers (grocery and other) how often do you go out without knowing
what coupons you have and/or knowing what’s on sale? It is an amazing marketing tool for stores
and manufacturers that they will always provide in hopes of getting people to
come and make purchases of stuff they need (or in many cases want.) We just a month ago finished up the
Thanksgiving holiday and along with that comes “Black Friday” (why they refer to it as “Black” I’ll never
know, Black Days usually mean bad, hmmm.)
Then we have the Christmas season and all the ads of the “great
deals” for before Christmas sales and then of course the after Christmas sales
to get ready for next year… (Seems like it never ends.) But anyways, in thinking about it and talking
to people who had over the last month, planned
days in advance the stores they would go to, the routes they would take, who
would go where, what time they would get there etc… I had “Reva-piphony (combination revelation and epiphany) maybe we need to provide coupons for the
church. Here are some of my thoughts for
what they could include.
·
“THE BACK ROW RESERVED JUST FOR YOU
(WHO WANTS TO SIT IN THE FRONT ANYWAYS)”
·
“GOOD FOR ONE SUNDAY OF PLAYING JUST
THE SONGS YOU WANT TO HEAR, PLAYED HOW YOU WANT TO HEAR THEM AND IN THE ORDER
IN WHICH YOU WANT TO HEAR THEM”
·
“GOOD FOR ONE SUNDAY, WE WILL WAIT TO
START THE SERVICE UNTIL YOU ARRIVE AT CHURCH”
·
TAKE ONE BREAD AND WINE GET ONE FREE”
·
“ONE FREE FRIENDSHIP REGISTRY SIGNING
WHEN YOU ARE NOT THERE”
·
“ONE FREE COPY OF THE SERMON IN
CLIFFNOTES”
·
“GOOD FOR FREE PASS OUT OF THE
SANCTUARY/CHURCH BEFORE ANYONE ELSE”
·
“GET OUT OF VOLUNTEERING FREE CARD”
Obviously
things like this will never happen (or
maybe some will, I already know there are people that would love to use these)
but why do we need to? Why do people of
the church have such a hard time with church?
It starts the same time on the same day of the week every week. And all it tries to do is to strengthen your
relationship with your neighbor and the very One who created you. I don’t think that is something that everyone
is against, do you? You are too tired or
just don’t feel like it you may say?
It’s too early? That’s o.k. you
can go in the evening if you’d like, or maybe even on a Wed. Night, there are
even places that allow you to worship on a Sat. Evening. Why do we as Christians (and yes I’m including myself in that one) have such an easy time
scheduling sporting events, going out to
eat, go shopping etc…(all of which cost money) but such a hard time going
somewhere to spend time with God and fellow believers (and all he wants to do is give us
something for free)
In his
book “Not a Fan”, Kyle Idleman
writes “The biggest threat to the church
today are fans who call themselves Christians but aren’t actually interested in
following Christ. They want to be close
enough to Jesus to get all the benefits, but not so close that it required
anything from them.”
Is that
you? (I hope not), but that is a
question we all need to ask of ourselves.
Are we just “fans” of Christ/Christianity/Church, or are we
followers? I hope we can all refer to
ourselves as followers, but it’s hard. So,
as we have just “finished up” Christmas and, have Easter coming, the two most
widely attended “church days” let’s make a renewed effort in ourselves to spend
more time with God. In fact, let’s make
a few resolutions. Here are a few
suggestions from Jonathon Edwards and Louis Giglio;
1.
I will live for God
2.
If
no one else does, I still will
3.
I
will embrace the Grace of Christ every day
At worst you’ll be able to spend more time
with God, your very creator who loves you no matter what and fellow Christians,
and at best, you’ll be able to spend more time with God (who still loves you no matter what) and your fellow Christians; your
brothers and sisters.
And even better it’s still free; you don’t
even need a coupon J
So as we
continue on into the year of our Lord 2013, let’s make it exactly that; The
Year of the Lord!
