Not a Camouflaged Soul

Category: Church Culture

  • Outreach Car Wash Recap

    We just got back from an AMAZING day. As I wrote about in my last post, today was our Outreach Car Wash.

    It looked like we might get rained out, but we were blessed with (mostly) clear skies. Hot, but not bad. Here are some highlights…

    1. We washed 62 vehicles today!!! (Actually, we washed 60 cars, 1 bicycle, and 1 “set of wheels.”) Amazing!
    2. 80 volunteers gave their Saturday to make this possible! Big thanks to everyone who contributed to the success of the event.
    3. 62 vehicles means even MORE free meals were served. Lots of burgers and dogs got grilled up today.
    4. Youth Praise Band provided the music today. They played great.
    5. I spoke to several folks that said they would likely visit our church. A couple had no church background to speak of. Others reported similar conversations. Pray that they will be there tomorrow.
    6. Cool story: today was a free event. Some people insisted on giving, and we accepted a handful of donations. But when one customer was told that we were not accepting donations, he went out and bought us bottled water! I thought that was so generous.

    Throughout the day, I kept going back to the same thought: if our church were gone tomorrow, would the community notice? We as a church have to give back to our community and let them know that we are there for people. I believe we did that today.

    Special thanks to Josh Hurt for organizing today’s event. Awesome job.

    Closing note #1: Sonic Happy Hour slushes were the perfect way to cool down after a day like today.

    Closing note #2. Aloe is my friend. I may be a little red at worship tomorrow.

  • Noisy

    My world is noisy.

    As a music pastor and musician, I dwell in sound. If I’m not dealing with tonality, I’m working with volume. If it’s not equalization, it’s clarity. Right notes, wrong notes, weird notes, bass, treble, in tune, out of tune, sound, sound, sound.

    So QUIET rarely makes an appearance in my worship planning.

    Tonight, it did make an appearance in my pastor’s planning. Quiet and prayer.

    We sang praises as usual. Then Pastor Bryan got up, spoke for about five minutes about prayer, and the rest of our worship time consisted of individuals, families, and other groups praying for our church.

    It was wonderful to see. Men and women, teens, children… all on their knees before a loving God.

    As a Church, I think we need to do that more often. I don’t think we put a premium on the power of prayer like we should. It’s easy to say, “You’re never stronger than when you’re on your knees.” But it’s harder to live it.

    I’m glad we did that.

  • Red Velvet Concrete

    I tweeted this morning about something I saw on the way to work…

    I was later told by a friend on Facebook that “red velvet concrete” is a DQ Blizzard-like dessert, and that the terminology is a local reference that could better be explained by a native to Southwest Illinois. I had never heard the terminology before, and I get it, but it still doesn’t sound very appetizing.

    It made me think about the words we use in church. There are some things we say in church that are familiar to the unchurched, but there are other terms we use that, to the uninitiated, might tend to exclude rather than include.

    Without including Biblical terminology (which we are called upon to teach to people), here are a few that I thought of…

    • “Fellowship Dinner”
    • “Alter Call”
    • “Bulletin”
    • “Sanctuary”
    • “Prelude/Postlude” (thanks to Mark Warnock for that one)
    • “Small Groups”
    • “Praise and Worship”

    I’m sure there are more, but, as a life-long church attender, I’ve just about heard them all.

    The point is that we need to intentionally make our churches as welcoming, inviting, and non-mysterious as possible. Why go to the trouble of inviting people to our respective fellowships if they feel left out once they are there?

    I’m not saying we need to drop every phrase that might seem obscure. We just need to be aware of what we are collectively prone to do: use jargon to identify within a group. It is easy to assume everyone that darkens our churches’ doorsteps has been to a church sometime, somewhere before. As we become an increasingly pagan society, we can’t afford to continue to make this assumption.

    The Gospel is good news. It is vital. It is alive. It is life-changing. And it needs to be communicated with the understanding that Jesus showed the doubters and scofflaws that desperately needed the salvation faith in Him would provide.

    It might take more time. It might take some patience. It might require stepping out of our comfort zone. And it may contribute to a sin-sick soul beginning a walk with Christ and avoiding eternity in hell.

    What can we do, short of compromising Biblical doctrine, to encourage non-believers that attend our churches? What are some other non-Biblical terms we use that unbelievers may not understand?