Would you?
Would you go to church because a postcard on the message board at Starbucks invited you (for my more semantically minded friends, I know the phrase "go to church" is troublesome, sorry)? What would it have to say? What would it have to look like? What would jump off of the cluttered board, grab your attention and compel you to wake up on Sunday morning to go somewhere where you know no one?
For me, probably nothing would do it. I want to share my life, all of it, in relationship with others. This means my own spiritual pursuit, and what I invite others into as a pastor, finds itself in community (considering the pseudo community starbucks builds, maybe starbucks should place postcards in churches inviting people to meet at their place).
Ironically, I will probably place a postcard letting people know about our church on a message board soon...just because it doesn't work for me doesn't mean it doesn't work.
Unless of course your church card gets covered over by another church card. This afternoon, during a very rare mid-day coffee urge, I found myself scanning the cards on the message board. A low budget but intriguing church card caught my attention. When I moved in to take a closer look, I realized that the card had been placed over a card from another church (a fancy and less intriguing card to me).
Would you? Would you move either of the cards? Would you go to the low budget card church because it finally received some attention over the fancy presentation? Would you go to the fancy card church because you felt sorry for it being covered up? Would you even care? Would you even notice? Would you even go?
I realized right then, San Diego does not really need another church...especially if there is not room on the board for all of us. No, we don't really need another church. What would be really great is if we stopped inviting people to church, and invited people to God.
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1:42 PM
in some of my more lucid moments, it becomes clear that what i have to invite people to has very little to do with church and a lot to do with friendship and unconditional love. and then i realize i have the most marketable community ever. and then i'm like, "i should really talk about this more often." and then i do. usually just a little bit, but i do.
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