Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Cheeseburgers and Christianity

Let's say you're going to start a new church and right before you launch you're given a choice about the future of your church. You can choose one of the following, and only one.
1. Your church is going to make lots of money.
2. Your church is going to be HUGE! So many people you won't know what to do.
3. Your church is going to impact a ton of lives. Everyone will know what you're about.

Which do you choose? Obviously you want all three. Money supports missionaries, people do more ministry and reaching people is what we're all called to do. But if only one...?

We don't have the first two at CX. At least not yet anyway. Maybe one day we will, maybe not, but that shouldn't keep us from number 3. We can do great things with what we have.

This weekend we took over a couple of fast food restaurants, a Jack in the Box and a Burger King down the street. For a few hours we paid for all the meals that came through the line. The cashier would say the total, "That'll be 13.24." and we held out the money and paid. The results were very positive. It's amazing how few people complain about churches when you're buying their lunch. I wish we could do it every weekend. It was a minimal investment and made a great impact.

Lately it's been my goal to try and turn the tide on the reputation of Christians. Let's be honest, right now we're mostly known for hating gays and being hypocritcal. The only way we're going to overcome that is to start loving people and being generous. People in our cities need to see us investing our time and money in the community around us. They need to see us give selflessly without a I'll-scratch-your-back-you-scratch-mine mentality.

I'm proud of the church I serve with. This summer, we're doing/did free guitar lessons for a week, 2 BBQ's in the park, fixing up housing in the neighborhood behind our church, buying lunches, hosting video game nights and a few other little things. I'm praying that some of the people we hit will get hit twice and realize what we're really about. And maybe we can change a few minds and eventually a few hearts!