I’ve spent a summer, paying my way into recorded conversations because my life isn’t interesting enough to enough people—and in particular the “right” people. I got my money’s worth from this publicity tour, because I learned that the life I have offline is a full one, an enough one.
Woody’s two-word invitation made me ponder a four-word promise Jesus made before he headed back to heaven. As he told his first-century followers to go and make disciples, he assured them, “I am with you.” That promise goes well with his command not to be afraid and his foretelling of the Holy Spirit’s omnipresence. But this morning, I heard something different in that claim: an invitation to access him.
Out in the dark on Sunday mornings, my heart’s been buoyed. The people showing up before the sun aren’t disgruntled. They haven’t given up. Even if they’ve chafed under a mask indoors, they’ve counted that small inconvenience as a tiny sacrifice for their mission. Having seen Jesus move in their midst, they remained driven to keep chasing kingdom advances. These folks weren’t trudging with slumped shoulders through a weekend morning on which they’d rather be sleeping in. No: they had smiles on their faces, pep in their step, and joy in their greetings. They radiated an energy that I absorbed and tried to take to my now-smaller asphalt team an hour later.
Doing things God’s way often takes longer and requires more patience. Staying inside Jesus’ cones makes us feel like we’ve lost our autonomy. Going where the Holy Spirit points sometimes doesn’t make sense to us. But I can tell you as someone who has set out cones weekly for a decade, those cones are there for someone’s safety or the community’s benefit—or both.
Before meeting Todd, I’d never been in a service where the person leading music checked out of their “duty” and just prayed on their knees until the instruments stopped. I’d never seen someone walk off the stage to comfort someone during a song. I’d never seen someone put down their mic and their ego and then shout praise or whisper prayers while everyone else kept singing. Years after these firsts, Todd lost his voice and still led our church services—just with his mic muted during the music. In every other church I’ve attended, I’d never seen anything like that. That role went to the person with the best voice, the most musical experience, or someone with the pedigree of specific liturgical castes.
If an angel called you something, it’d probably stick. That’s your nickname now. Even if nobody else ever used that name for you, you’d probably say it when you looked in the mirror. It’d definitely make it into your journal.
This morning, I was prompted to walk around to the various lots of our church and pray specifically for the distinct populations that fill them. For those of you who attend Blue Ridge, here is what I prayed for you in each of these spots. For those who don’t attend my church, here’s a peek into why the parking lot ministry is so critical to the mission of Jesus.
For me, it’s a been a hard factory reset on my hardware. It’s led to more time in nature, where I feel Jesus most and closest. It’s asked me how much of my identity is wrapped up in my commercial value and what those paychecks afford. It’s confronted my privilege, my arrogance, my condescension. It’s alerted me that I’m not as good of a friend as I had previously thought. It’s reminded me that I’m not in control.
Sunday night, an EF2 tornado touched down about 2 miles from my house. 20.4 miles later, after growing into an EF3 tornado, it finally left my community alone. Somehow, only 146 homes sustained substantial damage; and “only” 22 homes were total losses. The storm was was fierce. An artifact from one house was found six miles from its flattened home.
It’s absolutely a victory for the kingdom when someone gets baptized, when someone invites a friend into our circle, when a parishioner tells us we influenced their spiritual journey, when a parent tells us their child wants to be on the parking team someday, or when a teammate feels loved in their pain. It’s just that those are outcomes, not achievements. They’re fruit but not produce.
One thing we can all be a part of, though, is the remedy for whatever we feel ails our local church or even the global Church. Few of us will impact multiple churches. None of us will change the American church as we know it. We can, however, follow Mother Teresa’s call to “help one person at a time, and always start with the person nearest you.”
Maher was describing the blessing I try not to take for granted and the responsibility my friendships often require. If you don’t have this reality in your life, you can. If you do have this luxury in your life, don’t keep it to yourself. There’s a world out there literally dying for what you have.
Candidly, the church through history has often made those instinctive journeys more dangerous. We’ve crushed lives and spooked others from progress. Even as we have attempted to build in-roads into secular culture, we have created more hurdles for someone to find their destiny on the other side of their church experience.
Before you discount Emory’s service, know that he represents all of us. We’re all only part way on our journey of serving. We’re all proud to wear our safety gear. We all look forward to Sunday mornings.
Worship has changed for me over the past decade, informed by others (like Todd) who see worship as a lifestyle instead of as the standing song, the sitting song, and the standing song before a sermon.
The story I’ll remember most won’t be the one on the screen. It’ll be the one God wrote and directed behind the scenes. A story of rescue, a tale of sovereignty.
Wherever Jesus and his truth comes alive most and best to someone is probably where they should congregate—whether at my church or not, a megachurch or not, a contemporary church or not. While you can learn a lot about any church on a Sunday morning, you’ll understand more after diving into its culture outside of its auditorium. Especially mine.
Small things matter in both first and subsequent impressions. Small things like facial expressions, intuitive conversations, and remembering someone’s name or parking preferences—they matter. So do authentic, calm interactions in a frenetic situation and a sense of empathy when trying to leave quickly. We get emails, social media comments, and face-to-face conversations that tell us that these small things contributed to watershed moments or at least mile-marker events in someone’s spiritual journey. Some even say that just seeing us in our pre-game prayer circle gets them excited for what they’re about to encounter in the building.
Rick and I weren’t in a boat at the time. We weren’t standing anywhere near water. In fact, we weren’t even standing outside. He dropped this sentence while grabbing gear in an oversized closet at our church that we’ve affectionately dubbed, “the parking room.”
I chose to move to Lynchburg and have fallen in love with it enough to call it home. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that my wife and I are factors in my sister and some of our closest friends emigrating to what we lovingly call “LynchVegas.” Here are the selling points with which I would counter the Lynchburg skeptics.
The challenge, especially for those of us who consider ourselves self-sufficient, is to reach out to our friends. The reward for this vulnerability is more than refreshment. It brings a renewed sense of purpose, a sense of belonging, an appreciation of the Sovereign.
It was an emotional moment for me, yet I didn’t know how to feel. I was moved by the gesture, but I felt awkward for being the sole recipient. Love, respect, and appreciation wafted with the smell of bread, protein, and dairy; but I didn’t feel like what I love to do needed to be rewarded. In a welcome moment on the horizontal level, I felt something vertical in motion.
But this week brought a different sentiment to the uninspiring rental car experience. This week, I wasn’t renting a car from a distant airport. This week, I was driving four wheels’ worth of milquetoast on roads I drive everyday.
And the one morning all this seems to come together, I’m an unwilling participant.
That shouldn’t surprise us: that’s how God designed it to work.