Something Important

What I have often found incredibly interesting in life is our measurement of importance.  What for one person might be of great importance (i.e. the Cubs winning a World Series in my lifetime) is more like page 6 news to someone else.  Now I have not thought long and hard about how we scale importance in our individual lives, but without question there is a scale.  And that scale functions as key component in our decision making process.

The things we find important we do, the things not so important get pushed aside.  Now understand, I am King of the land of procrastination and I have ruled over this land for many years.  But even amidst my delaying the inevitable, I still have a sense of necessity to do that thing of importance.  So the question stares me in the face how do we take something that for so many and for so long has ranked low on the scale and make it higher.

As part of a church planting team this seems to be the cyclical discussion much like the chicken and the egg.  Here in Lexington with all the seeming trappings of a Southern city, church attendance has somehow been subtracted out of the Southern hospitable ways.  So what we face is trying to move going to church and being a part of church up the scale of importance.  Church has to surpass some big competition such as sleeping in, Sunday brunch, and every other mounting task that gets placed on the balance of life as important.

As an insider of the ways of church, I realize that going is a critical part of this life we call following Jesus.  I also recognize that it is not the only part of being a Christian, but a small piece to the whole.  But without question, the large group gathering is still in America the place where most will make a decision to follow Christ.

So here is my unthought out gut reaction to the question posed of making church going for un-chruched going folks important.  You are important enough!  Not profound but true.  Most people go to church for the first time because someone they know, like and trust invites them.  Most don't go because they feel a need to be in "church".  Most go because someone important invites them and that raises it up the scale of importance.  If you want to make going to church important for someone that it is unimportant to invest and invite.