IMO…

sundays with my church family have been a part of my weekly routine for fifty years…maybe more.   i don’t remember the first five years…

i’ve had great friendships that i looked forward to reconnecting with.   and great programs to be a part of.   and ministry responsibilities that matched who i was and what my life calling has been,  for the most part.   all in all,  there has been much more good,  than not-so-good when it has come to the sunday moment.

but in my whole life,  i have never had the church experience that i do now.

oh,  sundays are still sundays.   when it comes to the program,  it’s all pretty much the same wherever i have been… whether it’s been with a whole lotta people or just a few.   there’s  nursery care and coffee in the lobby.   classes for kids. people looking a little cleaner  (maybe a lot cleaner) than they do during the week.   some music…some good,  some not so good…and some really cheesy church tunes woven in through the years.

we pass  trays and buckets and plates.   and various forms of sermonizing.   prayers…long and short.   incessant announcements.   welcome times.   still can’t believe we called it shake and howdy time in huntington beach back in the day!   we thought we were so cool and socal hip,  but this just proved we were nowhere close…hah!

ahh…those were the days.

but it’s all different now for me.   this church that i have called  family for the past fifteen years is out of bounds. or off the hook, as my food network hero,  guy,  likes to say.   it is indefinably  peculiar.   spectacularly uncommon.   ok.   we’re weird.   there,  i said it.

such a mixture of misfits and goofballs and pleasantly content malcontents who have found a place to belong.   right alongside others who have defined their own normal…and are completely comfortable in their own skin. some with tons of church baggage. others with nothing more than a half-filled fanny pack.

some who cling tightly to treasured memories of church life of days gone bye…a past that shaped and molded their understanding of god and life…yet,  embrace different and change and outside the box thinking like a new friend,  full of possibilities.

my church family meeting on sundays is a place full of grace and laughter and fun and some pretty fresh honesty.   expectations are tempered with realism.   we are who we are.   there is no pressure to be something we are not.   ever.

we left slick at the door a long time ago.   my son asked me how i can keep focused during my sermon with everything that goes on.   it’s easy.   for me,  it’s like carrying on a conversation at the dinner table in my own home.   what i’m saying is not nearly as important than the experience of sharing it together.   (that’s not at the sacrifice of truth,  though…)

for crying out loud…yesterday,  we must have set a new record for people coming late…and getting up and leaving during my sermon.   unbelievable!   all in one day.   i think i’m going to leave during my sermon someday and see what’s really so cool out there…

just another reason i love north point.

i am so grateful to be part of a church family that doesn’t define itself by the greatness of the sunday morning show…but by graceful service lived out by simple people following jesus the other six days.

i wouldn’t have it any other way.