Sunday, June 15, 2003

Blog-reading this afternoon and I clicked into my friend Jason’s blog. He doesn’t have archives set up therefore there are no permalinks, so I copied his whole post here.

I’m hesitant to say anything but this has been eating at me. I just saw a marketing postcard from a new church in VB. Besides the fact that they are advertising free starbucks coffee as a reason to attend they make a comment that really frustrates me.

“Late Saturday night? No problem. Sleep in. You can still make it to our 11am service. And better yet, you’ll be out by 12:15” It’s not the “late” comment that bothers me it’s the understood notion that you can come to church and should never be challenged or made uncomfortable. The Biblical Church always set an incredibly high standard for life. The Gospel is uncomfortable to those who are perishing (2 Corinthians 2:15-16). I don’t know why this frustrates me. I understand the church’s intention is to be attractive to non-believers, but sometimes I think we lose sight of the fact that the Biblical Church always called people to something and it wasn’t comfort—it was repentance surrounded by love.

Maybe our marketing strategy should be we offer people a chance to submit to the Lordship of Christ while drinking free Maxwell House coffee?