The theme for Existence Church this year is “Get In The Game”. It’s been said that, “Christianity is not a spectator sport,” that the life of faith is not about watching others participate, but it’s about every individual living out their relationship with God in relationship with others. We want to be people who actively express our faith by loving God and loving people… together. That’s what we mean by the phrase, “Get In The Game.” Each of the next few weeks will be devoted to one aspect of Getting In the Game.

The first important aspect of getting in the game is making it a priority to attend church REGULARLY. Why? Because the most important aspect of being together is…being together! You can’t have quality time without quantity time. It’s necessary to have regular contact with people to develop good relationships, and church is all about relationships. There are many misconceptions about attending church. Here are a few:

1) Many people see going to church as “paying my dues.”
Answer: God doesn’t grade on the curve. You don’t get extra points for perfect attendance. We are saved by God’s unmerited favor, grace, not by our working hard for it. In fact, Grace is like having a class that is Pass/Fail. The first day of class the teacher says “You all Pass. Now, let’s learn something.”

2) “Church is full of hypocrites.”
Answer: true. If being a hypocrite is saying one thing and doing another, then we all are in trouble. We aim for progress, not perfection, and we are all on the journey to becoming more and more like Jesus. We are all flawed by sin, and the best thing we can do for each other is to freely give the same kind of grace that we have received from Jesus.

3) “I don’t need to go that often, I can worship God anywhere.”
Answer: True, but not really. People who say this usually are just looking for an excuse to not go to church. And they don’t really worship God in earnest. Or they do something like going the beach and realizing how beautiful it is and say to themself “Wow, this is beautiful. I’m worshipping God right now.” Attending church involves worshipping God together, but it mostly is about developing real friendships with others who are on a similar faith journey. It’s also about seriously committing oneself and being accountable to something bigger than oneself.

4)” I don’t know the ropes, I’m a newbie, I’ll get lost in the crowd.”
Answer: We’re not that big, you are important, and it doesn’t matter if you don’t know much about religion or Jesus or anything. We’re all in this together.

5) “I’ve been ripped off by church in the past. Christians can be really weird, and mean, and self-righteous.”
Answer: See #2 above.

6) “I don’t trust organized religion.”
Answer: Don’t worry, we’re not that organized!

Back in the day I bought a membership to a well-known “Family” health club. This was when it had become really cool to be in shape, and I wasn’t about to miss being cool. So I prepared myself to take the plunge into reclaiming my past glory days of buffness. What I was not prepared for was the hardcore sales job I was about to experience! I thought I was buying a gym membership…it felt like I was investing in gold bullion and leveraging hedge funds. The “workout” that I was hoping to get as a part of my membership began way before I hit the gym as I arm wrestled the salesman for my checkbook! Nobody likes to be “sold” anything, we want to feel like we choose our destiny, and this guy confirmed my most negative suspicions about sales people. Or maybe I’m just ticked because I couldn’t figure out when I was getting scammed! Anyway, it went down.

They did a really good job of making me think I was getting a really great deal. The guy was very buff and very friendly, just like the “personal trainer” who came with the deal who would help me get in shape. As it turned out, the guy wasn’t that buff nor friendly, and (once I joined) I had a heck of a time finding anyone with a nametag who would even look my way, much less help me!

The biggest letdown was the financial arrangement. The deal was you bought a membership, an actual contract for a year, then paid monthly dues. The catch was they didn’t let me pay a month at a time, they required that I had to let them automatically deduct the amount each month from my bank account. I didn’t know this at the time, but any glitch with the bank would be impossible to figure out, it would be somebody else’s fault, and “they used to work here, sorry.” I’m probably still getting automatic deductions from twenty years ago. I’d better check.

One bad thing that I can’t blame on them was what I did with the membership. Even though I could have gone as often as I wanted (I was a MEMBER!), I didn’t. I think I worked out less as a member than I did before! In fact, I think I felt like I was paying for the privilege of NOT working out. After all, “I had paid my dues, don’t bug me!” I could show people my card, giving the impression that I really did work out, even though I didn’t! Nice.

When all was said and done, I learned to be a little suspicious of organizations that might sell more than they deliver. In fact, some people view church with the same kind of suspicion…can’t say I blame them… there are some scary similarities:

1) They sold it as a “Family” thing, but I still felt alone, ripped off, and like an idiot. Part of it was my fault for not being assertive enough, but I think I fell victim to a really good sales job.
Promise: We will try really hard as a church to come through in terms of honesty and integrity.

2) The financial thing was weird.
Promise: We’ll be up front about the finances. Nobody’s getting rich around here. We want to be good, responsible stewards of what we see as “God’s money”. Feel free to ask.

3) Attendance. The health club didn’t really care if I “attended” or not…once I signed the contract.

Promise: We care. Church is not about just joining something, it’s about being family. Everyone is important, whether you know the ropes or not. God wants to use you in the life of others, and he wants to use others to help you become more and more like Jesus!

To that end, let’s commit to coming to church regularly.

Blessings,
Gerry Limpic

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