Monday’s are very unique days for most of us. You’ve either had a really long weekend, your absolutely exhausted and don’t want to be at work. You’re so glad to be at work and get away from the people you had to spend your weekend with, or maybe you’re just blah because you’re life feels that way. For me, Monday is my 2nd favorite day of the week.
Monday’s are different for me, because every Sunday, God absolutely blows my mind. I am in complete shock and in awe at the things God allows me to be apart of at NewSpring Church. The fact that he has given me the opportunity to serve on the production team, the finances to be able to drive a hour and a half to church every week, and the lifestyle that allows me to have Sunday’s off, completely amazes me. I do not deserve any of it, but he still allows me to do it.
Every Monday I am pumped up beyond belief. I feel like I could completely charge hell with a water gun, put out the fire, and do it all by myself. I can’t wait to tell people about the experience I had at church on Sunday.
One thing I always do is ask other Christians I know and work with, “Hey, how was church yesterday?” .. The typical answer is .. “It was good.” Really? .. “It was good?” .. That’s all you’ve got for me? This answer completely breaks my heart, and is the response I get 99% of the time. I’m serious. When someone says that to me, it makes me want to cry. I want to ask them,”Did God not to anything in your church yesterday that was more then good?”
Last year we had the pleasure of doing a 2 week series based on the book Sun Stand Still by Steven Furtick, lead pastor at Elevation Church in Charlotte, NC. (The book is life changing, if you’ve not read it.) He really spoke to us as an outsider, but he completely knew our story as a church. We know that the things that God is doing at NewSpring isn’t normal. It’s not normal for a church that is 11 years old to have 5 campuses, seen over 12,000 people saved, and recored growth each week. He used an analogy that I think everyone can grasp. He said as a kid growing up, he worked in a firework store. People would come in and ask, hey what does this one do? .. Well it does this. Someone else would ask, hey what does this one do? .. Well it does this. He had been around the fireworks so long, that the beauty of them didn’t impress him anymore. His challenge to us, was “Don’t get used to the fireworks.” (You can listen to the complete message here.) I’ve completely taken that message to heart. I thank God everyday for the fireworks that he puts into my life.
My fear is, there are SO many Christians out there that have never experienced the fireworks before. You walk into the church, sit down, lip sing a few songs, and then try your best to stay awake for the next 45 minutes while the pastor talks to “everyone else,” because we all know that you didn’t need to hear the message he was preaching. You’ve been going to church since you were a kid, and you’ve heard it all before. I feel like especially here in the south, we’ve made church the most boring and lifeless places on earth. I would rather walk down Interstate 40 and try to dodge getting hit by a semi truck, then sit though a church service at 90% of the churches in the south.
See what most people don’t realize is until the 20th century the world took it’s cues from the church. Music and culture were driven by the church. It’s just been in the past 100 years that the world has dictated what culture is, and the church has been turned into a lifeless building. The church is now “chasing” culture, to try and stay relevant and draw people in. This is why the church must change. This is why until the church does change, kids are not going to want to come, and more hellions will be growing up. If a teenager has his attention drawn by movies, music and video games. Comes to church and has to sing a boring song, he is going to think Jesus is boring and will want NOTHING to do with him. If you present Jesus as this dynamic and exciting being that he is, that teenager will be open and could possibly change the world.
If you’re in Sales, you have to be excited about a product to sell it, or you can just lie. If you’re going to get someone to come to church, lying is completely out of the picture, so you must be excited about it. If week after week, you’re telling people how awesome you’re church services are, they are going to want to come. Trust me. I’ve had people drive a hour and a half to Anderson, SC, because I wouldn’t shut-up about how awesome I think my church is.
Now, I don’t want this to come off as, some everyone should come to NewSpring post. That’s not the point. My point is, if you’re not in a church your excited about, you might as well not even go. You’d be much more excited if you got a few hours of extra sleep on Sunday mornings. God wants so much more for our lives and we can reach so many more people as a church, if we will just get excited and allow that enthusiasm to leave the walls of our church buildings and into the cities. If your church was considered the coolest place in town and everyone wanted to come, that would be freaking awesome. But most people are scared of that because they don’t think church is supposed to be cool.
If the new “cool” was getting saved and serving Jesus, this world would be a much better place.
I write all this to say .. if you’ve never experienced the fireworks, maybe you need to check your own heart, find a different church, or have the desire and passion to be the spark that allows the fireworks to start going off in your current church. Don’t sit around and wait for someone else to set the fireworks off, do it yourself. That could be the catalyst that changes your life and church.
