There’s a story I heard once of a woman at church who was angry and frustrated about the ways people around her were acting. They were dancing and shuffling and moving about and she didn’t like it. Not one bit!
So this woman went and met with the pastor to inform him of her frustrations. The pastor gave her an unusual task to do as a response.
“Next Sunday, I want you to bring a glass of water to church that is full to the brim and walk around the worship center during the service without spilling a single drop. Can you do that for me?”
Sure enough, the woman comes in next Sunday and walks around the entire service without spilling a single drop of water. After the service, the pastor asks the woman if she was still bothered by how people were acting.
“How could I see what anyone else was doing? I was too busy watching this glass of water that I didn’t have energy to focus on anything else!” she explained.
“Exactly,” the pastor agreed. “And from now on, that’s exactly how you should worship, by being so focused on your time with God that you can’t worry about what anyone else is doing.”
I will say that I agree with the primary sentiment behind this little story. If we are looking around in church to catch other people doing stuff we don’t like, then our heart is clearly not in the right place. Our first focus must be on our own attitude in worship.
However, I don’t entirely agree with the “letter of the law,” so to speak, in this story.
I can’t help but feel like life would be easier in a unidirectional sidescrolling adventure. Minus the Koopas, of course. (Image property of Nintendo)
You see, I am a notorious glancer. I am not the most focused, single-minded person on the planet. I let my mind wander. My eyes bounce around rooms. I jump from thought to thought as if I were Mario and the music is getting faster.
And I can…uhhh…where was I going with this?
Oh, yeah. That’s right. Church services.
When I’m in church, I can’t help but let my eyes wander from person to person. Admittedly, I do sometimes catch myself falling into the same trap as our proverbial woman earlier, where something will catch my eye, then immediately rankle my bones a little.
But let me tell you what else I’ve seen when I let my eyes wander around during church.
I’ve seen the faces of people who are going through some of the darkest times anyone can experience, but they are shining with an inexplicable joy as they sing praises to their King. I have seen men on their knees in prayer for people they love and for the burdens on their hearts.
There is one experience from church that happened in the last year or so, and I will never forget this. I was sitting next to an older gentleman I don’t think I’d ever met before, even though we had been attending the same church for a number of years. He was either in his late 70s or early 80s, white haired and dressed to the nines in a fine church suit.
But more importantly, this gentleman sang with such a moving sincerity that I nearly grew emotional just hearing his words lifted up regarding the goodness of the Father.
During the mandatory greeting time, this gentleman’s wife leaned over and said hello to me, then offered a piece of information I neither needed nor sought. She told me that her husband was a little shaky sometimes due to a stroke he was still recovering from a few years prior.
In that moment, it all came together. In addition to whatever daily challenges of life this man might have been experiencing, he had also seen God’s goodness in his recovery from a serious medical event.
This older gentleman had witnessed a lifetime of God’s faithfulness, and it showed on his face and in his voice.
This past Sunday, I took a moment to look around the worship center and think about each individual life lived, their struggles, their hopes, and their own relationship with God. I was reminded of the faces I’d seen in the past of people whose faith had encouraged me.
When I tell you that I was nearly on the verge of tears from this moment of beautiful recognition, you have to know that I mean it. Admittedly, becoming a father has at times made a me more openly emotional person, but I am still not generally the type of person to get openly weepy at the drop of a hat.
“And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.”
The writer of Hebrews had a salient word to say about the significance of gathering together as believers.
We must not neglect meeting together.
The simple fact is that you can always find better preaching. You can always find better music. If you really wanted to, you could sit at home and stream podcasts of notable preachers sharing the Word and then pop in a Tomlin CD and you could - in theory - replicate something akin to a church service.
However, what people found out during the Covid times, you just can’t replicate the true value of a church through remote means.
Now I entirely agree with churches working to improve their streaming capabilities. You have members who may be shut in or traveling who can’t physically attend a service. You may have someone share a link to your service with a non-churched friend. You may hope to minister to Martians with really good wi-fi. There are countless great reasons to stream church services online.
Except for that last one I mentioned, perhaps. Maybe don’t take that one to your budget teams.
Even so, you can never fully participate in a church if you are only worshiping via a glass screen.
(As an aside, speaking of shut-in ministries, this is why it is so vital for churches to occasionally go out and visit those people rather than just letting the computer or the tape player do the job for them. Just a thought. Carry on!)
I briefly referenced this idea a moment ago, but some people prefer to listen to podcasts or stream sermons from notable pastors all over the country. These are fine resources for additional study, but they are simply inadequate for any semblance of true discipleship.
There have been times when I’ve been privileged to sit in the room when some well-known teachers were preaching from the podium. I’m not going to namedrop here because that’s not the point. The point is that all of their dynamic words and clever speeches didn’t mean that much to me. Not because there was anything wrong with their sermons, and everyone knows I’ve been guilty of being a touch too clever at times, but because I don’t know these men. I have no relationship with them.
Then I’ve sat under the teaching of men who have invested their lives into me, they have been there for me in difficult times and been a listening ear when I needed to drone on about something bothering me. Perhaps they stutter a little when talking, perhaps they mumble at times.
It’s only awkward when you make eye contact with the other person who can’t maintain their attention span for more than 30 seconds. (Photo by Xan Griffin on Unsplash)
I will take the imperfect speech of a faithful, genuine believer who I have been personally encouraged by over the polished speech of a pretty stranger any time. And again, I mean no disrespect to famous preachers who are good at communicating. I am happy for them and their ministry, and the people in their church are blessed to be there.
But it’s okay to be a little imperfect. And it’s okay to let that imperfection shine in church sometimes, because you never know when your slightly visible flaws will mean the world to a fidgety observer who is struggling through the exact same thing you are.