Family Meal or Restaurant
0 comments | Posted by Steven Layson on 17 Aug 2010 in From Steve's Study ::
Last Sunday night at the 7pm service, we had the opportunity to watch a snippet of a sermon by Mark Driscoll regarding church. It was a very challenging talk, and I thought he used a very interesting picture to describe our view of church. He compared church to the difference going to a restaurant and sitting down at a family meal.
At a restaurant, you come in and a showed to a table, you order whatever you want, how you want it and if it isn’t exactly as you like, you can walk out or go somewhere else next time. However, try acting like that at home! When you sit down to a family meal, you are expected to help set the table and perhaps help prepare the meal. Far from sitting around waiting for someone else to serve you, you may have to take the initiative in serving others. Sometimes you will eat a meal that you may not particularly like, but you have to eat it because that is what the family is having.
The point of the analogy is that church is much more like the latter than the former. When we became Christians, we were welcomed into God’s family. Now family is often messy and sometimes annoying, but there is no better place to be (as anyone who has had to travel with business and spent lots of time eating alone in restaurants can tell you).
In other words, we need to examine our motives and expectations of what will happen when we get to church. Do we come with the expectation that everything will be arranged to suit me? Or, do we come to church with the expectation of meeting with family (with all the positives and negativesthat might provide). Driscoll’s point of application is that if you don’t feel like you’re part of the family, it’s because you’re not involved. If you are part of a family, you get involved to make it work. He says, that “if you’re not plugged in and serving … you’ll be gone in a year”.
Check out his message Why Your Church Doesn’t Feel Like A Family at www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne9DzfH3Ej0 if you’re ready to be challenged!.
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