Good looks forward to seeing you

“Schools out, Schools out, teacher let the mules out; One jumped in, and one jumped out, and one jumped in the sauerkraut.”

I remember singing that as a youngster while riding the bus home on the last day of school before summer break. I remember thinking about all the things I was going to do and all the fun I was going to have. For the most part, summers were fun.

When my family moved to Patton, the fun changed from urban get togethers, to exploring the woods and swimming in the creek. I learned that it was pretty much up to me if summer was fun or not.

This is the way it is with church. Through out my time of being a pastor, (can you believe almost 25 years) I have heard many folks complain about church.

The complaints were often not about church, but about how people felt about church. You know, the “I’m not getting anything out of church” crowd.

I have also noticed over the years that many churches try to cater to that crowd, by offering entertaining options from musical light shows to specialty coffee in the lobby. There have even been attempts to make the gospel a little more palatable. You know, get rid of the sin talk and the consequences of sin and focus on just being good.

Unfortunately, these churches and many people miss the point of church. Church isn’t about me or you, it is about God. Church has nothing to do with how we feel about the service, it is about showing our love to God. It isn’t about what we get out of church, but what we give of ourselves.

I know this seems to be at odds with the current thinking of the world, but then we are not of the world. Right?

We, (yes, I am including you and I) seem to enjoy complaining, because that’s what the world does.

However, God is not a complaining God. God is a loving God. Thus, when we come to church, we need to be in love mode, not gripe mode.

People stop coming to church for all sorts of reasons. I understand what church-hurt is, I get it. The human side of church can be quite unforgiving. It can keep us from truly enjoying worship, if we let it. But that is the human side, we are at church for the God side of church, not the human side.

What if we took on the Psalm 122 attitude of church every time we went? “I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord.”

What if we looked for a way to give to God each time we came into the church? How would church look then?

I pray that this week, you can look forward to going to the church of your choice, I know God is looking forward to seeing you.

Just a thought.

Shalom my friends. See you in church.

Rev. Kent Wilfong is the pastor at the United Methodist Church, Doniphan/Neelyville.