If churches were restaurants…
Would you go to the one with the empty parking lot and people not smiling in their booths? Would you prefer the restaurant with a packed parking lot and happily smiling customers in their booths? Your answers probably also reflects your view and involvement within your own church.
The restaurant that has very little clientele and unhappy patrons might need an overhaul. Maybe all they need is to tweak a few things here or there. It is possible the food is nasty! If so, change the chef. It could be that the style of food is no longer unique to the community or the community has changed around the restaurant and they may need to move locations, or start serving differently. Either way, what is needed is necessary changes. Not changes for change sake, but: 1) obvious; 2) necessary; 3) practical changes that reflect the nature of a good restaurant.
Churches are similar. The very nature of the great commission means our churches should be in constant change. Reality hasn’t set in because we are comfortable. Comfort is the enemy of obedience. It is a lot harder to not be a ‘couch potato’ when you are located on the couch! There is a community within the reach of every church. Those communities are changing. What efforts are those churches making (necessary changes) to reach them?
It is my burden that a church not creating new groups out of necessity is a church in trouble. There should be some form of multiplication occurring, based upon their discipleship, which provides for more outreach and growth spiritually. If that is not occurring, they may indeed be inwardly focused. They are the restaurant that cannot see the doors shut…yet.
They become oh-so naturally preoccupied with their preferences, and die. Acts 2.47 says: ‘Praising God, and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.’ That does not mean that every church should be ‘big’, but it does mean that every healthy church should be growing. That growth will require: 1) obvious; 2) necessary; 3) practical changes.
Some restaurants do not have the respect of the community they are in due to past rumors; or worse, due to present customer service. If the servers and chefs do not respect themselves or each other then they are doomed. ‘We are better together’ should be their theme. In fact, the worse-case scenario is a restaurant where the employees do not show respect for the owner/operator. Churches conversely, will never have the respect they desire from those outside the church until they restore the reverence due to God inside the church. Those churches have real worship. They know Who they are here for and nothing else. Churches who worship have focus in the right place. They have less distraction the 6 days leading up to the day of worship. But it is not just about that one day is it? A restaurant who opens their doors at weird hours because it’s convenient for an employee is making a selfishly-ridiculous mistake. Those restaurants drive me crazy! They have great food but selfish about when they will be open. You know churches have that problem also. More and more they are pointing judgmental fingers at the ‘traditional’ and ‘boring’ churches for being selfish and old; all the while they are only open one day a week. Luke wrote in Acts 5.42 a history lesson for when a church is open for and does their business: ‘And daily in the temple, and in every house, they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ.’
What if the restaurant gets a bad report? There is almost no way to prepare for it. The best thing they could do is simply keep cooking good food and serving the best they can, to as many as they can, and there will be a few critiques in the midst. A healthy outward-focused church will have hypocrites too. What?! Why? Jesus explained this principle in Matthew 13 with the parable of the ‘wheat and tares’. You will have the counterfeit right next to the genuine. There is no way to remove it without possibly destroying the genuine.
My last observation of the church restaurant is: Being a good restaurant robs you of being a great one. Good is the enemy of Great…EVERY TIME! Churches who look at it ‘being good enough’ are putting one foot in a coffin! What we do for our King outshines any worldly illustration we could ever put to it. We are the children of the Great High King! Be great not good, do great not good, finish great not good. God deserves your best, your first, your all!
If members of that church would treat their lives like vessels for greatness to the One and Only Great God Almighty…People will want to come to that church, I guarantee it!