I noticed something recently while at church actually. Things don't always go according to plan. There will be a hitch with the power point slides, someone will read the wrong words in the readings, Pastor will skip over something, George will play the wrong hymn. None of those things are big or earth shattering. So what I realized is this...just what I said, none of this is earth shattering. It's a hiccup along the way. A very small stumble in the grand scheme of things. Sometimes when we have a small microcosm of a world, like a church, we forget that there are bigger things out there than what we are experiencing in here.
That's why I thought the idea of having the barbecue on Thursdays with a service is such a great idea! What if we flung open the doors to whomever can come? What if they smelled the hot dogs or heard the people milling around and thought, hmmm, I wonder what St. Marks is up to now? How great would it be to spread the gospel around without worrying about whether the liturgy was in the correct order? Or the hymn was slightly out of tune or even the hot dogs got a little burnt on the outside? By being together on a night different from every other thing we've done, we are opening ourselves up to new ideas and new people. That's really what the church is about isn't it? It isn't about life staying in one place and being stagnant. It's about life coming at you, every day of the week, full of the Holy Spirit, shouting out, "he is risen! He is risen, indeed!"
So plan on coming out on Thursdays at least once to see what this is all about and join in the proclamation that God is out here in life with us, not just in the walls of the sanctuary, but out in the air and everywhere.