This week I took my first sip of coconut water.  Then I took my second sip.  I even took a third sip.  Then, I stopped sipping.

What can that simple experience teach us about bringing people far from God near Him?  Plenty.

For starters, the only reason I even tried coconut water was because all I’ve heard in the last few months is how good it is for you.  How all the fitness gurus drink it.  How holding that container and sipping it will catapult my body into a new fitness stratosphere.  But when I tasted it, the first thing I thought was that no matter how much you market something terrible, it’s still terrible.

I don’t want that to be true of our church.  It’s so easy to say that we’re this or we’re that, to put a great  presentation together.  Marketing is easy; planting is hard.  Surface presentation feels good immediately; planting  for future growth feels good eventually.  I’ve said this before, but the church is often guilty of over-selling and under-delivering.  And at that point, our services become nothing more than the hype that sells coconut water, and people will be disappointed when they finally give what we’re selling a try.

Second, we’ve only got a limited number of opportunities with people when it comes to drawing them nearer to Jesus.  There are people who overuse the phrase that you only get one chance to make a good first impression, and while that’s technically true, the reality is that most of us will give something a few shots before we move on.  After my first sip of the vile stuff, I took another, and another.  Why?  Because I really wanted to like it, and so I kept hoping it would get better.

Apply that to the lives of hurting, broken, unchurched people who come to The Gathering.  If what we say we are doesn’t match up to what we really are, they will have the same reaction that I had with the coconut water, and it won’t be a good one.  Our job is to make sure that doesn’t happen, for sure, but the good news is that many people are so thirsty for something real that they will probably give us another sip or two, and that’s where our integrity as a church is so critical.

More than being the best at everything (which is impossible and would be like trying to market coconut water), we have the opportunity to be the best at the things that make us uniquely us: a culture of people who want to do life together, a culture that is passionate about being near God and each other in relationships.  What we have to offer the thirsty lives around us is so much better than coconut water!  We hold out the refreshing water of life.  Jesus said in John 7:37-38 that if anyone was thirsty, “let him come to me and drink.”  Our job is to make sure the first sip is as refreshing as Jesus said it would be, and how we serve the thirsty goes a long way towards the way they react when they try Him.

Let’s be the best at offering a cup of cold water to weary travelers, and we’ll see a great harvest of souls gulping down the water they’ve craved instead of throwing coconut water in the trash.

If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, then you’ve probably noticed this little phrase quite a bit lately.

{{{{{ HOLD EVERYTHING!!! }}}}}
If you don’t follow me, what are you waiting on??  Get on over to to Twitter and add me and then go be my friend on Facebook!

Ok, now that we got that stuff out of the way, let’s get back to what I was saying.  I’ve had that phrase stuck in my mind so much lately, and about a month ago I really felt strongly that God was speaking that word over many of us at The Gathering.  When I shared the word that God calls us to stay faithful over the long haul and that He is with us every step of the way on the long haul, I was amazed (but I shouldn’t have been) at how many that word resonated with.

Seems most of us can relate to good things not always happening overnight.  Listening to The Dip by Seth Godin during my run this morning reminded me even more that in order to be the very best at something, we’ve got to stick in it when we go through the valley.

Remember this week what we learned in the last part of our NO MATTER WHAT series: when you’re blindsided by life and circumstances, do what Jehoshaphat did in 2 Chronicles 20: TAKE UP A POSITION of seeking God and then WATCH HIM FIGHT THE FIGHT for you.  I promise that in the end, He will give you vision (a plan of action) and victory!

Lots of love to the Gathered!

Paul

7 things that you need to know:

1.  Before we even get into the topic at hand, let me just say how much fun this past Sunday was at The Gathering!  It’s not often that I get to tell so many fun stories and relate them to so many powerful truths in so many great passages ALL IN ONE MESSAGE!  If you missed it, want to watch it again, or simply what to share it with others who need to be encouraged about overcoming fear in their lives, head on over to the NO MATTER WHAT page on the site and click the share button.

2.  Thank you to Phil Baucom for SCARING THE SNOT OUT OF ME by changing the wallpaper on my MacBook Pro desktop to a seemingly harmful picture of a mouse.  May you dream often in the weeks to come of whatever scares you the most.

3.  A second shout out to Jay Phillips for being so quick about offering to take me to a stable where I can get over my fear of horses.  I’m sure I’ll be going there soon, MOST LIKELY AT GUNPOINT, and there will more than likely be video of it.  Yippee. Don’t I sound thrilled?

4.  One more sarcastic note of appreciation to Richard Kimmer for offering to take me rock climbing on a cliff somewhere nowhere near the ground in order to CONQUER MY FEAR OF HEIGHTS.  With men like these around me, I’m certain to a) overcome fear, or b) go be with Jesus at which point I will have overcome fear forever.

5.  In case you haven’t figured this out yet, WE BELIEVE IN LEARNING AND LIVING THE BIBLE.  That’s usually a good thing, unless you publicly share with everyone things you’re afraid of.  Then it kind of bites you in the butt.

6.  I’m super-pumped about our FELLOWSHIP OF THE ORANGE SHIRTS this Sunday at 4:00 pm!  If you have an orange shirt (which means you serve on one of our many iOS Ministry teams), you’re invited to Nehemiah and Renee Parah’s house for a covered-dish supper and pool party.  WE LOVE OUR VOLUNTEERS!!  You can get more information on the website.

And finally,

7.  In case you didn’t notice on the faces of all the smiling students at church, IT’S SUMMERTIME!!  For many of us, that means vacations, lazy days, and the occasional sunburn in the shape of a backwards number 7.  But what it can’t mean is a SPIRITUAL SUMMER SLUMP!  Christianity is first and foremost ABOUT JESUS, and since He’s Lord 365 days a year (and 366 days every leap year), we need to be in relationship with Him each day!  At The Gathering, we’re committed to giving you the tools you need in order to STAY STRONG during the dog days of summer.  Here are some of them:

1. PERSONAL GROWTH GUIDES:  While some of the Community Groups will meet during the summer, we’re leaving the frequency of the get-togethers up to each individual CG.  Instead of taking a break from diving deeper into the teachings each Sunday, we’ll still be preparing a revised study guide that you can use individually or as a family during the summer weeks.  They’re easy to use and easy to find.  You’ll locate them each week on the current series page on the website labeled PERSONAL GROWTH GUIDE.
2. ONLINE GIVING:  If you’re going to miss and you still want to give, now you can do it while you’re in your jammies on vacation!  Simply head to the GIVE tab on the website and choose the option that works best for you.
3. INVITE CARDS:  Honestly, the best way to stay active during the summer is to be active about your faith and about our church.  In order to help you with that, we’ve got tons and tons of cards that you can pick up each week to give away to people around town.  Even if you’re out of town on vacation, give a card away and invite them to check us out on the web.  You never know how a message online could make all the difference in a person’s life!

Great things are happening at The G and I am so thankful to lead each of us.  There’s no doubt that THE BEST IS YET TO COME!!

I LOVE MY CHURCH!