Proof Reading

There is a nearly famous phrase (or maybe they are words to a silly song) that says "if I knew you were coming I would have baked a cake".  I can't remember where that is from and I didn't care enough to google it and find out.  It just came to mind as I was thinking about the kind of people that prepare, and the kind of people who don't.  The thing is, baking a cake actually takes quite a bit of time. It's not like "if I knew you were coming, I would have bought a cake from the grocery store and gave it to you."

There is so much more in the "bake a cake" statement than you can imagine. It says I will take the time to make your visit seem important.  How we prepare shows the level of how much we think it makes a difference. 

To put it another way, I had a music professor that made a profound impact on my rehearsal time with this statement: "an amateur will practice until they get it right, but a professional will practice until they don't get it wrong.  Go ahead, take a few minutes to read that again and process it.  It's worth it. 

Anyway, I think you can apply this principle to most things in life. I know people that always use the phrase "it's good enough" which for me translates into "I don't care to spend any more time doing this thing that I am doing because I don't feel it's important enough." Now of course there are some things that don't deserve my best, such as watering the grass. I feel confident in spraying a bunch of water over the lawn that each blade will somehow get the water they need. There is no need to take extra time to cover every square inch of grass with water.

Another example comes from a missions trip I went on. We were supposed to be digging holes to put cement in. In the bottom of each hole, we had to put rock before we poured the cement in. As we went from hole to hole filling them with rock, we noticed one person taking an absurd amount of time putting rock in the hole. As I approached her to see what the problem was, she had placed each rock so carefully that it formed a mosaic artwork, almost too good to lay cement over. The purpose of the rock was to be a foundation, so throwing a bunch of the rock at the bottom was "good enough" to support the cement.

I always thought that the things we do at church are far too important to take lightly. Speaking of lights, I have a pet peeve about light bulbs. I think all the light bulbs in the church should work on Sunday morning.  Having some, or most of the lights isn't "good enough." 

We always rehearse our music. I need to be completely familiar with the song in order to lead others in singing. It doesn't take long to look over the words to the songs and familiarize yourself with them. This is also the same for reading the scriptures. When assigned to read from the Holy Book known as God's Word, or the Bible, we should review the words to become familiar before we say them out loud in front of the church.

What makes it even more important in our church is that the words are on the large projection screen. Everyone is following along. Most are following along as interested listeners, but some are following as editors. They can't help it. They are just made that way. And when we listen to every word spoken by the reader as an editor, we wait for the hard words. Any person's name that isn't Ruth or Mark becomes fun to listen to. The twelve tribes of Heeber-Jack-in the Box.... or something like that. 

This Sunday we followed along as one reader talked about signs and wonders. It appeared as if she lost her place when all of a sudden we heard about the "ridiculous" signs and wonders. I saw people's heads turn to check the words on the screen. "I am sure I don't remember that translation" is what some people were thinking. The correct word was miraculous. Miraculous signs and wonders was clearly written on the screen for all to see. I'm not even sure the person who read this and said "ridiculous" ever realized her mistake. I can tell you by conversations after church many people noticed. 

After a good laugh, it made me think. Why don't people prepare to recite God's word? It happens all the time in our church. You can tell the people who rehearse, and the people who are surprised by the words in front of them. This is one of those things that shouldn't be "good enough".  Sure God has grace for those who make mistakes, but lets not use it up with silly mistakes that can be avoided. (I also know God's grace does not run out so don't send me notes reminding me of that) Don't make a "ridiculous" mistake by reading like an amateur. Take a few minutes and then read like a professional.

Angel Sightings and George Costanza

My church is an Anglican church. That means we are connected somehow to the church of England. But in order to be connected there we connect through an African church. It's complicated, but all of that really isn't what this blog is about. This is about the words Anglican and Angel. You see, most people confuse the word Anglican (an-gla-can) with a made-up word....Angelican (an-gel-eh-can).

It sounds like a church made up from a bunch of angels. The angels church. Better off to be in Los Angeles if you are going to be the angel's church.

Well one thing is for sure... we are not the angel church. You probably are thinking I was going to comment that we are not all good, etc, etc, etc.  Nope.  Not at all.  I mean, sure we are probably not the greatest people, but by worldly standards we are not that bad.  I am referencing the fact that we don't look like angels.

Now, I don't want to get into a debate about whether or not angels are people or beings. The Bible is pretty clear that Angels are specifically created beings by God. They are not people who have died and get their wings to watch over us. Sorry if I ruined that for you but go look it up.  However, even that is not the reason I say we are not the angel church.

Today our Pastor told a wonderful story about a time he went to a church to be mad with God. I guess that doesn't sound like the makings of a wonderful story, but take my word for it....wonderful story.  All of a sudden an angel appeared. Not in church, but in his story. Angels have a habit of appearing all of a sudden. They never seem to approach from far away or walk on in casually. All of a sudden. The next detail struck me as interesting. I have often heard angels described with long flowing hair, but specifically this angel had blonde curly hair.

I thought to myself, how interesting in stories like this, that the hair... in detail... is always remembered. No details on the clothes, height, shoes, skin color, or foreign accent. Just the hair. And of course they always have great hair. Nobody ever describes seeing an angel with no hair,  or even the popular George Costanza haircut. Why can't angels have a buzz cut, or a mullet, or George Costanza hair?

I looked around the church. There were way too many guys that did not qualify for the "angel look" just on hair alone.

We may never be the church of angels, but we still are connected to God. Not by our relationship with angels, an African church, perfect hair, or even the church of England. We connect by our own personal relationship with God.  That's the good news.  Nobody will ever describe an angel having hair like mine.  That's the bad news.  I can live with that.