Missing The Point

Have you ever forgotten what it is you're really trying to do?  Brian McLaren and Tony Campolo have teamed up to write Adventures in Missing the Point.  In the first section there is a quote from Jim Henderson which illustrates this point:

"I'm in Home Depot.  A series of consumer canyons tower menacingly overhead.  All I need is a thingamajig.  Where is it and who cares?  My eyes quickly scan the horizon of stuff looking for a little just-in-time customer service.

I want to scream: Take your eyes off those boxes!  Get down off that stupid ladder!  Quit visiting with your coworkers!  Don't pick up that phone!  Pay attention to me!

But it's pointless, and I finally get it:  I'm an interruption.  An irritation.  They'd prefer I wasn't in their building.

They've forgotten why they went into business.  It wasn't to count boxes.  Or visit each other.  Or ignore the customer.  They went into business to pay attention to the customer.

Employees like these have missed the point."

Do we ever do that as a church?  Do we ever catch ourselves thinking that the already saved should gorge themselves on the spiritual feast and forget the starving unsaved?  Have we missed the point?

Catch a glimpse of Jesus.  Be a bystander...a reporter, watching how Jesus spends his day.  What was the point of his journey?   And if we understood his mission how would it change our daily lives?  And how would it change our Sunday gatherings?

Comments

[michael rhodes]

i read that book back when I lived in Escondido and that phrase "missing the point" has stuck with me since and I use it all the time. I have actually spent the majority of my blog posts trying to explore the questions you asked. good questions. I think these questions are at the heart of growing disconnectedness with "church" among so many.