Voting with My Feet
I used to love morning parking lot duty when I was a teacher. I enjoyed greeting the students as they came in, learning new names, cajoling and joking with them.
Most of them were in no mood for jokes, of course.
It was morning.
They were walking into the school building, where they would sit in desks all day.
All the more reason, I thought, to brighten their day with a little banter.
Fast-forward to my present role as a pastor. Now I am standing in the door on a Sunday morning, greeting people as they come in.
Of course I flash back to my teacher days and parking lot duty.
But as I think about the two kinds of greeting, I notice a significant difference.
Those kids were streaming into the school building because they didn’t have much choice in the matter. Everything in our culture is arrayed to encourage and require students to attend school, to get an education. Their association is mandatory, not voluntary. That’s why they are trudging.
But those people streaming into church on Sunday morning are coming because they want to be there.
There are dozens of other things people could do with their Sunday mornings. They could sleep in. They could run errands. They could take a walk in the woods.
And it is true that a man can pray wherever he is, a woman can read her Bible at Starbucks, and it is a wonderful thing to enjoy the goodness of God in nature.
But one thing we can’t do alone – home in our beds, praying by ourselves, reading our Bible alone at Starbucks, walking in the woods – is gather with the people of God. The people who come into the building on Sunday morning have decided to forego all those other Sunday morning options and give those hours to gather with the people of God and celebrate the goodness of God.
People coming to church on Sunday morning are “voting with their feet.”
Sure, they will sing their worship, and they will hear God’s Word being taught and preached. But their first act of worship was getting out of bed and coming to church. The act of coming into the building and gathering with God’s people is in itself an act of worship.
Sure, they’re still sinners. That couple may have had a fight on the way to church and spoken to one another sharply. That woman might be vain and anxious about her appearance. That man might be coming partly to worship God but mostly to keep peace at home.
But they come. They gather. And they worship together with the people of God.
Discipleship is never just about Jesus and you. Jesus died to make you part of the family of God, to make men and women who would otherwise be strangers into brothers and sisters.
These are the people we need to be with. We must not neglect the duty we owe to them – and the opportunity for ourselves – to “vote with our feet” in favor of being together.
Persevere,
Paul Pyle
Discipleship Pastor