Hungover Worshippers

In most traditional churches this weekend people exchanged their 'Hello' and 'How are you?' The typical answers given were "Hello, I'm doing well (or fine, or good) LIES!!!!

Yes many times we are doing fine. But most people never have an experience of Christianity where you can be raw with others and not feel rejected.

This weekend I was reminded why church planting is so much more fun than anything else in ministry.

During setup I was walking around and headed out into the hallway where I bumped into Chris. Chris just finished his Navy commitment and will be headed back home to the Orlando,FL area in a few months. Chris has been attending Focal Point for around two months on and off. I wish he were staying in the area b/c I think he's a good guy and I'd love to get to work with him some.

Anyway... Chris came down the hall from one end as he headed for Theater 4 where we do our service and I was headed the other way to check on something when we passed each other.

I said "Hey Chris... Good to see ya bro... How are ya?"

Chris said "I'm hungover."

I said "Cool. I'm glad you're here."

Chris said "Yeah man." and then he went to sit down.

I thought this was the coolest thing for a few reasons.
1. We are ministering to guys like Chris who comes to Focal Point at times without even messing with his hair. There have been days when Chris rolled out of bed just in time to get to the service.

2. Chris felt comfortable enough with me to just be real. He wasn't making a show of it or anything he was just answering my question honestly. I wonder if Chris would have said the same thing to most Pastors. By pressure he would have been forced to lie and say what most Christians say "I'm good" or "I'm fine." Christians LIE every Sunday because life isn't always great.

We have another woman in our church who started coming because of our Easter Egg Hunt and party we threw the week before Easter. She has several kids and is a single mom. I remember the first day she came to Focal Point one of our First Impressions guys asked how she was that day.

Her reply? "I wrestled with 4 kids trying to get them all up, washed, in the car to drag them to church... How do YOU think I'm doing today?"

That was one of the funniest stories coming from our First Impressions teams yet.

Update on both:
At the end of service Sunday I asked Chris for permission to blog about this and he said "Sure." He went on to say "You want to write about it? I thought you'd be mad at me and wouldn't want me around so that's why I went and sat at the back of the room during setup..." Me and a few other guys laughed out loud. I said "Chris, of course I want you around..." Chris knows that being drunk isn't right and he knows God isn't cool with it and he knows I don't encourage people to go get wasted. At the same time I am glad that Chris has a church home where he can be real and hear God's word in just as raw of a form so that he can learn and grow in his life.

As for the single mom... that day after the service the same person asked her "So what did you think?" She said (with a smile on her face)... "I loved it and my kids had a great time... we'll definately be back next week!" Since then she has invited someone new with her nearly every week! It's been fantastic.

To me, these are some of the things I'm most excited about. These are people who may not be accepted by any other church. The Holy Spirit is able to be active in their lives because these people have a church that is real and honest. There is no 'dog and pony show' here.

Praise God for any church that reaches it's culture on THE CULTURE'S terms and not ours.