How Things Normally Are

Many times churches are sending messages that they don’t mean to send…

Think of it this way… There may be a place in your house, maybe your master bedroom, where there is a permanent pile of clothing. Maybe there’s not enough room in the closet, etc…etc…, but, long story short, you and your spouse have come to the unspoken agreement that the pile is OK where it is. Because it’s part of “how things normally are,” you don’t even see it anymore. Churches are full of those sort of things – they may be physical (like the pothole that everyone is used to driving around) or ways in which you communicate (like the fact that the “service host” gives a preview of everything about to be in the announcement video and the pastor repeats it again right after the video shows) or people-related (like the greeter who is nice but really likes to repeatedly bring up the fact that she sells essential oils). 

I do “secret shopper” visits for churches, and it’s amazing how many times when I’m going over my notes with them that you’ll see the light bulbs go on. The look on their faces says “Oh, yeah…” In many cases, they actually knew about the issues all along, but familiarity and selective forgetfulness has blinded them to problems (many of which are easily fixable).

We’ll talk about how to deal with this tomorrow…