Plastic chairs...

This morning at Lighthouse, we were featured as special song guests for the school’s Wednesday morning chapel.  I couldn’t believe they let me anywhere near a microphone—those of you who’ve heard my singing voice, or that of my parents, know that is most certainly a poor decision.  Fortunately, no one seemed to mind, but probably because Jason and Jade were able to mask my attempt at singing.  Thank goodness the Lord gave me friends with beautiful voices! On the weekend, Lighthouse also operates as a church.  During chapel service and on the weekends the one room sanctuary is filled with plastic lawn chairs, which in Kenya is considered fancy.  I wonder how a Kenyan would react upon entering a typical America church.  I’m sure he’d be shocked to see that we have state of the art cushioned seats that remain unused for other purposes during the week—a completely unrealistic option for any church here.  We spend so much time and money working to make our churches comfortable so that people will come.  I wonder if Jesus would have made his church comfortable.  I’m kind of inclined to think not.  I think Jesus would want people to come, even when the chairs are uncomfortable, simply because they want to full-heartedly follow him.  Perhaps we should consider that it isn’t a comfortable church nor a church with the best music or the most resources that draws in disciples of Christ, it’s the power of the Holy Spirit.  Maybe having all of these spectacular resources actually distracts us from the power of God and makes us believe that we can move people more than the spirit can.  I don’t say any of this to discourage American churches; instead, I simply want to meditate on the fact that Christ has more power than anything we can contrive.