Building Cool Points at Church

I serve on the staff of a rapidly growing multi-site church. While that means that there are a lot of great things happening, it also means that we’re always trying to shuffle the decks to accommodate new guests. Last weekend, for example, one of our campuses added a service and one of our campuses moved to a larger location. In the next few weeks, the Brier Creek campus (where I serve) will open a new 400 seat venue.

And again this week, we’re making an all-out push to get people to switch from more-crowded to less-crowded services or more-crowded to less-crowded campuses. So in the spirit of Jon Acuff’s point accumulation games, I offer you the following Summit Church Guide to Building Cool Points With Your Pastor:

• If you attend the Brier Creek 11 AM service, but are willing to switch to the 9 AM, award yourself 5 points.
• Attend the 9 AM but willing to go to the Bay? +7 points.
• Attend the Bay but will move to BC South and therefore walk an extra half mile (but do so with a joyful heart) +9 points.
• Continue to swagger into the 11 AM with the look of a grizzled war veteran, proudly boasting to all who can hear you “They ain’t broke me in the last four purges, they won’t break me in this one either!” -22 points.
• Attend Brier Creek Sunday but will switch to Saturday? +12 points.
• I meant the 4:15 on Saturday. +19 points.
• When UNC is playing. +27 points.
• But you’re a Duke fan. -6 points.
• You commit to make the switch for six weeks. +15 points.
• But only stick it out for two. -20 points.
• You live around the corner from Brier Creek but are willing to drive across town to go to church. +31 points.
• It’s not our church. -2 points.
• It’s not even a church. It’s Texas Roadhouse. -13 points.
• You leave your waitress a fake dollar bill tract. -16 points.
• Show up to serve on Sunday morning as a volunteer, but attend on Saturday night so there’s room for guests. +46 points.
• You invite your small group friends to make the switch with you. +29 points.
• They actually do it. +68 points.
• They don’t do it, because you’ve never shown up at small group and just use the email distribution list to send stupid forwards. -72 points.
• Of your cat. -122 points.
• Wearing sunglasses. -256 points.

TOTALS:

• Zero or less: You need to rethink your commitment to the church. Yes, Jesus loves you. But I’m having second thoughts.
• 1-49: Step it up. We had an open seat for you. We want to have one for our guests. Don’t make us park people on your lap.
• 50-99: You have the makings of a top notch church member. Stick around, we might name a pew after you someday. If we did that kind of thing. Or had pews.
• 100 and up: You’re far too accommodating of people and way too easily swayed. And I need to borrow some money. Texas Roadhouse sounds good.

The bottom line: we need to make room for our guests. They’re coming. They need a place to sit. You can help out by making the switch to a lesser populated service time, venue, or campus. Have more questions? Listen up this weekend and we’ll ‘splain it all.

(Not a fan of pastoral monkey business? Check out this slightly more serious post over on our campus blog.)