Capstone Visitors

At our mid-week Lenten service last Wednesday, we talked about what it meant to pass our faith along.  Passing Faith is a term that can have a double meaning.  In this case, I love double meanings because they invite us to investigate God.  What does it mean to pass faith, and is our faith passing in our culture?  The last three words are key.  Because we know the Word of God is what we stand on in this world full of changes.  It is the key to our faith, and the key to the only real hope we can have in this life.  Yet, how does the passing of faith work today?  Leaders throughout our synod are puzzled by this.  In hindsight we look back and wonder if we did something wrong.  Did we pass faith improperly?  Is the faith we know passing to our new culture?

I was talking to one of my friends the other day about his new church.  He told me how attendance had increased and how some great things have happened.  And yet he was baffled by our culture--people who say they believe in Jesus but don’t attend church.  The misconnection has happened.  We are trying to recover, but we are not desperate. Why not?  Well, simply because Jesus is still the Capstone of His Church.

This week we examine a parable loaded with thoughts on those who came before us to share the faith with the people.  We dig deeper into how they were treated and learn from this.  We also firmly believe that God never gives up on His people.  And for us today, that is the truth we hold onto.  We know and believe God’s Word can impact our culture.  His Word is timeless and living and powerful.

Yet, we stand ready to ask how to prepare for our capstone visitors.  How do we prepare for people who come to our building?  But more importantly, how do we make sure they see the true capstone in Jesus?  Often, it’s all kinds of unique things that will draw people in.

Three kids have changed my life, and some of the moments I used to have are gone. But the other night I found time to catch up with my brother-in-law and some of his buddies at a Kirkwood area restaurant.  They started asking me questions about Mt. Calvary and what was going on here.  I described some of the things that were happening in our youth service, and that I believe our culture needs to connect relationally.  I went on to say that our youth were doing that in small groups.  Our server interrupted our conversation and said, I hate to do this but do you know we have a church that meets here.  We heard her tell her story, and then she said the key words:  But I don’t go.  I asked her why.  She explained, Well, I don’t really know any of them.  Then she added the line that I was fearful of hearing:  I know I should . . . Oh, man, I always wish that line would be, I want to, but . . . Regardless, she went on to explain that one of her opinions was that churches sometimes turned into dating arenas.   In spite of her viewpoint, I was able to invite her to our church.  As we left that conversation one of my brother-in-law’s roommates said something unique:  It was fun to watch that.

The Gospel is fun, because in its true essence with the real capstone it works.  It isn’t because of a building, and occasionally we have been accused of other things like becoming dating arenas, being boring, and any other lie the enemy has told us to keep people away.  But what happens when we have a shot to make a capstone visitor come back to the real understanding of who Jesus is?  That is what Lent is all about:  re-discovering real sacrifice and our real Savior.