The Sanctity of the Parking Lot

Its Sunday morning. You are getting dressed and getting ready for church. Your dad gets up and his coffee gets spilled, then his breakfast gets burned, then you realized you forgot to let the dog out and now there is a mess. Dad is not having a good morning. Your family gets in the car and your dad is still grumbling under his breath as the “idiot” in front of him cuts him off in traffic. The grumbling becomes more of an angry rant at this point, and you realize that you forgot your bible at home and tell you dad. The morning keeps going from bad to worse it seems for your dad, but then you pull into the church parking lot. He steps out of the car and a smile appears on his face as if nothing were wrong. The pastor waves and your dad greets him in the most polite way possible. Wait… what happened? Was your dad not just having a bad day? Many Christians do this when they show up to church. They can be cursing up a storm at the person next to us in traffic but sing praises to God when they get to the church. So, what is the trick? Does it have something to do with the parking lot? The answer is simply “no.” It is the stigma that we have with churches nowadays. The church has become a place for perfect people. At least that is how it is seen since no one who enters through the doors is perfect. It is all a show. We must act perfect, as if nothing is wrong in our lives, because if something is wrong then we are not the perfect people we want everyone to believe we are. It is all about how we appear to others. The church forgot what the primary objective is, it seems. That the church is for those who are broken looking for the Savior. It is a place for the imperfect to find the Perfect Son. It is a hospital for the hurt, a base camp for the people of God to go out from, and a place of authentic worship. We forget that in our times of worship, that we are called to be authentic. To be real. Christians, I want to challenge you to stop acting like everything is okay when it is not. To stop acting like you are perfect when none of us are even close. I want to challenge you to be authentic with the people of God so that we can come together in hope to lift each other up in prayer. Maybe it is time for us to stop acting holy when we step on the asphalt of the parking lot and start learning and living for God together so we can live Christ like lives. Let us be authentic together.