Human Bed-Warmers / Selfless Servants in the ChurchA handful of Holiday Inns in London and Manchester have started offering a very out-of-the-norm service to its hotel guests. For those guests who want to enjoy a good night’s sleep without having to endure a bit of temporary discomfort from their bed’s super-cold sheets upon first lying down, a willing member of the hotel staff, wearing a full-body sleeper, will jump into the bed (upon request) and proceed to warm the bedding to a desirable temperature. Equipped with thermometers (with a goal of 68 degrees Fahrenheit for the bedding), these willing staff members will warm a guest’s bed FREE OF CHARGE! And it’s all done in order to make the guests’ stay in the hotel as comfortable and inviting as possible, in hopes that guests will return again and again!
Imagine what guests in our churches would do if we, the “willing members of the church,” would adopt this same kind of selfless attitude and employ some strategic and out-of-the-norm tactics in order to make our guests feel as comfortable and welcome as possible, in hopes that they might return again and again – and thus ultimately be penetrated by the life-changing message of Jesus Christ! Here’s what would happen: churches would be full to capacity (with standing room only, including in the overflow rooms), and people would no doubt hear and respond to the good news of Christ in the masses!
Philippians 2 implores us to “consider others better than ourselves,” as we take on “the attitude of Jesus Christ …who made himself a servant.” While this is a mandate concerning our lifestyle (24/7), here are some real ways we can go about doing this particularly on a Sunday morning at church:
(One):We can go out of our way to talk with guests and befriend them, even when it requires us to get a bit uncomfortable and/or to miss out on a few minutes of fellowship with our friends! (O ur comfort and our time spent with friends should always come second to what’s most important, which is getting to know our guests before they get to know how cold and uninviting our church is).
(Two): We can let guests park the closest to the church, open doors for them, greet them with a friendly smile and a warm welcome, meet them at their vehicles with umbrellas to escort them into the church when it’s raining, give them easy and quick access to pertinent information about the church, accompany them to their Bible Study group, sit with them during the service, and anything else (however out of the norm it might be) that would make guests feel comfortable and welcome.
(Three): We can speak to our guests in their language, rather than requiring them to learn our language to speak to us or (worse yet) to speak to God. In other words, we can use Bible translations that can be easily understood in our Bible studies and worship services, and we can worship God with lyrics that can be easily understood and in styles that guests are accustomed to. (And lest we find it hard to part with the King James Bible and our beautiful hymns for a few hours on Sunday, we ought to remember that it’s not about us; it’s about our guests! They don’t speak in Old English, and they don’t understand what “Cherubim and Seraphim falling down before thee” even means). We must speak the language of our guests, and we must allow our guests to speak to us and worship God in their language, even when it means we have to place our preferences aside.
Wow, I’ve listed merely a FEW ways we can begin considering others (our guests) better than ourselves on Sunday mornings, but I guess I better stop before this blog gets way too long. I could go on and on, and I may pick up this topic again sometime in the future. In the meantime, let’s go out of our way to reach people for Christ, and let’s place OURSELVES and OUR PREFERENCES dead last! That’s what Christ did, and that’s what we’re called to do as well.
