Another Reason Your Church Is Better

My church just doesn’t measure up.

While other churches are describing themselves as “One church, three locations,” or “One church, fifteen locations,” we don’t even bother to announce that we are “One church, one location.” Although, I did once consider calling our Mother’s Room the “South Campus” because it has a live feed of our service and it’s south of our auditorium… until I realized we couldn’t give tours of our South Campus because of the moms nursing babies in there. Awkward.

 Since we don’t have the McChurch franchise thing going on (yet anyway), your church is better than mine.

Here’s another one: our worship leader doesn’t have a beard. I mean, how is that even possible in 2013??!!?!?? I think you’re starting to get the picture: your church is better than mine.

One the most glaring flaws at NWLife is this: we don’t have a hipster kid sitting on a cajon drum box during worship. That’s an instant 10% reduction in cool points and another reason your church is better than mine.

We actually do own a haze machine, which should give us cool points, but we haven’t used it in months… so no points.

Your church is better than mine. And it’s OK.

My church doesn’t exist “to be cooler” or “to be better than” or “to be the best.”

Instead, we exist to love God, love people, and love life in a way that brings people together and makes our city a better place.

That’s it. No cool points required.

Our church’s goal is to be the church God needs in our community.

From that perspective, there are a few things my church does very well and I want to brag (again) about another one of those things:

My church gives to our community like crazy.

It’s beyond normal.

Not only is the giving reaching thousands of people through our big events like the Backpack Give, the Kid’s Carnival, and the Thanksgiving Grocery Give, but the giving is also happening EVERY STINKIN’ WEEK!

That’s right. We give a free hot meal every Sunday night to anyone and everyone who comes. And we send people home with bags of groceries EVERY STINKIN’ WEEK.

The part I’m most proud of is this: we don’t have long lines of “needy people” waiting for their hand out from us. Every Big Give event we put on, including our weekly 5pm service, is a party—and the party is for everyone. Our kids play together. We all eat together. There’s no separation. No “them” and “us.” It’s just us.

We are our community. The problems in our community are our problems (I write about this at length in this post: “Your Problem Is My Problem.”)

At NWLife, it’s about people, not a program.

It’s about restoring dignity, giving worth and value to people, because people really matter.

It’s about solidarity. We’re in this together. We’re family – even if you don’t know it yet.

And I’m super proud of my “One church, one location” family of crazy givers.

YOUR TURN: In the spirit of fun, what are some other things that cause the church to lose coolness points?

Check out yesterday’s post “Your Church Is Better Than Mine” and come back tomorrow for Part 3, “It’s Just Average.”