What If The Church Took The Night Off?

My high school age daughter Amy is a barista at Starbucks.  A few weeks ago all the Starbucks across North America closed shop for three and half hours in the evening.  Why?  To hear from Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz via video about the companies need to get back to it's original vision.  Next, the store manager talked about several strategic changes that the store would make to give the customer better and more personalized service.  And the evening ended by re-training everyone at that Starbucks store.  When my daughter got home here is what she said to me, "Dad, you would have loved it!...It's really weird, I know that I really work at a fast food chain, but they made me believe that it really matters."

So here is my question: If we were to close all the churches across North America for three and half hours and we had the chance to vision-cast and re-train every Christ Follower, what would need to be said and what would you do?

Comments

[Mike Demastus]

Dave...

Maybe it is just me, but there appears to be an error with the feedburner for your site. Could you check it to make sure it is working properly? Thanks.

[david]

Back to the basics......

Love people
Love God

[Jeff]

Maybe it's me, but why close church for 3.5 hours to retrain Christ followers? How about better training every Sunday we get together? How often might the church be talking about man's vision and not God's? How many times do they teach man's lessons and not God's?

I think, each week, we have that chance to "train" God's body. I wonder if the presenter has the skills to teach the right lesson. Who's glory is being spoken - God's or his/her own?

[Morehart]

Make them know that they do matter! Not just to the church but to God, to the Community, to their family. They matter.

Just love on them!!!

Of course end with Friends, by MWS song while everyone is holding hands in a circle.

[Dave Ferguson]

Morehart, Maybe I'm too easy...but you made me laugh with the MWS comment. Dave

[Paul W.]

Starbucks stops its work and takes a break from serving the community to be trained and have a vision recasted.....I think we are much more fortunate in that we shouldn't break from church, but rather its the time together in church that is an opportuntiy to equip and recast the mission of Jesus so that we then go out and serve the community and spread the Good News. I'm sure the CEO of Starbucks would love to have its employees as a captive audience weekly.

[Eric Bramlett]

I think the church should be shut down for 3 and a half hours so that all attenders could be taught how to make the perfect espresso shot.

[Dave Ferguson]

EB, once again you are funnier! Dave

[Jeff Pessina]

I think the Lord would, as the entire Church on the planet sat in mesmerized attentiveness for 3.5 hours, say something like... "Go into all the world and make disciples... baptize them... and teach them to observe everything I taught." :) And He would perhaps add a little more to remind us that this process, if observed, would be unstoppable... though certainly not without personal cost. He would again challenge us to invest ourselves --to give ourselves away-- for His cause... while we still can.

[Jeff Pessina]

Ahhh... but you asked what would I/WE DO? Well, with the whole planet in attendence I would first take up an offering (just kidding Dave... I think). And I would... hmmmmm... probably challenge the Church to a conspiracy of kindness with reckless abandon.

[Greg Atkinson]

Wow - great thought. Hmmmmm.

[emma]

I reckon it should go right back to the very basics... ENJOY your relationship with God! Learn to just BE.

Because I think if we could get a better grasp on that, everything else would flow much easier!

[BR]

Dave - You removed my comment. You don't like heathly debate I see.

[BR]

Or healthy either.

[Dave Ferguson]

BR - I like a healthy debate, but most of your comments come across to me like you are picking a fight. So, I tried to e-mail you to find out if that was your intention and who you are. However, it appears that you left a inactive or fake e-mail. When I couldn't contact you, I just deleted some of your comments.

[Jason Smith]

Personally, I think that the church should not only be a place for worship and fellowship, but also teaching. It seems that many churches do one or two very well, but very few can do all three. I agree, that the church as a whole does have an advantage in the fact that it can retrain it's followers on a weekly basis. But we need to remember what fills our churches... Like a hospital doesn't house healthy people, it's not the Godly, but sinners, who populate our churches! The staff for that matter, should be well trained, God lead people.