Shrek & The Faith Journey

Today was another green-letter (the color of Shrek) in the life of The Pursuit Christian Church. Pembroke Pines, the city our church is located in, celebrated it’s birthday with a BIG, all day festival. The Pursuit CC sponsored the Children’s area. Naturally, thousands of kids were in attendance. To get the family’s attention, we took pictures of the kids with Shrek, printed and mounted the pictures in a Pursuit refrigerator magnet and gave them away. Too put it mildly, Shrek was a major attraction for some of the kids ….and then there were others.

I’m writing this at 3:30am and perhaps it’s just the preacher in me but I saw a lot of analogies between the Christian walk and getting your picture taken with Shrek. For some, they had seen the movie and couldn’t wait to meet this matinee idol. For other kids, he was OK from a distance but very scary when up close and NO Way were they sitting in the monster’s lap. Some parents wanted the picture much more than the kids. Some tried to force their reluctant child to take a picture to the point of tears. Others simply said, “ I will get in the picture with you.” Perhaps it was really the parent who was star struck.

We find the same experiences in the faith journey of people. Some eagerly embrace the journey of faith because of the experiences they had a child or because the Jesus story was told to them by people they trust. Others want to view this Christianity from a distance but don’t want to get to close – it might change them. Some have family or friends who want them to come to Jesus so badly they try to force it on them. Some were dragged to church by parents, grand parents, or uncles and aunts every time the doors were open. Others have someone they trust invite them, go with them, and stay with them until the journey is complete.

I observed that the kids with the best pictures were the ones who had seen the movie and trusted Shrek, even though he appears to be a green ogre. Or the ones who had someone they trusted get in the picture with them.

The Pursuit Christian Church staff is here to build relationships, make friends, and show that we are an asset to the community. Lots of seeds were planted today and we are trusting God that HE will bring them to fruition. God, like the giant green ogre is someone that you can trust and will be there for you when you need ‘saving.’

NEW PARADIGMS

This week Linda and I experienced some new paradigms. The condo community that we live in has dozens of “clubs” that meet weekly. So we decided to venture into this new world and attend the “Midwesterners Club” on Thursday afternoon. Fifty or sixty people gathered at the clubhouse. We said the “Pledge of Allegiance”, held a raffle, and then our leader launched into a very detailed description of the club’s pre-arranged ‘outings’ for the first six months of the year i.e. lunches, mall outings, cruises, etc. Each outing included detailed descriptions of menus, transportation, locations and personal testimonies of how wonderful or disappointing previous trips had been. We certainly were the “kids” in the room but everyone was very nice including Louise, who just happened to be looking for a new church. Several times Linda and I would look at each other and smile as we began to realize what life in our “silver” gated community was beginning to look like.

Over the holidays the Mehaffeys and Diazs, our Pursuit peeps, left the state to be with family! That left Linda and me with lots of time on our hands and we missed the fellowship of our Florida community . It wasn’t until last night that we finally hooked back up with them. This time we were challenged to enter the world of Wii. What? You don’t know what Wii is? Well, WE didn’t either but it was fun and the two of us actually held our own against the “kids”. It’s a computer/TV tech game that requires competing players to physically interact in order to roll a bowling ball, pitch a baseball, swing a bat and/or golf club. However the most fun was in creating each of our caricatures. I thought Linda and I looked GOOD!(check out the pics) Several times Linda and I would catch each other’s eye and smile as we began to realize how being the “geezers” of this group would “stretch” us and yes that was a double reference to residual sore muscles.

Both NEW experiences, the one that provides community for us and the one that provides us an entrance to provide community for others, are welcomed because both will help to keep us “young” in very different ways . We thank God for both and relish it all with gusto and purpose. Please keep us in your prayers and pass the Ben-Gay:) Love, Bob and Linda