Easter Parties

  This Thursday, Caleb's daycare is having an Easter party @ 2:00.

  Now, I'm going to set aside all of the conversation about an Easter party with no religious overtones.  This certainly bothers me, but I suppose it shouldn't bother me any more than a Christmas party that isn't intended to celebrate (or even mention) the birth of Christ.  At our Easter party for the kids on Saturday, we had them sit down and listen as one of the leaders read the Easter story (the one about Jesus, not the bunny).  Maybe none of the kids listened.  Maybe each one of those kids heard it in a new way.  We don't know--the point is that it was read, and I believe the Holy Spirit can do something with that.  Having an Easter party without mentioning Easter seems a bit like having a wedding where no one actually bothers to get married, but everyone shows up for wedding cake.

  The real thing that bothers me about it is that it is scheduled at 2:00.  If it were easy for parents to be at the daycare at 2:00, most of them probably wouldn't need a daycare--we'd be at home with our kids.  Most people work well past 2:00.  (Now, I know that this is a one-time event and that some people have flexibility for it.  The daycare isn't doing this every week.  Or even every month.)

  But this isn't really about the daycare.  It's about the church.

  How often does the church do things that are the best for us, and we don't take a moment to think about how they are seen by the community?  We say that we hope young families can attend, but then we erect barriers to their attendance by scheduling things when they work best for us, rather than what might work best for them.  We do things based on our own comfort level rather than considering how we might evolve to accommodate the lifestyles of others.

  The church is intended to be salt for the world, not to be stored up in our marvelous buildings, but rather poured out, that the world may benefit from us.  The light isn't intended to shine within us, but rather through us--rather than sanctimonious naval-gazing, we're intended to seek out the lost and the needy and let Christ's love work through us.

  When we schedule things, when we think about the events we hold, when we consider how our buildings are used--may we always consider our community and how we can be a gift to them.