Heads Up, Seven Up

So, in small town America, when the weather is too cold to play outside, elementary students everywhere are inside their classrooms playing this game. Or, at least that’s what we were doing when I was in elementary school. And, the poor guy who wore his parachute pants could never win, because you could hear him swish by. Killing myself laughing right now. (For the record, I had the ultra cool gray parachute pants with red accents when one unzipped the legs.) Anyway. . . I was reminded of this game when my hubby and I had a recent conversation about church and salvation and the sinner’s prayer and such. For some reason, I could not explain my aversion to the counting of raised hands at the end of a service as a ‘win.’ So after much discussion, thought, and prayer, I realized that it boils down to 2 things. One: this was NOT my experience. In fact, until I attended a church service where the whole audience says the sinner’s prayer out loud together, I had never ‘officially’ said the thing. Yet, I am sure I was saved years before that moment. Two: the whole ‘bow your head, no one is looking, lift a finger ever so slightly if you want to accept Jesus’ thing baffles me. I mean, if you want to grow your church numerically, I guess this makes sense. But, what if we counted growth as transformation rather than numbers? When I think about Church of the King Austin (yes, it is official & that is us—woohoo!), I don’t want a church full of people who raised their hands when no one was looking. I want the people surrounding them to do just that—surround them. Walk with them, love them, you know, disciple them. And, if they don’t know who they are, then this can’t happen. I also don’t want a church full of people who are too embarrassed to love Him publicly. And, last, but not least, I don’t want the confusion I think it causes—I mean, really, how can we expect these new creatures in Christ to go out into the world like Jesus tells them to if we teach them to accept Him in secret? So. No Heads Up, Seven Up in church, please. Save it for the classroom.