Broadcast Church - July 31, 2011

This morning I went to Broadcast Church with Angela. It was held at the Pointe, an aquatic/recreation center -- it is a new church and they are still very small..don't have their own building yet. Chris Conley is a church planter and a friend of Angela's. He actually was one of the youth when she was leading bible studies a long time ago - now he has 4 kids, all grown up! Broadcast Church is one of the churches he's started. On the way to church, I mentioned that my sister, Jenny, would probably be driving to Chicago (we're leaving for our trip tomorrow) and she was shocked -- "Jenny is 15?! She has her permit???" Yep, time flies. Anyways, including us, there were probably 20 people there this morning. Like I said, it was very small. We sang a few worship songs, Chris gave a fairly short sermon on a parable in Luke, they had prayer/communion/giving and the service finished out with a song and then announcements. One of the songs was "Mighty to Save" - I love the lyrics!

The passage Chris spoke on was Luke 14:12-24 - the Parable of the Great Banquet. A man was having a great feast and invited many guests - however, they all made lame excuses as to why they couldn't make it. One had to tend to his land, another to his oxen, and another couldn't make it because he had just married. Chris really emphasized the point that these were lame excuses...paralleled this to how we make lame excuses for our lack of time spent with God, or our hesitation to make a commitment to follow Christ. In the parable the "master," who was throwing the feast, ordered his servant to, "Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame."((Luke 14:21)). This is Luke 14:12-13 played out...

"Then Jesus said to his host, 'When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind..."

It's this idea of giving and serving without expecting anything in return. I like that.

It makes me think of the song Hero by Superchick because really the message behidn that song is that we all have opportunities to postively impact others' lives. WE have the choice to be a hero, to sacrifice our own "popularity" or "reputation" for the sake of the outcast, or as described in Luke, "the crippled, the blind, and the lame"....here's some lyrics.....

No one sits with him, he doesn’t fit in,
But we feel like we do when we make fun of him,
'Cause you want to belong, do you go along?
'Cause his pain is the price paid for you to belong
It’s not like you hate him or want him to die,
But maybe he goes home and thinks suicide,
Or he comes back to school with a gun at his side,
Any kindness from you might have saved his life...

Heroes are made when you make a choice...

You could be a hero,
Heroes do what’s right,
You could be a hero,
You might save a life,
You could be a hero, you could join the fight,
For what’s right, for what’s right, for what’s right..

Little Mikey-Dee was the one in class
Who everyday got brutally harassed
This went on for years
Till he decided that never again would he shed another tear
So he walked through the door
And grabbed the .44 out of his father's dresser drawer
He said 'I can't take life no more'
And like that a life can be lost
But this ain't even about that
All of us just sat back and watched it happen
Thinking its not our responsibility
To solve a problem that isn't even about me
This is our problem.
This is just one of the daily scenarios
In which we choose to close our eyes
Instead of doing the right thing
If we make a choice and be the voice
For those who won't speak up for themselves
How many lives would be saved, changed, rearranged?
Now it's our time to pick a side.
So don't keep walking by not wanting to intervene,
Cause you just want to exist and never be seen.
So lets wake up, change the world
Our time is now.