Emma Thompson drops by our church from time to time. And yesterday, she prophesied.
No, not the actress. Emma and her twin sister Annie are the eight-year-old daughters of my friend and our communications pastor, Todd.
So get the scene. Our entire church foyer/fellowship area is covered with Christmas decorations. We’re getting ready for a big night of volunteers showing up to decorate the building for the holidays. The office staff is scattered out into the various rooms that have their names on the door. And in comes Todd, Emma and Annie bouncing behind.
Mary, our receptionist, is friendly territory for the twins. She often visits with them while they’re waiting for their dad to finish a meeting or project. She’s also learned that it’s good to offer them something to do to occupy them on days they don’t have homework or something.
Emma is loaded with questions. What’s all this? What are they going to do with it? When? The usual 8-year-old excited kind of stuff. Laughing and chattering away.
Mary says to Annie and her sister, “I have something y’all can do to help us.”
(Okay, get ready, here it comes…)
And Emma, in her sweetest, most polite and earnest voice, says,
“Oh, no thank you. I just want to watch.”
I nearly fell out of the chair in my office, laughing. Sure beats crying.
Emma spoke from the domain of a second-grader, in a moment in time. But she spoke in a church house, as a representative of the most populous club in the Kingdom – the ACSA (American Christian Spectators Association.)
The ACSA has no official membership. That would require organization and effort, and violate the basic charter: We just want to watch.
Help with a project? Nah. We just want to watch.
Share Jesus with a friend? I’m not worthy. We just want to…
Join the praise choir, serve the homeless, rock the babies? Wow, that’s an important commitment. We just want…
Give to support the local church or its mission effort? Well, you know, this economy… We just…
To the ASCA, church is what happens on a stage on Sunday, (and evaluated for taste and quality at Sunday lunches everywhere). Ministry is done by the professionals who are paid to do so. And giving is done by those who can “afford” it.
The ASCA has some affiliate organizations outside the church domain. Take the Monday Morning Quarterbacks Association. This is a bunch of sedentary (mostly) men who are experts at what Peyton or Eli should have done yesterday, or of what’s wrong with the defense. They never exercise themselves, except for occasional refrigerator door pullouts, fork lifts, or trash can basketball. They just want to watch.
Here’s a Thanksgiving resolution for you to experiment with this year. I’ll try to say it graciously:
Put some air under your derriere.
Get up and get moving. Don’t just criticize the music – sing the song. Don’t just watch those exhausted millionaires running for daylight on Sundays. Do some running yourself.
And the next time somebody asks for your help, for God’s sake, help them. You’ll still be watching. But the scenery – and the reward – is amazingly different.
