A few months ago my husband told me to go to the car he was driving me somewhere for a surprise. Surprises make me nervous but deep down inside I do love them. He drove me to the Tim Horton's in Bedford for a Coldstone Creamery ice-cream. If it was just an ice cream that would have been awesome however it was a Coldstone creamery ice cream. We didn't have Coldstone in Canada UNTIL NOW!Whenever we travel to Granger Community Church in Indiana you will find us, at some point,at the Coldstone Creamery for a treat and now we can be treated here at home. As I sat in the Tim Horton's the folks dishing up the ice cream began to sing. Yes I said sing. They sang some cut little ditty about loving work and ice cream blah blah blah. Which when done by the Coldstone Creamery folks makes me happy and want to eat more ice cream but when done by the older folks at Tim's it left me feeling all icky inside. It made me think about authenticity. Somehow the people at Coldstone seemed to be happy and mean it when they sang but when the same thing was done at Tim's it just fell short. It was sort of like the happy birthday song at the restaurant where the staff would rather pull off their fingernails rather than sing to someone. We are all uniquely gifted as individuals as well as churches. This is also transferable to any organization. God has uniquely gifted churches with people who are skilled in certain things and He wants us to figure out a way to give that a way. There is a certain problem or problems in the world that these specific gifts are needed to address. We should learn from and recycle from other churches. However, we need to be very careful not to end up like the gals at Tim Horton's singing the ice cream song when they really should be singing the coffee song! Those churches are growing and thriving within that framework because they have discovered who they are and are doing it consistently with excellence. Another church could take that exact same thing and also do it consistently and with excellence and get not so great a result. Absolutely learn and recycle but understand how that can be adapted to fit your churches unique shape. The same goes for individuals trying to be replicate other individuals. Be authentically you. Embrace who God made you to be!
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