No scientific facts or data here- one of you nerds out there can figure out the empirical stuff – but my spidey senses tell me that most people feel hollered at for a good portion of their waking hours. From Billy Mays to “bandit” signs a lot of people, places, and things are clamoring for our attention, and ultimately our money. You would be hard pressed to find an intersection in Cypress that does not have at least one of these homemade or professional signs screaming about $.99 Dry Cleaning or Desperate Owner Home Sales. Its all about the size, color, or words- in hopes of attracting some attention.

So how about the Church? Are we adding to the noise?

Its not a question of signs or commercials, but of how we seek to market or push an ideology that we eventually hope people buy into. Maybe we don’t put signs at every intersection, but we sure print out a bunch of fliers, and hang a bunch of banners. We crowd as much onto the front page of our website as possible. We tend to schedule event after event and promote them to in some way get the attention of the people. In reality, we are hoping to grab the attention of people who have already tuned out messages, let alone the messenger.

What if we stopped yelling and starting inviting?

What would happen if the Church became a place of rest and quiet? Maybe if we focused less on the message or the event and more on the people and the life of following Christ, we could say more without words. Inviting people are usually investing people… serving, giving, and participating. So instead of getting attention, maybe we should be paying attention. Building hearts to serve, reasons to give, and opportunities to participate. Strive for invitation rather than event-vitation.

Right now, I am feeling like I need to take more time to be a person of invitation, even if words are not used… but just being someone to be around. Someone to know. Someone to see God at work in.

That could be silence worth listening to.