The story is told of a family who wished to bless their daughter as she was leaving for college. An elaborate dinner was prepared. Nothing was spared on the decorations. The guest list included all her many friends from high school and church. Everything was finally in place and everyone had arrived. As dinner came to a close, with a twinkle in his eye the proud dad clinked his fork on the side of his glass. All eyes were on him as he made a brief speech about the family's pride in the young lady's accomplishments. With a grand flourish he produced a mysteriously bulging envelope. Squealing with delight, the college-bound beauty ripped open the envelope, quickly scanned the words of love scrawled in her dad's messy handwriting and held up the key to the car of her dreams. Leading the charge out into the drive the girl exclaimed with confusion etched on her face, "but where IS it??" Joy turned to concern as everyone came to the sad realization it was nowhere to be found! Somehow, a thief had slipped in during the distractions of dinner and the beautiful new car had been stolen. 

Although the dear girl was owner of a wonderful new key on a leather fob with the brand name stenciled on it in gold, it was worthless without all the lesser, smaller, more mundane parts of the new car.  The list of the missing parts sadly and badly overshadowed the value of the key. Without all the parts moving in concert, the key was valueless. 

And so it is in the Church. It really doesn't matter who fills the pulpit or staffs the office. If each person who is part of the church fails to show up, the rest of the church just cannot function properly. 

Suppose someone found the girl's missing car at a dismantling shop. Suppose they were able to recover everything but "a few parts". Which ones would she be able to do without as she made the long drive to the university? The windshield? The transmission? The tires? You get the picture.  

As another Sunday rolls around we should ask ourselves if the church can reasonably be expected to function in our absence. Is the role we play so inconsequential that God really doesn't need us there after all? Or is the fact that we have allowed something to spirit us away from church rather like the girl with the shiny new key...to nothing. God needs each of us to fill our spot. 

See you on Sunday!

Lovingly,

Pastor Rich Orrell