Marching Orders

We live in a town that still has an annual parade. Of course, in Center City, you can experience the Thanksgiving Day Parade (it’s probably on your TV if you live elsewhere) and there are the infamous Mummers on New Year’s Day. But in our suburb, the Saturday before Thanksgiving is reserved for the Mardi Gras Parade.

I have attended said parade for over a decade. I NEVER went to it growing up, I don’t even think I knew it existed. My parents weren’t really into community activities and I never played in the marching band or anything. My husband, however, views it as a staple, and ever since Noah could withstand the cold, we have been sitting on the curb watching our parade go by.

It was particularly cold on Saturday. I had already stood in the freezing temperatures for 2 hours Saturday morning while I watched my boys play their final football game of the season. The thought of standing outside for 2 more hours watching Cub Scout troops go by, was not my first choice for the rest of my day.

I have noticed in recent years that local churches have been purchasing parade spots. In between the fire trucks and the high school Homecoming Queen, the Jr. High marching bands and the local meat packing plant, churches are advertising their wares on floats. This year, I counted NINE churches with floats, most of which had colorful homemade poster board signs saying things like “Keep Christ in Christmas” or “Jesus is the Reason for the Season.” One church had an absolutely awful choir signing on top, and one even had a “mobile band” that was so out of tune I felt embarrassed for them. They all had willing congregants wearing their fake beards and bathrobes to represent the manger scene, but they left the summer sandals at home because frost-bite was a real possibility this year.

While these floats went by, other church members walked along side handing out flyers to the crowd with service times and website addresses printed on them. Apparently, this was an evangelical emphasis, and if I am truthful, most of them (if not all) did not present anything that I would be eager to explore or attend.

I stood there thinking about the church and its “advertising.” The old me would have said something like, “If you’re not going to do it with excellence, please don’t do it.” I used to think that the church needed to be better than the rest of the world in its output – video production, worship bands, drama, floats – and if we couldn’t do a decent job of it, we were leaving a lasting impression of ineptness (and heaven knows what that said about God, too).

Now, please don’t hear me incorrectly, I still don’t think that cheesy floats in a parade are a good idea, because let’s be honest, those church folks did it for themselves – they needed to feel like they were “doing outreach.” But no one’s life was changed on Saturday.

The current me sees it all differently. Even though I used to be, perhaps, one of the more capable at helping the church excel, I now understand that none of that means squat. I no longer can swallow the idea that the church should have big buildings or great campuses or smokin' bands and exciting Christmas programs.

Not that those things are wrong, they’re not - but they are distracting, and we are too easily distracted. Honestly, all the enemy of God has to do is distract Christians – get us believing that singing in the choir is serving the Lord or buying a new sound system will impact the world. It is not true, but we spend an awful lot of time and energy on these things, becoming preoccupied with activities that do not even remotely mirror what Jesus was preoccupied with. We are distracted, and unlike the parade bands, we have forgotten our true marching orders, Sure, we program compassion once a month, but the truth is, if we sing more than feed people, we have missed the mission of Christ.

Go love a sick person today without telling anyone. It may not be great advertising, but I suspect Jesus can handle all the marketing He requires.