ARCHIVE Brian's Sermon...and the Golf Cart

After a few months into his job at St. Peter, Brian is preaching regularly, and though he will hate that I write this, he is doing really well. He has preached 3 of the last 5 Sundays, and when you are on at St. Peter you are really on. Each weekend you preach you preach Saturday night, multiple services Sunday morning, Sunday night, and then again Monday night. It makes for a busy weekend, but Brian really enjoys it. I find things to do with the time he is away in the evenings, like writing this post.

Well, a couple of weeks ago Brian preached on the topic of following Jesus. He talked about how living in a suburban community like Macomb, it is so easy to just work, shop, and go out to eat in the manicured, fabricated, pleasurable comforts of an upscale community. We don't have to be bothered by more unpleasant aspects of life if we don't want to be. Brian challenged people to think about whether this is really how Jesus calls us to live as his followers. He talked about how Jesus' ministry was with the poor, the sick, those hurting physically and emotionally. He said if we are following after Jesus, then we should really be following after his heart, and if we are after His heart then it might take us out of our nice little Macomb community.

Brian's message was well received, especially one of the illustrations he used (actually a little too well received). Brian talked about how when we first moved to Macomb, he saw a golf cart for sale, and he and I joked about how he should buy it. We laughed at how he could use it to go to the church (which is just across the street) and to the golf course (which is just down the street). That would pretty much take care of his needed transportation. In his sermon Bri put an image of a golf cart for sale on the screens in the sanctuary, and he explained how he too could lead a similar sheltered "golf cart" existence staying protected in his own little bubble. He carried this imagery throughout his sermon. Well, hopefully people got the REAL message of the sermon, because all they keep talking about is that stupid golf cart!

Whenever someone see Brian walking to church, they ask (even from their passing cars), "Where's your golf cart, Pastor?" On the way home from a meeting on a cold winter night, "Bet you wish you had that golf cart tonight, Pastor." I even got it today as I walked to church, "Beth, maybe you should have let Brian get that golf cart, huh."

The first couple or dozen times it was funny, but now I think Brian is rethinking the use of that illustration. I know people are just being nice and making polite conversation, but it has become a little joke between Brian and I. I think we are starting to understand a little bit how Mark Winterhoff must have felt when people from BLC always told him he looked like he had gotten taller. The more we hear the golf cart joke, the more we'll probably relate to his experience. Brian finds this whole situation especially ironic because the serious indictment he was trying to make with that illustration about living too comfortably is being overshadowed by the image of him driving to church in an actual golf cart. Hopefully, people got Brian's bigger message out of the sermon too because it was really good.