Being invitational can be subtle as a sign

This was written by a blogger, Becoming Missional, original post found here

"I drove by a church parking lot tonite. The sign said First Church Parking Lot - Church Parking Only! In light of God working in me in a missional way, this floored me. Here's a parking lot, off the beaten path, owned by a church for use only for church events.

Contrast this with Wal-Marts parking rules: overnighters welcome, truckers welcome! So Wal-Mart welcomes while the church turns a need away. I'm certain its this kind of exclusive attitude that has turned not just potential parkers, but many others away from the church. Being missional can be something as simple as making your parking lot available for some in need."

I am so proud of our church. One the exciting things to see every week are groups from the community have access to our facilities. God has blessed us with some cool digs, and how we came upon is such a big God story - it was all him. There is no excuse to hold the resources that God has entrusted to us, entirely to ourselves. Doing so evokes a country club mentality. Rather our resources should be used to serve and reach out to the community. This isn't always easy. With a lot of different groups coming in, stuff happens. The church gets dirtier quickly. The sound board is never in the same condition when we left it. The worship stage gets disheveled. Some guest doesn't flush the toilet. Stuff happens, it isn't always convenient - but if we are called to be Christ to our community we are going to have to die to convenience.This heart and vision isn't because we lease a building and because we are renters we don't care as much. This same vision bleeds into the heart of the new building we are building. We are not just building a building, we want our new church building to serve the community and to be a staging area for Big Creekers to be equipped and launched out into the community.