a brand new couch, well, almost

our car wash/bbq was a huge success. we even had vehicles lined up and people actually waited (i think patiently) to get their car or truck washed by a bunch of kids running around spraying each other with more water than they got on the vehicles. we managed to raise about half of the money that we need to cover our budget for the rest of the year, and we'll try to do another one just before school starts in late august/early september.

at the same time as we were doing the car wash our camp was hosting a garage sale. our church is fortunate enough to have it's own camp. its not the prettiest thing in the world, and because we lease the land from the government all the cabins have to be removeable. but people love it. and its a great place that has impacted a lot of people. and it is very nice to be able to take people out there or the youth and have an impromptu bon-fire. we're blessed beyond what we know.

as all of this is going on, i still can't help but think that we're really asking a lot from a lot of people. from some research that we've done in our congregation we know that people want to be more involved and recognize the value of their spiritual growth. however we also know that they're feeling overtaxed by the pressures of life. and yet we ask them to support and participate in garage sales, car washes (this stuff applies to the kids too), and be regularly (ie. weekly) involved in bible studies, youth group, outreach programs, service opportunities, and anything else that we can think of.

i can't help but feel like we're trying to compete with people's lives for their time, but we're not really giving them any of the tools they need to choose what to do with their time. you know, growing up, nobody ever sat me down and said "this is how you choose a priority". they only said "you've got to choose you're priorities". and then they threw a bunch of things that they thought i should do at me without explaining why i should do them.

i wonder what kinds of choices people would make if we actually took the time to explain why we want them involved in our garage sales and car washes. i wonder if we even know why we want them involved. sure we've got the pat answers down: "we want to have a successful event and - oh ya - people can invite their not church friends to meet their church friends... and maybe see Jesus..."

i wonder if we could have a car wash that needed people and didn't raise any money just so that people could serve their community, for the sole purpose that people see Jesus when they are served... would anyone buy into that? or do we need the motivation of "it's going towards our youth programming budget, and besides, it's really really fun." really.