Restaurant Food, Snacks, and Church

We usually eat out after church on Sundays. I had an old friend who is home with the Lord now who always said "I don't work on Sunday, and cooking is work. Heathens work on Sunday and I go and eat in their restaurants." OK, the theology may not be perfect but it works for me too, which brings me around to today's blog.

Eating out at a nice restaurant is very enjoyable. It is something that is special and probably not done by most of us for every meal every day, but on special occasions or when you are out and about and can't go home for lunch or dinner. However, most of us eat the majority of our meals at home. Wives and mothers usually try to feed their families a balanced diet and healthy food, so that an occasional meal in a restaurant can involve a little more fancy fare that usual. When we takes the kids out for a special restaurant meal, we usually let them indulge a little, just like we do. Burgers and fries, the occasional dessert or that not quite perfectly healthy dish that we love, but do not eat often because it is too rich, or fattening or has some other negative factor. But mostly, to maintain our health, wealth and sanity, we usually eat most of our meals at home. Sometimes after eating a really good healthy meal at home, a few hours later, we offer to take the family out for ice cream, or some small snack that will tide us over till suppertime. Nothing big, just a snack and some fellowship and family time, at some little hole in the wall place that is clean and informal.

I think of this analogy every time I hear someone say, and I hear this all too often. "We are going to find another church, because we just aren't getting fed at this one." If people only knew how utterly stupid they show themselves to be when they make a statement like this! The messages the preacher gives to his people are not meant to be their main meals. They are restaurant food. Sometimes they are very filling and taste wonderful. Sometimes they are snacks. Either way, they are not meant to be your only spiritual food. They are to be the things that are special or meant to give a little extra nourishment, but they are not the thing that you live on. It is the same with physical food. If you only ate on Sunday, no matter how much or how good the food was, it wouldn't be enough to get you by till mid-week service or the next Sunday. When folks feast on the Word of God themselves, when they study the Scriptures, they will be spiritually fat and full. Then when they go to church on Sunday it won't really matter whether they get a big meal or a snack, either way it will be something extra and not the main spiritual food. So, if you are one of those folks who aren't getting fed, don't blame the chef. If this week's message didn't ring your bell, rest assured that it probably did ring somebody else's, and please, what ever you do, don't show us your spiritual laziness by making the lame statement that "I'm not getting fed at church." Grow up. Pick up your fork and feed yourself.