"It sounds more like a hospital..."

Most of you all who read this know how much I love my church. We missed last week because Caleb was sick, so I downloaded the podcast to my iTunes and listened to it last night while Bryan was at the hospital. Jon told the best story about a woman he met at Wal-Mart this week whose (grown) daughter was so excited to introduce her to Jon because she'd been baptized Easter weekend. Anyway, the mom was really wary of Jon and was like "Are you all a cult? I don't want my daughter to be in a cult! You all didn't even have sunrise services on Easter, did you?" (Hillarious.) And then she asked, "What kind of people go to Southland anyway?" and Jon was telling her about all the different kinds of people who come-rich, poor, people struggling with different addictions, special needs people, young, old, homeless, people coming out of the stripping industry, etc etc etc. and the woman looked at Jon when he was done talking and said, "Huh. Sounds more like a hospital than a church" kinda snobby-like. Well, Jon is so great, because he was like, "Ma'am, I don't know if you realize it or not, but that's the highest compliment you could pay the memebers of Southland...because that is what the church is called to be! A hospital to the sick and weary; people struggling with the stuff of life!" And this is one of the reasons I love our church. He talked about how if he ever becomes a pastor like pastors of other churches that are so inward-focused then to flat out fire him. He said, "If Christianity is just about being a nice person, what's the point in that?" He has such a passion for actually getting off the pews and out of the building and making a difference in our town. Love it. Just had to share.