Window Shopping

If there is one place that my wife and I like to go on vacation, it would be New York City. The business, traffic, tall buildings, the smell (both good and bad) all add to the buzz of this electronic paradise on the east coast. It is one of few places that you can look in one shop window and enjoy watching a good New York styled pizza being made, go a little further....look in another window and see people in China Town selling natural remedies. You can walk a little further and find your self at Trump Tower and the shops around it that sell priceless jewels from the finest jewelers like Tiffany's.

People are by nature window shoppers, we enjoy looking around and seeing what people have to offer. If it is appealing, we will spend time looking at it. In fact, we may go in and become a consumer of what that business has to offer. There is a flip side to that coin, however, which is not so appealing. You can find your unkept store fronts with faded, out of date material in the windows. It is not hard to turn off consumers when they can clearly see that the owner feels that up keep is not necessary.

All this talk about window shopping got me thinking about this time of year when people's hearts are soft and looking to go further on their spiritual journey. It could be that many are not plugged into a church and might begin window shopping for a home church. What are they going to see when they come to your church? How is your website? Do you keep it up to date or will they find your current calendar is really all of your summer activities. What about your voicemail message when they call your church? Will they hear an updated message or find themselves wondering what year you recorded that in? When a family comes to your church for the first time, does your church say to them..."This is the future of the church right here" or will it turn people away.

It is important for us to occasionally take a step back and reevaluate how a new person views our churches. Let's do our best to keep the window shoppers this season and not send them on their way.