Don't look too closely

The danger of starting off tacky is either that things are going to continue that way or that the point beyond the initial tackiness is missed.

My general cleaning policy has always been "Superficially clean, superifically inspected, superficially done." If you look too hard at any project, you're bound to find another layer that needs work.

But you need, at some point, to scrub. It may be that you notice something really grungy growing around the bottom of the toilet; or it may be that your boys are using the facilities but without advanced aiming techniques. Or it may be that someone else--a spouse, say--points out something to you. Occasionally, you've got to scrub.

The tacky part is that our lives in Christ are like that. I don't like to look too hard at any point because it might need more work than I'm wililng to give it.

At one point, I thought I could make a few bucks writing tacky Christian greeting cards. That sounds like an idea for one.

But think about this. One direction is the dirt that you don't notice. The other direction is the soap scum. Layer upon layer of soap . . . or bleach spray . . . or Johnson's Wax--they're just as hard (and sometimes harder!) to break through.

Our lives in church can be like that, too. Sometimes we need to break through the saccarine coating of ordinary church life to get to the core of what we're all about.

Maybe this emergent church thing has something to offer after all!