Church At Olive Garden

I love my family.

But every time I am in an Olive Garden, I can’t help but think how lame my family is compared to the families on the Olive Garden commercials.

“Shouldn’t I be telling more lame jokes and laughing at more lame jokes than usual?” I will often say aloud to no one in particular.

It actually gets a little embarrassing because I try to force the issue.

I will say something like, “Hey Rachel, You take the salad. I’ll take the breadsticks,” and then I will fake laugh obnoxiously for about twenty seconds as I look around at the other patrons.

It doesn’t work. I can’t even fake it. I want my experience at the Olive Garden to be as good as advertised but it just is not possible.

They promise too much. They cannot deliver on the experience that they portray on TV.

I think this is often the problem with us Christians.

We oversell ourselves.

When Christians come across as the happiest people on the planet, carefree and smiley-faced, people do not believe us.

And they shouldn’t.

When we act as though we have it all together, we are overselling ourselves. We are promising something on which we cannot deliver. We are the real life version of a dopey Olive Garden commercial, cheesy and incredible.

A side effect of overselling the people in the church is that we undersell the God that the church worships.

When we pretend to have it all together, it comes across that we are worshiping God because we are good and we are worthy to give worship.

Instead, we should let our faults be known. We should let the world know that we are weak and our God is strong because, while it is easy to oversell ourselves, we have a God who will always deliver on His promises.

He is exactly who He says is.

He will do exactly what He says He will do.

He fulfills all His promises and more, so let’s show the world what the church truly is.

We are not a group of people that one must emulate in order to get close to God.

We are a group of broken, sinful, unholy people who are gathered together to worship the God who has enough grace, love, and mercy to save a wretch like me.