Day 257 - The Sandlot and My Church

Remember the 1993 movie, "The Sandlot"? It was a nostaligic look back at the 1960s when a young boy moves to a new neighborhood with his mother and new step-father, and the misadventures he finds with a group of boys from a neighborhood pick-up baseball league.

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They're an odd-ball group of prepubescent boys who daily get together and try to form a winning baseball team. They practice hard. They spend long days in the hot summer sun perfecting their techniques. These boys come from various family backgrounds and histories. A ragged troup, to say the least, trying to get it together and win against a bigger and better local team.

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I was thinking last night after Wednesday night church service how alike our church members are compared to the Sandlot's baseball team. My new church has definitely got a group of odd-ball members, and I say that very lovingly for each one of them. My new church is not a fancy and showy type of church where members have deep pockets and extravagant surroundings. No, my new church is made up of a group of local "pick-up" Christians getting together and forming our own "sandlot" team.

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The members, for the most part, are all regular, run-of-the-mill Montanans who work very hard for every dollar they earn. I don't think a single member drives a fancy car or lives in a fancy home. But each member is generous in the giving of their precious volunteer time each week to our church to help it become the best church it can be! Church members work hard at maintaining and growing and strengthening our "team." Yes, there are bigger and fancier churches around that might, at first glance, think they're better somehow because they are bigger and fancier...but I'll tell you what, I'd much prefer my dedicated odd-ball group of congregants who have a firm grasp on what's important in life than sitting in some fancy building with a group of believers who have Christianity tied up in a foil-wrapped present with a silk bow on top and left sitting in a pew.

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Lord, help me to find my "position" on my peculiar and whacky church "team." Amen.