Tired of Pumping Up the Church?

"Pumping Up the Church" cartoon by nakedpastor David Hayward

OWN THIS PRINT

THE PARABLE: On Saturday I took my kid to a birthday party. I normally don't like doing anything on Saturdays because I'm always stressed about Sunday and getting ready for it. But I went. They had one of those inflatable jumping castles at the party. The kids had a blast. They continually pumped air into the castle to keep it inflated. One parent tripped over the cord and accidentally unplugged the air-compressor. I was surprised how fast it began to deflate. The kids inside hardly realized it but they got scared as soon as they saw their parents freaking out. They plugged it back in and it resumed shape pretty quickly though. No big deal. But it reminded me of church. Just watching the toy exhausted me. We work so hard all of the time just to keep the place pumped up so we can jump around inside. There's no real purpose except to please ourselves. I hear some churches are more like life-rafts. Now that would be worth pumping up. I'd be willing to get exhausted for that.