Today, in the mail, I got lucky.
It was actually supposed to be yesterday (today is Sunday but I didn't check the mail yesterday), but I got lucky today.
I got a letter in the mail that told me a lottery ticket that I didn't purchase was the winning lottery ticket in the El Gordo Sweepstake Lottery Program, and I won $615,810.00. Woo Hoo!
However, before you all try to get ahold of me and pretend you're my best friend and all, there's something I need to tell you.
It's a hoax.
Yeah, I knew it right away, but just to make sure, I checked out snopes.com, and sure enough, it was one of the many lottery hoaxes that are known to dupe and cheat people all over the world. I hate scams. I feel sorry for those who get taken in by these scams, but it happens all the time.
Sometimes I feel like I'm a scam artist in the church.
When we market the church, we of course are trying to present the church in the best light, as the perfect place for someone to come, get plugged in, make friends, get closer to God, and become a super holy Christian. Unfortunately, in my experiences, those kind of things happen to church people few and far between. Most of the time, there is a select group of people within the church who might have started the church or knew the right people and all, and they are the ones who are really benefiting from being at church. The rest of the people attending go each week, hoping that whatever was promised to them at first will come to fruition, but will most likely leave disappointed each week.
Just like a lottery scam. A letter from a scam artist presents the situation in a perfect light and promises great things to happen if you take part in what's going on. However, when you read into it and research, you find out that they really just wanted your money and didn't care about you at all in the first place.
Sound familiar?
My family and I went today to church. We went to a church nearby our house that is a huge megaplexchurch thing. They had almost 12,000 people on Easter Sunday (and Saturday evening - which I always think is kind of funny that people celebrate Easter on Saturday night - what does the service look like? "Well folks, Jesus is still in the tomb as of right now, so we're just going to sit here and wait until tomorrow. Thanks for coming.") The thing I dislike about this certain church is that they are the best marketers of their church that I have ever seen. Slick promotional materials, billboards, concerts, website design and all - but when you actually go to a service and look beyond the showy worship, the flashy preacher, the Starbucks inside the church building, the free Krispy Kreme donuts, the guest speaker who I guess won the T.V. show "The Apprentice", and more - you realize that it's all just a facade. There is no depth. Of course, I'm basing this on three visits to this particular church and numerous conversations with people from my former church who started attending after they realized what this huge church was all about - nothing.
Church marketing sucks. A church is naturally attractive to unchurched people when its people are living authentic Christ-like lives on display in front of them. When that happens, you don't need artificial means to get people to come to the church and then sock 'em with Jesus - they've experienced Jesus already in the lives of people who love Him and love others.
Which reminds me, I'd like to invite you to a new church that I've founded. I've decided to call it El Gordo Church of the Lottery Christ. Want a donut?
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