When we’re planning an event at the church, someone will almost always say, “What if we advertise it and 5000 people come?  We won’t be able to handle it!”  My usual response is that “It hasn’t happened yet, even when we want to invite the whole community.”

Denny’s took a risk.  A big, expensive risk.  Would anyone come?  Would any of them come back?  What if too many people came and left mad?  What if they got bad press?

The way I see it, they couldn’t lose.  Either a) People would come and enjoy a good breakfast, learning where Denny’s was and what it offered or b) too many would show up making it a big media event – showing priceless images of people lining up around the block to eat at Denny’s.  Either way you win, right?  It was a gutsy move, and they hit a grand slam.  (Sorry, I couldn’t help it.)  I didn’t get a breakfast, but I wasn’t angry – it wasn’t Denny’s fault!

Usually in the church, we play it safe.  That means when we accomplish out goals, not much happens.  What if we tried to be like Denny’s?  After all, our “CEO” rewards those who step out in faith!

I guess it’s not too surprising that injecting a neurotoxin into your body might not be a good idea, but that tells you something about the culture that we live in. We idolize youth and beauty. We’re willing to poison ourselves to achieve it! That tells you something about the depth of hunger for acceptance in our culture. Everywhere we look, we hear this “gospel” – look good and collect enough stuff and you’ll be happy.

But God has a different plan. God calls us to look beneath the surface. God tells us that appearance isn’t what matters. Instead, Jesus tells us in Matthew 7:15-18 that you can identify what kind of person someone is by their actions, – by how they treat others – not by their appearance. There are “wolves in sheep’s clothing” out there. Jesus is writing about prophets, but I think the principle is more generally applicable. A focus on creating an appearance that we think will please others or hiding our age isn’t what Jesus calls us to. He calls us to bear fruit. Loving and serving others may not make our foreheads look better, but that just poisons us. Loving and serving others builds up our spirit, connects us with God, and helps us to grow into the image of Jesus. We find true acceptance not by looking right by by loving and serving, which, it turns out, is much more attractive than an expensive, expressionless face!