I started listening to a book on tape today entitled The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. My mind began to race as he told the stories in the first chapter. Here's the race.
Lots of money is spent every year on marketing and yet some of the biggest surges in sales of some items came as a mere fluke. Gladwell tells the story of how Hush Puppies almost disappeared from the scene until some young people in Soho started wearing them, influencing their friends and others to go out and buy them. Sales went from 30,000 pairs to 430,000 pairs. At some point the surge reached a tipping point and the momentum had a life all its own. Hush Puppies never did any advertising to fuel this growth.
I like to apply stories like this to following Christ. As those of you who know me are well aware I feel that the church has failed to be salt and light in the world. We are not leading our culture. We are not preserving it from destruction. Each one of you reading this post can think of probably ten things that illustrate deterioration of our world.
My contention is that the only way this trend will be reversed is...one follower of Christ at a time changing their behavior and living righteously. We can't wait for our neighborhood church or the mega church down the street to make the first move. We have to make individual choices to change our choices to reflect the righteousness and holiness of God--with our neighbors, with our co-workers, with strangers.
Those of you who read my post on Lawlessness know that I am trying to drive the speed limit in my travels. The other day I was driving to a store on a road marked 35 MPH. That is not the speed people like to travel on that road. The person behind me was a well-dressed man who had been riding my tail while I did the posted speed limit. He finally just couldn't wait any longer. He passed me on a double yellow line and hurried to where ever he was going.
That aggravates me. He makes it harder for me to drive the speed limit and it stresses me out when someone is riding my bumper trying to make me speed up by intimidating me.
But I'm looking at the bigger picture. I can't blame the world for the state things are in if I am contributing to it. I can't blame the church for it's failure to be salt and light if I am not personally putting energy in living to impact my world.
Where is the tipping point? Will it take ten of us driving the speed limit to change things? One hundred of us "doing unto others" before it begins to rub off on our world? A thousand of us in our community living in such a way that our neighbors can only give glory to God for our impact on the community?
One of the teens who grew up in the church I pastored sent me a letter as part of the organization that is sponsoring their church plant. He told of over 200 people in their church a few Sundays ago who, upon being challenged by their pastor, took off their shoes in church and donated them to those without shoes! They walked out of the church in their sock feet, into a snow covered parking lot and drove home without shoes. They got a taste of what a person without shoes lives every day.
How many of us would it take before the tipping point would be reached and the church would begin to bring the real life of Christ to our world? It's a slow process but it is possible. I want to live to see that. Will you continue to join me in living as Christ would live every day...starting right now?
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