Fire in the Hole

Running a church is very much like having a retail store. The product you’re selling, however, is not a cheap, imported item, but it is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

In any retail operation, your focus has to remain on your profit, which in the case of the Gospel is the souls you have won for the Lord -- not the amalgamation with another store or church or the products off their shelves, but the brand-new souls that have given their lives to the Lord.  This is your great commission, the purpose of your whole endeavor. 

Your profit, the bottom line of Christianity, is not building a great cathedral, but the salvation of souls.  No matter how big and famous your store becomes, if you are not making a profit, you will go out of business.  A fancy store may be appealing, but it is your sales that keep you in business.

Many stores go to great expense in advertising and promotions to bring in customers, but if the product that you are selling isn’t any good, they will soon leave disappointed with empty shopping bags.  While your competitors down the street will advertise that they have lower prices and great deals, you struggle to maintain the quality of your goods, knowing that, in the end, cheap products will not bring lasting or eternal customer satisfaction. 

There will always be those who flock to the cheaper imported goods because they do not want to pay a higher price, but you know that you must maintain your integrity because of the integrity of what you are selling. It can be dismaying to see the difference between the crowds that flock to WalMart and the trickle that filters in your doors, but you’re not competing for price, you are competing for quality.

The cheaper stores do not offer the longevity of quality, the extent of warranty, nor the depth of customer service that you do, but you would never win those customers anyway, because those customers are only interested in cheap prices for cheap imitations of the real thing.  You have won your customers hearts through the truth, while others have appealed to their customer’s parsimony, but your goods are lasting while theirs are transient.

But you still must present something appealing to grow your business.  The Bible says that salt is good and that if we lose our savor (or taste), it will do us no good.  Salt is caustic, and by itself will burn, but food without salt can be bland and tasteless.  You can still eat it, but the flavor is gone.  So the gospel must be salted with a mixture of the sharp reproof of the Word of God to bring out the flavor of the Truth.

Salt is also a preservative, but must be used in proper amounts.  Too much and you will ruin the food; too little and it will lose its savory appeal.  The Gospel preserves our souls when salted with that caustic boldness of preaching that can only be generated from a preacher who fears God, not with the bland nature of a weak and insipid message that is afraid of losing their customers.

If the Gospel you preach is unadulterated, pure and strong, and salted with salt, you will win those souls who are not concerned about the price they will have to pay, but with the eternal quality of the product you offer. 

You will have “customers from Hell’, as all retail owners can attest to, but you will also have those satisfied customers who will remain true.  Those who will come will be those who are hungry for the Truth  They are not looking for the cheap and easy message of self-focused prosperity and personal blessings. They will be drawn to the symbol that blazons outside your establishment, the Cross that calls them to repentance, and they will kneel down to give their hearts, not their flesh, to Jesus Christ.  These are the customers who will remain faithful and true and purchase the product that will last into Eternity.

As for the others, they always have WalMart.