More Better

Found online

If you've read this blog, it's no secret that I like Seth Godin. My life has been busy and I haven't been following his blog very closely of late, but I checked it out this morning, and this post, I thought, was so full of truth...yet so very, very ironic. Here, I'll reproduce the post in it's entirety:

You'll pay a lot...

but you'll get more than you pay for.

There's plenty of room for this sort of offer to work. The hard part isn't charging a lot. The hard part is delivering more (in the eye of the recipient) than he paid for.

Plenty of people would happily pay extra for what you do... if they only believed that in fact it would turn out to be a bargain, worth more than it costs. One reason we price shop is that we don't trust that anything that costs more than the cheapest is worth what it costs.

Too often, in the race to charge less, we deliver too little. And in the race to charge more, we forget what it is that people want. They want more. And better. (Seth Godin, 2-6-13)

Do you hear that ringing true? I sure do. We pay more for, say, Olive Garden than McDonalds because we get more. And we pay more for a gourmet restaurant than a national chain, again, because we get more. That's the everyday application there that I see lived out day to day.

But the irony is...he offers this FREE on his blog... Just makes me smile...

But to the point, the thing that caught my attention, was the very last couple of thoughts:

"Too often, in the race to charge less, we deliver too little." Does that apply to churches? Cheap grace... Membership with no commitment... Worship without service...* Truth without grace... Grace without truth...

"And in the race to charge more, we forget what it is that people want. They want more. And better." And here I will level the word of warning at us as churches when we DO have standards of membership, standards of holiness, expectations of service - that those are not the gods we serve. The more and better in the Church is never the doctrine, polity, discipline or theology of the people, it is the person of Jesus Christ.

Paul says Christ is all, and in all.

He is more. He is better.
























*I heard one pastor of a large affiliation of churches say that there would only be two kinds of people in their churches: those being ministered to, and those ministering. If you come to warm a pew, you will be lovingly but firmly encouraged to serve, and if you will not, you will be lovingly but firmly asked to follow Jesus somewhere else...