#85. Hating your enemy in the church parking lot.
Mar 25th by Jon
I, and roughly the population of both Dakotas, attend North Point Community Church outside Atlanta. That means that after church gets out I don’t just enter the parking lot, I enter the terrordome. I might have a sermon fresh in my head, but I push pause on that for a few minutes so that I can do battle with the people I just worshiped with. It starts as soon as they say, “Have a good week” and dismiss us. We practically sprint to the back rooms to get our kids. Then we walk quickly to our car and start the grind. The thing that kills me is the people that volunteer for traffic duty as a “mission.” I don’t want someone directing traffic out of love and an eagerness to volunteer. I want a drill instructor with robot like efficiency guiding us out of the parking lot with an emergency vest and a belly full of Red Bull. Eventually, my swallowed curses for people in the parking lot got so bad I had to let my wife drive and sit in the back seat with my kids. I felt immature until I learned every husband in my small group did the same thing. Remember, there’s no such thing as a Christian in a church parking lot.
(Thanks go to L&P for the parking lot idea.)
Comments
God bless if you dont own some gargantuan vehicle. Because people who do, well let’s just say defer to them….
To apply this principal even further, there is no Christian in A LOT of places! I-75 comes to mind.
Like the people who say “Oh My God” all the time. They may say that technically it is not blasphemy, since God’s name is not actually in there. However, there is a documented quote where God was addressed with these very words, “Oh My God, why hast thou forsaken me”.
I wonder how these OMG people will fare, arguing their breach of the Commandments with God on a technicality. Hmmmm…
And, according to basic Christian precepts, these parking lot bullies will come under similar divine scrutiny, when tested against “love thy neighbor”.
…if they would jut give people a reason to hang around after service… it could stagger the flow a little…
of course i live in a public transport society… so I ride soviet bomb shelter metros an 100 year old trams and buses with smaller engines than my old chevy…
Try Christian love when a granny has to take av running start to fit in the metro car.
Yeah, I live halfway between Chicago (very possibly the jerk-driver capitol of the world) and the Wisconsin state line (without a doubt the clueless-driver capitol) so I’m pretty used to other drivers being complete philistines. Then I visited North Point one Sunday last summer. Fer cryin’ out loud, Andy, would you tell your folks that Nascar is run on a closed track? And you might want to serve decaf only in that coffee bar.
Other than the parking lot, though, NP was a great experience.
There is a guy who parks directly behind me EVERY sunday in the car park (as i park next to the doors, second person to arrive) and when i ask him to move for me so i can load my car up with my stuff he just has to finish his 20 minute conversation…
and is it me, or are Christians generally the worst drivers? i hate being stuck behind someone with a fish on their car, knowing that when i finally get to overtake them i cannot shout abuse at them, as it will be drowned out by Hillsong United blasting out of my car stereo…
Hahahaha this was funny!
Whenever someone says “Oh my God” I sometimes say “Well? He’s listening. What were you going to tell Him?”
There’s also no such thing as an atheist in a fox hole.
If you're going to place a fish on the back of your car, you need to drive like a saint or else you make all Christians look bad. I purposely put a fish on my first car so I would learn to drive in a respectful manner.
Thankfully we go to a very small church so we don't have any traffic problems in our parking lot.
Oh, I'm so glad that others recognize the terrible, flashing warning light of the christian bumper sticker. In my experience, those that display them either drive very, very slowly and take a verrrrrry long time to make their mind up at intersections, or they put boot to pedal and obviously believe that Jesus died to save them from having observe road laws.
I actually went to a church when I was in college where this wasn't a problem at all–people actually took turns getting out, didn't try to run over people walking to their cars, and I never felt stressed trying to get out of that parking lot. It was WONDERFUL!
This is hilarious. I know that even the parking lot at my church can get a bit crazy, and our volunteers do their very best. I do agree with you Jon, and would add this:
"There is also no such thing as a Christian in traffic"
Road rage affects us all.
[...] cell phone usage as a guest as a host with retailers/servers managing your children in public driving/getting out of the parking lot in small group in conversations [...]
[...] bothersome that the unnamed person in psalms 1-20 has so many enemies, but I think I understand how it happens. Potential enemies are everywhere. Customer service rep. Check. Mailman. Check. Cyclist. Check. [...]