The Smell of a Pew

I recently had an experience that left me pondering for days on a recent church service I attended. It wasn’t the sermon, the community prayer, or even the worship that left me thinking. It was the people. The thought has run pervasive in my mind for days unrelenting in its fight in my mind. I have discussed it and debated it and am still left stunned by what happened and what I experienced.

I came into church on a bright Sunday morning with my mind really open to what God wanted to show me. But little did I know that it wouldn’t be any of the avenues I had thought it would be teaching me and showing me the reality that is God. I sat quietly in the back with my mother and the service began. People trickled in late and took there places in the rear of the church. At this I was shocked. I looked around and it was as if I wasn’t in church. I say this because they weren’t dressed in the “appropriate” Sunday morning attire, but at the same time neither was I. Let me explain the situation. Behind me was a single mother with her two kids that smelt as if she had just smoked three packs of cigarettes before she entered the church. On the end of my row there was a man in jeans, boots, shaved head sporting a huge beard, earrings, and a Harley Davidson leather jacket. In front of my a man look disheveled in the way he was dressed as if he had slept in clothes and come to church the same way. His breath is what captured me. You could smell the hint of alcohol on his breath. And to my left is a man that is an open homosexual. Father down the stairs and to my left is a man and a wife who are doing everything to keep their marriage alive. You could see the strain on their faces. There are those diagnosed with cancer. Where the youth sit they had the preps, the Goths, the punks and skaters, and the awkward types. There are those who I know from living there that aren’t exactly the most friendly with the law and have records. Then it hit me. This is exactly what church should look like.

This is exactly what our churches should look like. We have in our church community created this ideal of a country club mentality. “We want you…but only if you meet our certain mold and your life is cleaned up before you get here,” has become our hidden motto. This should not be. As I looked around I was taken back to the ministry that Jesus had on this earth. He did not cater to the perfect or the “godly” but to everyone. He spent his time with liars, thieves, drunks, prostitutes, the sexually immoral. This is exactly the type of environment Christ would be seen in.

In our churches today this scene is rare. We have created an army of cookie cutter Christians who cry out to God to reach the lost and soften their hard hearts. But yet we continue to act in an unforgiving way to them when they come in the church doors. We give them ignorant stares for fear that their smell may protrude if they speak, so we continue on with a half hearted fake smile. Christ said to come as you are, not come when you are cleaned up. Would Christ even be comfortable in our churches any more? We are more concerned with the color of the carpet and the decision between pews or chairs rather than the soul of the individual. The church has created this wall that gives off an undesirable feeling to the outside world. And we still wonder why we are not reaching the lost. We as a church family need to forget denominations, the looks of our clothing, or what Bible we use and instead be more concerned about getting our hands dirty and knees skinned up while we show the love of God to the world. We need to be willing to do unconventional ministry. We need to be willing to find the courage to minister to those we come into contact with and find the courage to minister to them no matter the situation or circumstance. Did it matter to Christ how someone smelled or how someone was dressed or even their life preference and the choices and the decisions they made in life. Lifestyle should not prevent us from reaching out to these people. Though we are supposed to hate the sin we are exhorted to love the sinner.

The amazing thing about God is this, Christ loved us the same right now that he did when we were drunk, when we were high, when we were fornicating. It hurt him but it did not affect the amount of love he showed for us and how much he did to rescue us from our sin and from our situations. Even when we were sinners Christ loved us. His grace and mercy covered us and saved us from the lifestyles we lived in. He saved us from ourselves and our destructive nature. He didn’t care that we were high, hung-over, or homeless. All he cared about was us and he loved us.

So this is what our pews should smell like. Our church’s should be so deliberate in showing the love of Christ that sinners, just like ourselves, are in the service. We should be smelling those smells, seeing these sights. If not then we are not doing something right. The reason that this is so important to me is that some church-goer reached out to me in the basement floor of Union Station in DC. Saw I was in pain, hurting, hung-over, disheveled, and lost and did not care about that and yet still showed me the love of Christ in the midst of my sinful life. They reached out to me and I found the love of Christ in my pew, even though I made the pew smell like alcohol and cheap rubbed off perfume. In our lives we should be living like everyone we come in contact with is not living for Christ and we should be willing to show the love of Christ to all.
So what do your pews smell like?