Tuesday 6:30 pm, I have just returned from a short run and am about to make dinner. I’m doing this program called “Couch to 5k” because I decided it was time to improve my cardio health and, because I couldn’t find a program called “Office chair to 5k,” I figured this one would do. I’ve never really been a runner and for the past few months an old injury has seen me avoiding all forms of exercise. But the excuse was starting to wear out and I concluded that if I was going to continue in my current relationship with food, I had better work on my relationship with exercise again.
Like many meals before this one, I start by getting out my favourite bowl — a plastic breakfast bowl, a big black one. In the bottom of the bowl is stamped ‘IRON MAN FOOD’ and it has a Kellogg’s logo on the side (I’ll address this later). I bet you can guess what cereal this bowl was made for, and the slogan they used to market it.
“You only get out what you put in.”
One night long ago, I went to Sue and Gavin’s house for dinner. They were close family friends, who either felt comfortable with me eating their food or weren’t sure how to stop me. After dinner, I noticed this shiny black bowl in their kitchen and it caught my attention — so much so that I went out on a limb and asked if I could have it. There were no complaints from Gavin and as easy as that, the bowl was mine. It has held my breakfast and more than its fair share of taco-salad dinners now for almost 10 years, and tonight I stopped and finally thought to myself, I wonder why I have such a strong affinity to this bowl?
This week some things have been troubling me — things that people say to me and things I have overheard. For instance, “People at church don’t have enough joy, and they’re all hypocrites” or, “I don’t feel the spirit at church as much as I want to” or, “The articles in these church magazines are lame and the design stinks” or, “The pastor is probably out surfing again; does he ever do any work?” or, “I like the music at another church better.”
My friend Gavin lived a full life. He was often out enjoying the sound of his V8 in nature, which he did under the guise of “just taking the dogs for a walk”. He was always standing at the front door of the church, welcoming people with his well-worn smile and muscular handshake. He was always helping with church events, from STORM Co to Pathfinders to community service initiatives. Gavin was always involved. He put his energy into things that mattered. He invested in others regularly and he could always be found at the potluck table too! What’s interesting is that Gavin never once said to me, “No-one at church has any joy” or, “I can’t feel the Spirit here” or, “The Record is lame this week” or, “This pastor is living the dream, isn’t he.” Gavin never mentioned any of those things to me because Gavin was joyful at church, Gavin was full of the Spirit, Gavin didn’t spend his church time reading and he was too busy working to notice the pastor’s schedule anyway.
I love this bowl so much because every time I eat out of it, I remember my friend Gavin and the life he lived. I remember the long drives we took to remote campsites, the steep hills we climbed from the comfort of his Range Rover, the countless Sabbath mornings he welcomed me into church with that gorilla grip handshake and all the big belly laughs we shared. Gavin was a cornerstone of my church family and he got out exactly what he put in: joy, laughter, love and faithfulness.
You only get out what you put in. As it relates to the cereal, I find it kind of a funny slogan. One of the reasons that John and Will Kellogg parted ways was because Will added sugar to the cornflake recipe as it was more pleasing to people in the short term, and the reason John created the flaked cereal was to help the Sanitarium patient’s health long term. I’ll take a guess and suggest that John would have preferred me to just use this bowl for my beans and salad, and not the sugary cereal it was originally intended to promote. As it relates to church, what are you putting in? Or maybe we should all ask ourselves, What am I contributing to the overall experience of church? Could it be that in some cases we have added too much sugar to our church or Sabbath experience, and now it’s unbalanced and unhealthy?
In true Gavin form, he took a shortcut (and died). Now he is waiting patiently in death for us to get our act together and stop crying about all the things the church could be, and start being the church we want to see; a church that is full of the Spirit. It is our personal responsibility to seek it! A church that is thriving with active, interested and invested members. A church where even if others can’t muster-up some joy, we can give them some of ours. Are we doing everything in our power to ensure that God can bless our efforts and make up for our deficiencies?
I may never become an Ironman, and my church may not be what I think it should be, but I am going to help do what I can and leave the rest to God.
WRITER: Kyle Morrison, attends Warners Bay Adventist Church.