The Storefront Window

When I was growing up long years ago in a place like Waycross, Georgia, there were no shopping malls.  Instead, all the stores were located downtown on Main Street.  Clothing stores, drug stores, hardware stores, and the five and dime stores were all lined up.  Though different they were all alike in that each had a storefront window on the sidewalk.  The storefront window told those who passed by what was inside, it served as a silent and visible invitation to enter, and it let folks know what to expect if they chose to come through the doors.

 

It has always seemed that worship on Sunday morning was the storefront window of the church.  To make such a characterization is to declare the importance of that particular moment in the ministry of the church.  When people show up for worship, they have an opportunity to experience something of what is being offered.  And while it is a moment of worshiping God, it also becomes a silent and visible invitation to return.  It is also a time when the most people are gathered for one participatory and shared purpose which communicates a word to those who pass by that cannot be communicated in a welcome brochure.      

But, more than anything else, it is that moment when a gathered group senses its connection to God and seeks to respond to Him.  There is perhaps no simpler definition of worship than an act which speaks of our response to what God has done and such is what should be visibly expressed in the storefront window of the church.  When the gathered worship experience is lost, something vital and life giving disappears.  It may be the one thing without which the church cannot survive.