Yesterday during the announcements I accidentally said the word service when describing what would be happening next week. I quickly caught myself and admitted to the team what I had said before someone could jump on me about it. The question that sometimes comes up is why? Why call it an Experience and not a service?
The reasoning is quite simple… would you rather go somewhere where you had great service or somewhere where you had an experience? Great service is awesome when you get it (we had a phenominal waiter yesterday at Red Robin) but unless everything else is equally as awesome, you don’t really say “Wow what an experience!”
Disney World is an experience…the Transiberian Orchestra show is an experience…being at a Penn State, Notre Dame or Michigan college football game is an experience…what the average church offers on a Sunday morning…uhhh not so much.
For most churches they offer a service that hopefully is meeting the needs of the people, just like Red Robin does, just like the clerk at your favorite store does, just like your accountant does…
At United each Sunday morning though we want to create an Experience that people have with God. Every word, every action, each video and song and every other element should be related to one another so that at the end of the hour, people say, “Wow I just had an Experience with God!”
Do we accomplish it each week? No…but it isn’t for a lack of effort…but when we do…wow…God is honored and people’s lives are changed!
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