Renting a Room

Every Tuesday I meet with four other women at my church to discuss a redesign project for our church website. We just started about a month ago on what is proving to be a big project. (Who knew I'd have to explain that "site map" is not some phrase I made up?)

Anyway, yesterday when we met we brought with us some pros & cons we've found browsing around the beloved world wide web. My favorite: One church website included a link to "Rentals." Announced across the top of the page--

"My Father's house has many rooms....
Some of those rooms are for rent."

I found this hilarious. As I thought of it later during my car ride home, I remembered this Audio Adrenaline song "Big House":

All I know, it's a big ol' house with rooms for everyone.
All I know, it's lots of land where we can play and run.
All I know is you need love and I've got a family.
All I know is you're all alone, so why not come with me?

The theme here being that there is a place for everyone in God's house. I've always looked at this passage as one of those after-life, heavenward, i'n't-that-so-sweet-with-the-angels-singin' metaphors. What if instead we thought of our God-rooms as in the here and now?

I've recently been rearranging furniture in my house. Spring always causes me to 'nest.' Whenever I rearrange a room, I feel a renewal each time I'm in the space. My bedroom is always first. Waking up to a new view after so many dreary, gray winter mornings makes a remarkable change in the way I face each day.

I think we could all use a little 'rearranging' after a long time with the same view. If you were to peek at your room in that party-house in Heaven, what do you suppose it would look like? What posters would line the walls? Maybe they'd be full of pictures, blue ribbons, coloring book pages, deer heads, those fuzzy paint-by-number things.... Perhaps you'd take a page from HDTV and have a boldly painted 'accent wall' and tastefully decorated, feng-shuied space.

Certainly there isn't any right or wrong answer (although the deer head thing is a little icky). I think more importantly the question is do we, as the church-link infers, think of our rooms--our 'rentals'--as rooms in the Father's house? In our houses of worship and spiritual spaces, do we take stock as a visitor or an owner?

Perhaps one person on this earth who truly understood what it was to be a visitor was Jesus. He was undeniably a visitor each day of his last years on earth, as he traveled from city to city, household to household. Before his trial and ultimate execution, Jesus spoke to his disciples and in an effort to comfort them, was recorded as saying this:

"...There is more than enough room in my Father’s home.
If this were not so, would I have told you that
I am going to prepare a place for you?
When everything is ready, I will come and get you,
so that you will always be with me where I am."
-John 14:2-3 (New Living Translation)

I like this statement of there being 'more than enough room' for everyone. We find ourselves in a bankrupt climate of mortgage crises, poor real estate markets and remarkably high rental prices. Now, as always, it is so important to have a clear view of the 'house' that is God's house. In God's house, there are many, many rooms; there are rooms even beyond what are needed--more than enough room. It is a big, big house where you find love and family. Do our church homes hold true to that standard? Do we find room for everyone?

If indeed we are just visitors, as Christ was, and trust that he has gone ahead to prepare a place for us, is it so much to think that we should work as hard to prepare a place for him? Each year more and more people turn away from what is seen as 'the church' because it's become dilapidated housing. It is no longer a comforting shelter from the storm or a welcoming beacon in the night. I'm not so sure we've 'kept a light on' for seekers so much as we've slapped up a No Vacancy sign.

We most definitely do not invite visitors to slap up some wallpaper, hang up their favorite posters, paint little blue checks on the ceiling, or even, dare I say, nail up one of those singing fish things. Metaphorically speaking, I don't think we ask or expect people to 'make themselves at home.'

As Christ-followers who should strive to be seeker-friendly, that is just what we should invite people to do. Who knows? Maybe that next person with the 'crazy' ideas will do just the rearranging we need for a clear, refreshing view. Certainly if God can hold a room for each of us in his house, we can make room for a few more in ours.