#633. Stealing from a church.

It’s only a matter of time until I get caught and the other night, I almost blew it.

You see, right now my wife and I are “stealing Awanas,” the Bible club class that is kind of like VBS our kids attend once a week. Our church doesn’t offer it. It’s not their thing and I’m cool with that. But in order to have our kids involved in it we had to scout out other churches in the area and then quietly embed ourselves as if we were members. Like some sort of spiritual SWAT team we swing through the windows, grab all the ministries we need and then high tail it out of there.

And we found the perfect church down the street from us. So every Wednesday night we drop our kids off and then buy dinner in the dining hall with all the unsuspecting members of this church, but I almost messed up the whole operation.

The problem was that my wife wasn’t with me. She was at a consignment sale at another church we don’t attend. (We’re a couple of pew pillagers aren’t we?) So after Awanas was over, my daughters and I walked over to the dining hall. Everything was cool until a man walked up to our table and said, “Mind if we join you?”

“Oh snap, ” I thought to myself. “Be cool, Jon, be cool.”

“Sure, go ahead.” What do I say, what do I say to this guy? Make conversation, talk about the traffic, this is Atlanta, that is a fall back, go to topic. Instead I heard my mouth utter the worst possible phrase, “Do you attend here?”

He immediately looked at me with a quizzical expression and said, “Of course.”

Worst is over right, we’ll move on and talk about something else? Wrong. He continued.

“My daughter is in the choir.”

Uh oh.

“My mom is the one serving food right over there.”

Oh no.

“I actually work at this church and have for years.”

Yowza!

“I’m also on the security detail that tasers people who use our facility without attending this church.”

OK, he didn’t say that last one, but I was sitting with the ”President of this Church.” This guy was going to figure out we didn’t belong here. It was only a matter of time, so I did what any mature Christian parent would have done in that situation, I told my daughters to hurry up and finish their chocolate pudding and hustled us out of there like we were the Usain Bolt family. (Topical!)

What mistakes did I make? What things do you need to be aware of if your church is focused on certain things and therefore doesn’t offer some services/ministries you’d like to be part of? How do you pew pillage without blowing it like me?

Here are a few pointers …

1. Never make eye contact.

The more you look people in the eyes, the more likely you are to get invited to a new members class. Focus on your feet when you’re at the church you have no intent of joining since you already belong to another church.

2. Don’t give people your real name.

Pick one of the gospels, “Matthew, Mark, Luke or John.” The least real info you can leave behind at the scene of the crime the better. Now clearly I couldn’t have given fake names for my daughters last night. Like her adorable habit of yelling “They’re not wearing a bike helmet!” at families we see not wearing bike helmets, my 3 year old would have corrected me if I tried to tell my would be captor, “This is my daughter Orpha.”

3. Don’t linger.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, like the Cranberries warned us all those years ago, “Do you have to let it linger?” No, you don’t. My family eating dinner at the church is a bit like showboating. We’ve already won, we’ve already gotten what we came for, the Awanas class, there’s no reason to stick around and celebrate our theological theft with a fried catfish dinner. And yet, we do. Like joy riding the stolen car instead of taking it straight to the chop shop, dinner is probably a mistake.

You might not need any of these tips if your church offers everything you like to do. Or you could also hypothesize that if the church found out that we were using their Awanas program they’d say, “Awesome, that’s why we do it. It’s an act of community outreach. We’re thrilled that your kids are learning about God.” I mean I suppose that could be the case, but regardless, please know that next Wednesday when we go back to dinner I’m going to be looking for that guy on the church security team and will probably be wearing a fake mustache. Don’t tase me bro, don’t tase me.

Have you ever visited another church for a ministry or activity your church didn’t offer?