A few days ago someone called me to tell me he was engaged. I was excited for him and his good news. But about 15 minutes after we chatted, I felt even more excited. Not so much because his joy had infiltrated my joy (it also happened to be my birthday!), but because he had chosen to call me personally and share the good news with me.

It made me feel honored that I was part of his ‘engagement calling circle.’ Friendships and deeper relationships are things worth starting and cultivating. For some folks it comes quite easy, while for others it is painstaking. But deeper relationships among family and friends make life a lot more enjoyable.

I think the dude from Ecclesiastes stumbled upon this point:

Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!

I once took-now brace yourselves, but this is true-etiquette class in high school. One of the things which I distinctly remember about the class was the marriage of the salt and pepper shakers. At this time I apologize if you were expecting words of wisdom from 80’s rap diva’s Salt N Pepa, I know my title and picture were a bit misleading. When someone asks you to pass the salt, you always pass the salt and pepper shakers together. They are married, and should not be separated.

It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me, but sometimes, I actually ‘follow the rules,’ and pass both of them together. But salt can exist fine without pepper. While they may be ‘married’ in some etiquette perfect world (perhaps like Plato’s world of Forms), they really don’t necessarily ‘go’ together.

Unfortunately many people operate with the same thinking in regards to going to church. Being a Christian and actually going to (and yes even committing to one and serving) church, actually have no necessary connection. You can be a Christian and not go to church at all, go once a month, once a year. The two go together like Salt and Pepper: its nice to keep the two entities together in their marriage, but certainly it is not necessary. Just do it when you can, I guess.

But Jesus and His Church are married; and it is a marriage stronger than salt and pepper.
Christians need to abandon the salt and pepper shaker model of church attendance/ commitment, and actually believe that Christ and His Church (each local body is a manifestation of The Church) are indeed married.

When I was in college, I got along very well with my roommate. We really had only one instant where we talked about going to the “Roommate Zone” (like a talk show where people dealt with roommate problems at Furman).

I had a 6 CD changer, with of course, 6 of MY CD’s. My roommate listened to bad music, and so I didn’t give him a ‘spot.’ The CD player would play only MY music, and MY music only. One day he mustered up enough chutzpah, with the aid of some fellow hallmates, and demanded he get 1 CD in the player. How dare he! How dare them!

I was angry, but finally caved. He got his one ‘booty’ (R&B) CD. Looking back it was pretty selfish of me. Actually VERY selfish of me, and I’m somewhat embarrassed.

I wish people in churches today could ‘share spots’ in the CD ‘players.’ I think that more often than not, folks want THEIR music ONLY in church. But sometimes, when there is a diversity in worship styles in a single service, we are given the opportunity to ‘share spots.’ We get some songs we like, we get some songs we don’t like. But ‘sharing spots’ is expressing love. We will not get ALL of our songs, but we will get some. And others will get some too.