The other day I visited a church and was greeted at the entrance with this sign.
“Hi. You’re Awesome.”
I looked around surprised, but there was nobody else present at that moment, so I concluded the sign must mean me.
My first thought was, “Gee, if I’m already awesome, why not sleep in Sunday morning so I can simply bask in my awesomeness?”
awe-some. adj. “Inspiring an overwhelming feeling of reverence, admiration, or fear; causing or inducing awe: e.g. “an awesome sight.”
Come to think of it, I guess that does describe me.
Some years ago theologian Donald McCullough wrote a book called The Trivialization of God in which he observed,
“Visit a church on Sunday morning—almost any will do—and you will likely find a congregation comfortably relating to a deity who fits nicely within precise doctrinal positions, or who lends almighty support to social crusades, or who conforms to individual spiritual experiences. But you will not likely find much awe or sense of mystery. The only sweaty palms will be those of the preacher unsure whether the sermon will go over; the only shaking knees will be those of the soloist about to sing the offertory.”
Okay, God’s awesome. We get it.
But until that Sunday morning I never realized that I too am awesome.
In fact, I’m so awesome that I think I’ll skip church and just go to Starbucks.
After all, one building can only handle so much awesomeness, and I don’t want to steal God’s spotlight.