Living in LA, David figured it would be good for him to learn Spanish to make himself more marketable. He learned just enough Spanish to be dangerous. His first job was being a bilingual kindergarten teacher.
He figured he knew enough Spanish to get by and the kindergartners wouldn't know any better and teach him what he didn't know.
On of the first open house with the parents, instead of just talking about where the crayons are and where the kids sit, and the daily routine, he thought he would make a speech.
He started his speech by saying, "I'm really glad that you're here today," all of it in Spanish of course.
"My hope and my goal this year is that I would help your children succeed." But he used the word "sucideo" for succeed, which means suicide. So what he ended up saying as, "My hope and goal this year is that I would help your children commit suicide."
The parents were getting little nervous, but he continued on in confidence.
"Every day, your children come in and pay me for lunch. They don't need to pay me, they need to pay the lady in the cafeteria," he said.
But instead of using "bagar" which means to pay, he said, "begar" which means to hit.
So what he actually said was, "Every day your kids come in and they hit me. What they need to be doing is to hit the lady in the cafeteria."
You think that's bad? It gets worse.
He said, "When your children are absent, they can't just come straight to the classroom. The next time they come to school, they must get a note from the office before they can come to class."
But instead of using the word "oha" which means note, he used the word "hota" which means lesbian.
So what he said was, every time your child is absent they need to get a lesbian from the office. Some of you have been trying to sneak into class without a lesbian from the office. It's very simple - lesbians are easy to pick up in the office. They are all there!"
Needless to say, he didn't last long in that job and is now a pastor at Mosaic.
I share that story because I think that's what's happening with the church today. We keep miss-communicating what the church is about.
We think we're saying to the world, "God loves you," but that's not what the world is hearing.
We think we're saying that God has a wonderful plan for us, and without seeing ourselves in the plan of God we are forever going to be lost. But what instead comes out is that Christianity doesn't make any difference to real pain and real lives. Christianity is all about Christians doing things for themselves and building bigger buildings for themselves.
Let me ask a simple question. Hundreds of thousands churches gathered in worship on Sunday this week in America.
Do you think anyone in our community even has a clue that the church gathered for them? That the church exists to share God's love with them?
The church has to be about more than the gathering. The church has to be about being and doing the ministry of Jesus Christ in our world.
The purpose of the gathering is to get everyone on the same page so that we all know what we're supposed to be doing the rest of the week. The purpose of the gathering is for equipping and encouraging acts of ministry. The ministry of the church of Jesus Christ is lived out 24/7, 365 days a year.
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations teaching them to obey everything Christ has commanded!!!
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