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The Sermon I learnt at Peterhead McDonald’sby Ron Thomsonpeterhead-methodist.org.uk The Sermon I learnt at Peterhead McDonald’s A couple of weeks ago I bumped into a young girl at the door of McDonalds just outside Peterhead. Her shift had just finished and she was waiting for her father to turn up. I happened to be in Peterhead that night to attend her fathers surprise 40th birthday party. I had to duck inside the doorway to avoid being seen but the temptation of a chocolate egg McFlurry was too much and I joined that long queue. Why are there always such long queues in McDonalds but not in our church? However the queue made me think about some of the foundations that the chain build into every aspect of their work and how did they succeed in becoming so popular. Could we capture some of the aspects of their growth and apply them in the church? My wife Carol told me about the three measures of excellence the chain used in her day (as an ex-manager of a McDonald\'s in Leeds one of the first in the UK). She talked about Cleanliness, Quality and Service. Looking at Cleanliness I looked at our life in the church. What stains are there on the floor as a result of destructive gossip? Do we need to listen more to our minister when he says gossip can break up our church family group? Is there any dust gathering on our Bibles lying there unused? What dirt is being ignored in those corners of our church life? Yes, Jesus does want us to be clean on the inside and out. McDonald\'s have posters up saying “Wash Your Hands”. The Bible talks about Pontius Pilate trying to show his clean hands. But God wants even more he says we are to have clean hearts and minds. We should be taking up our Bible every morning and asking for advice on how to live each new day. During every shift McDonald’s staff are required to remove the rubbish from the restaurant and everyone can see whether it has been done or not. Jesus provided us with a way to remove the rubbish from our life but do we allow others to see our lives are cleaned regularly. Do the potential customers of our church see dirt rotting away in our life or a clean loving group of people ready to welcome new staff members joining them? That brings up the measure of Quality! How convincing are we about how our lives are changed by Christ? Do we stand out from the crowd and say we are different through our actions in the community? As part of her job Carol checked the work of her colleagues to make sure it met the standards. How would we like to have one of our church family regularly asking and checking we were always meeting the company quality standard? Our God is doing that all the time. He also tries to point out areas we have fallen down on but are we listening close enough? God is saying “I want you to walk with me so closely that people see me in you”. He wants you to be so transparent that outsiders see him not you. What a quality standard to meet! When people look at us outside the church does our life convince them of the fact we are born again Christians? Are we remembering to stay Christ focused rather than self focused? However just like at McDonald\'s God has appointed others to help us to guide us to talk about the problems we are experiencing. Our church has a ministry team people who can support us informally. They also have access to others to provide more specialist help when necessary. Just like the McDonald\'s staff the people in the ministry team are providing a Service. We are also all required to be servants of our God. Jesus himself said he came not to be served but to serve others. We are required to serve Him at McDonald\'s, at Morrison\'s, in our school or workplace. That could be visiting someone you know is not in perfect health or writing a supportive encouraging letter to someone who is going through some bad times. At the end of his working day just before his arrest Jesus was able to pray these words. “I have glorified you on earth and have finished the work you gave me to do”. He had come to earth to provide us with cleanliness, to empower us to meet quality standards and ask us to provide a Service. Would we be able to say the same thing when we reach the end of our life here on earth? Can we say the same about our church here in Peterhead? • Is it helping to clean up peoples lives, • is it supporting people to meet quality standards to become convincing Christians in our local community and • lastly is it providing a service to those people who are not yet members of God’s family? If we can’t say a strong clear definite YES to every point is there something we need to do as a body to help one another as part of our church family. There are more to come in this short series about McDonalds so keep coming back for more filling satisfying meals here on this website. One Response to "The Sermon I learnt at Peterhead McDonald’s" 1. roy said: my wife and I are worship leaders in our local church, hope you wont mind if we use this sermon by ron thomson in the next service we take. god bless roy Leave a Reply |
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