Presentation...

I need to brag on a volunteer for moment. Her name is Sheree and she did an amazing job this past Sunday night at our "Meet me at McGlohon" event. What she did was not incredible, it was the way she did it that caught my attention. She recently came into a new role as a volunteer to help coordinate events at Elevation. To give her a try and see what she could do I gave her a simple project - take care of the food for the volunteers at McGlohon. We had about 50 people who would be there setting up that we needed to feed. She took the project and ran with it. When I walked in to see what she had done I initially walked past the food display because it looked like it was for someone else. Sheree did such a great job with the presentation of the food people were blown away. She brought in sterling silver trays with silver serving spoons. The display was a professional arrangement that you could have dropped into any setting and people would have said "wow".

That lesson reinforced the principle of "presentation". You see our volunteers were eating chicken and rice from Bo'Jangles, but it looked and tasted like it was catered from a 5 start restaurant. If we had left the chicken in a yellow Bo'Jangles box and the rice in the Styrofoam container it would have tasted like Bo'Jangles.....but Sheree didn't. She took the time to plan and went the extra mile to create an eating experience that communicated something to our volunteers. They walked away feeling appreciated and valued...we honored them and you could see it on their faces.

For too long the church has given the world cold chicken on a paper plate and said eat it. But when you spend the time and cook it with seasonings it tastes better. When you put it on a nice serving dish it looks better and when you show them by your preparation that you care...they notice. The substance of chicken is the same whether it's frozen or barbecued...but which would you rather eat.

The church has the greatest substance on the earth in the form of The Gospel. It has never changed and will never change. Our job is to prepare and present it in such a way that it's palatable to a world that is without hope. How are you doing on your presentation because it makes all the difference in the world!!