Skip to main content

We All Want a Scooby Snack


I mentioned yesterday that my kids sailed with me back to my childhood when we discovered Scooby-Doo Mystery Incorporated. It has been an entertaining jaunt, one I'm glad my kids have had an opportunity to experience. After all, my childhood worked out well for me. (Shout out to my mom!) So if my kids can get the same upbringing I did, they should end up alright as well. Now if I can only convince the police my kids will be fine riding free in the back of a conversion van, their childhood would be complete. 


Anyways, the Scooby-Doo cartoons have recently got me thinking about people and the Church. 

We are creatures of habit. For starters, my Saturday mornings feel better somehow now that I can tune in and see the Mystery Machine tooling around town. But the show itself offers many constants. Honestly, the only thing that changed in the 70's version of Scooby-Doo was the villain, but even then some things stayed very much the same.

  • The mystery was always a person with a mask...
  • ...but the gang was always scared. You'd think they would have eventually caught on.
  • Scooby and Shaggy were always scared and hungry.
  • Velma was always losing her glasses. Seriously, can we just get her some contacts?
  • And Fred and Daphne were always blissfully unaware that they belonged together.
Except for that last one, not much has changed with the newest edition for the Scooby series. The mysteries may have changed but not the fact that it will take half an episode for the gang to use Scooby and Shaggy as bait to catch the bad guys. 

We become habitual in our spiritual lives as well. From wanting to get to our regular pew to being comfortable with when we stand and sit during a worship service, our natural inclination is to do what we have always done. But just as Scooby never seems to get more snacks, we also lack the ability to grow in our faith when we decide to keep on doing the same things we have always done, despite our penchant for wanting better results. 

We can update the script all we want. But until we admit that something is inherently broken in the system and allow God to lead us into lasting change, the seemingly solvable mysteries will continue. Perhaps we should be allowing some teenagers to meddle with our lives. Insert close friends for teenagers and exchange accountability for meddling and we may just lose the mask and solve this mystery. 

That idea is worth a Scooby snack. 
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Accountable

I recently officiated a wedding. The ceremony was simple, lovely, and ended with another couple professing to keep the covenant of marriage. But it all started with a clarification...from me. At our first premarital counseling session, as I have done with every couple I have agreed to marry, I clarified a couple of matters. First, I officiate Christian weddings, where both spouses-to-be are professing Christians. I firmly believe that marriage is difficult enough, without adding disagreements about God into the mix. Second, as a minister of Jesus Christ, I believe the pastor’s role in a wedding is to represent the blessing of God on that union. So we have several sessions of premarital counseling where we discuss married life. It’s not that I have this imaginary card in my head, with a picture of me on the front and my stats on the back. (You know, like a baseball card.) Ok, I do picture cards. Pastor cards! And being a competitive guy, I want my stats to look good. The number of coupl...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Facebook Maybe

Granted, I'm a pastor. I have Type-A tendencies. Ok, my tendencies border on freakish OCD behavior patterns, but... Few things bother me more than the Facebook 'maybe'. I suppose I could go on and on about the grey areas of our society and the refusal of people to accept absolute standards. I could discuss the great need of people to accept that what is wrong for one person is likely wrong for everyone. I should certainly be concerned about mentioning that someone might have sin in their life. But I don't believe the Facebook 'maybe' is quite sin. Perhaps if I were coming up with new sins, I would add this to the list. But alas... Some might think the Facebook 'maybe' did not exist prior to the Internet, but they would be wrong. When I was in high school and asked a girl out on a date, I would normally be told that if they had no other plans, if nobody else called them, if there was nothing good on television and their hair did not need washing, then per...
5 comments
Read more

But I Wanted It

As I've said before , I'm looking for a new place to do youth ministry. Job searching in itself can be a full time task. Unfortunately, no one is paying me to look for a job. And when you haven't had to find a job in 15 years, the whole experience can feel brand new. And nerve-wracking. And quiet. So very, very quiet. I may spend a few hours here and there sending out my resumes and writing cover letters. But the churches I'm sending my information to have their own timeline. And sometimes that timeline does not involve acknowledging my presence. Which is fine, especially if one of the churches I've applied to is reading this right now. I understand those looking for youth pastors will have their own agenda and their own timeline. But it leaves me sitting here with a deafening quiet around me. I am choosing to walk by faith through these days, picturing God working behind the scenes (always behind the scenes) and holding His voice very still, until He is re...
2 comments
Read more