Friday, I got a chance to take my kids to Chuck E Cheese for a couple hours. We blew through the first $5 of game tokens in a heartbeat, and then got a little more strategic in how we spent the last $5. After noticing the Jackpot on Skee-Ball was at 175 tickets, I realized it was time to make my move. So I grabbed six tokens and headed that way. It was the fourth token that paid off... 470,000 points... jackpot... the bell rang... the little red light on the top blinked... the tickets started spilling out... my kids celebrated... and God taught me what it means to have Risky Faith.
My first twenty years of my skee-ball career were pretty mundane... ordinary... filled with minor successes and a lot of mediocrity. And then I watched the "master" as I called him. He walked up beside me at the Skee-Ball place at Six Flags (the one near the Looping Starship). I never knew his name... but when I saw him hit 600,000 points, I knew he was worth learning from. He would put one token in and with very little preparation would roll a ball across the lane diagonally toward the top left corner of the pockets... right at the tiny little cup labelled 100,000 points... he was a fool. Many times he would fail and the ball would trickle back down into the miserable 10,00 point pocket. But when he would hit it, his score would skyrocket... 10,000... 110,000... 210,000... 220,000... 230,000... 330,000... 430,000... 440,000... 540,000... and tickets would spill out.
That's when I learned what I had been doing all my life that kept me stuck in the upper 200Ks. My Skee-Ball game plan up to that point was to shoot for the middle and try to perfect my roll. The tiny little cups in the top corners seemed impossible to hit. Sure, the 100,000 points were tempting, but I knew that most of my attempts would fail. So, I would aim for 50K and try to hit it perfectly... nine times in a row. Not once did I ever succeed at getting the 450,000 Jackpot. After watching Mr. Skee-Ball, though, my game is different... changed because I am now willing to risk it all... willing to put everything on the line and shoot for the "impossible" in the top corners. Most balls miss. But that's the beauty of the game... to hit 450,000 points by shooting for the 100K pockets, I can fail some of the time... actually, most of the time... and still come out a winnner. So, now, when I take my kids to Chuck E Cheese and they join me at the Skee-Ball games, they have confidence that they are about to get some serious tickets to spend... no more being stuck with a Tootsie Roll prize...they are going to move up to the stickers or the plastic snakes... or even some really tacky plastic thing that makes a lot of really tacky noise. As a father, I want my kids to have the really tacky noise-maker... I've got good plans for them... and if they're willing to risk it with me... eventually it works out. Sure, it takes me 4 or 5 or 6 tokens to get the Jackpot... and along the way I have my share of 180,000 point games (or even worse)... but I rarely leave without getting the Jackpot at least once... because I take a risk.
Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for, 'declares the Lord,' plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."
Russ and I believe that God will use Church At The Grove to offer hope to people. We believe that's what God wants...we believe that's what God dreams about. But it involves us trusting God with a risky faith that attempts those things that seem impossible. Will we fail along the way... sure! But, by risking it all in order to help "disconnected people" connect to the holy God we serve, we will also be amazed at the "jackpots" we hit along the way. Will you join us in this risky journey?
Many of those that attend Church At The Grove with us have spent years trying to learn how to roll the perfect skee-ball, spiritually speaking. We've taken the classes... we've put countless hours into the church machine... we've tried to always shoot for the middle... the safe route... where minor successes are more likely... and we've continued on with life in the middle. But God is putting in our hearts a passion for people that live on the edge... the fringe. People that live their lives far from God are the ones that God is calling us to reach. And, the only way to reach them is to take the "foolish" route... diagonally across the lane toward the top left corner. God is more interested in reaching disconnected people than keeping connected people happy... and we are, too.
What a ride this will be... but the Jackpots are coming... people's lives will be changed by God... and we will all celebrate!
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