Bill Cosby once quipped, “I don’t know the secret to success, but the secret to failure is to try to please everybody.” One of my blind spots is that I have tried to be bold and beige.  Oops.

Knowing that you can’t please everybody takes guts.  You will incur the wrath of the people who you are not trying to reach.  Here is a big reason:

Everybody has a belief system that they know to be correct and that everyone else should follow. It’s nonsense to think that you are impartial and unbiased.  Thinking impartiality exists is itself a belief system that you think other people should subscribe to.  We are much more committed to our cultural assumptions then we think.

Take for instance Willowcreek Community Church near Chicago.  They challenged the assumption that church was for church people and Sunday services were for worship. They pioneered their time on the weekend to reach people far from God.  They have reached alot of people.  They have made alot of people mad.

There is a church in my town that has grown rapidly because they are decidedly Calvinistic; they don’t pretend they are someone they are not.  They love John MacArthur, John Piper, and dislike seeker churches.  They have challenged the assumption that a church has to be atheological in order to be vibrant. They make a certain group of people happy.  They make a certain group mad.

Who is right?  I’ll leave that for you to decide.  But what is true is that both churches, because of their focus, necessarily exclude others.  Is that okay?  I hope I am learning to be courageous enough to ask, “Who would I like to reach?  If I reach these people who does that exclude? Am I ready to incure their judgment?”

Do something bold, not beige, but, remember to count the cost.