Mitchell is Coming

Once upon a time, there was a man. We’ll call him Mitchell. And on a dreary, drizzly Autumn day many years ago, Mitchell turned his back and walked away from God.

It wasn’t nearly as dramatic as it sounds. In fact, Mitchell doesn’t even remember that moment as a significant milestone in his journey. After all, he had been wandering further and further away from the Lord for many years.

You see, Mitchell knew all about God while growing up. His parents used to take him to Sunday School every week. He learned all about how God created the world, and how Noah saved a boatload of animals during a great flood. He remembers the stories of David & Goliath and Daniel in the lion’s den. For some reason, he was especially fond of the story of a short tax collector named Zaccheus sitting up in a tree to get a closer look at Jesus.

When Mitchell was in 4th Grade, he attended a Vacation Bible School at his church one summer. At the end of the week, after a really nice teacher had explained all about Jesus dying on the cross and rising from the grave, Mitchell bowed his head, said he was sorry for his sins, and asked Jesus to come into his heart. (Now that he thinks back on it, he’s not really sure what “Jesus coming into his heart” meant, but it’s what the teacher told him to say… so he did.)

In High School, Mitchell continued to go to church on Sundays as well as a Youth Bible Study on Wednesday evenings. He even went on a couple of weekend retreats with the group, and he had a lot of fun. But as graduation drew closer, and as Mitchell pondered what he wanted to do with his life, his thoughts drifted toward how he might find a career that earned him a lot of money so he could enjoy all the things that his very middle-class family had skipped out on.

When Mitchell went away to college, he had it pretty easy. Years before, his grandfather had set up a trust for him, and the money paid most of his tuition costs. His parents scratched together enough to cover the rest. Mitchell majored in Business Administration, and he graduated with a solid B average, a bunch of friends that promised to stay in touch as they headed into different careers.

Mitchell didn’t go to church very often during those years — pretty much only when he was home visiting his family for the holidays or Spring Break. But he somehow steered clear of the party scene and made his parents proud. He never really thanked them for putting him through school, but they didn’t do it for the appreciation. They made sacrifices because they loved their son.

In the summer following his college graduation, Mitchell was hired by a pharmaceutical company where one of his college buddies had some connections. In fact, Mitchell started work in the same office as his friend, and the two of them decided to share an apartment. Together they started making some pretty good money. Mitchell bought a new car and a big screen TV, and his roommate began introducing him to another world.

Hitting the bars after work became pretty common. After all, Happy Hour, cheap appetizers, and plenty of 20-something women looking for fun was a powerful attraction.

By October — just three months after starting his new job and establishing his independence — Mitchell forgot all about God. Well, he didn’t actually forget… but he sort of tucked God away in this box that he thought of as his childhood past, and certainly not his adult future.

Mitchell was gladly swept away with the rest of the crowd. His life became all about making money, watching for opportunities to climb the corporate ladder, and squeezing as much life as he could out of the weekends.

Getting drunk occasionally and having different women spend the night made Mitchell uncomfortable at first. So did mastering the art of office politics to get ahead at the expense of his coworkers. But it became increasingly easy to drown out the nagging sounds of his conscience, especially as he surrounded himself with others who shared his lifestyle.

He went through a long series of girlfriends before meeting Amy. They were together for 11 months when the unexpected happened: Amy found out she was pregnant. She and Mitchell decided to terminate the pregnancy, and the tense aftermath in their relationship became almost unbearable. They broke up, got back together again, and repeated that cycle several times before deciding to get married.

The years have flown by quickly for Mitchell as he’s blended in with the world around him. They now have a couple of kids. Mitchell has been skipped over for the Regional Manager position three times, but he keeps holding out hope for the next opportunity. He and Amy have habitually lived beyond their means and are shackled by huge credit card debt, but they figure that’s pretty normal for people their age. With the current economic uncertainty, Mitchell worries a lot about getting caught in the downsizing trend. In fact, he worries about a lot of things these days.

Mitchell and Amy have had their share of problems — Amy thinks that Mitchell drinks a little too much and spends too much time watching sports with his friends, and Mitchell thinks Amy is really controlling (especially when it comes to raising the kids) and that she’s too quick to ring up another charge on their Visa card. They don’t fight a lot, but they’re also not especially happy in their relationship either.

Lately, Mitchell has been pondering his life. On his commute to work, his thoughts focus on how dissatisfied he is with it all. He feels stuck in a system, watching the years go by, wondering when life will have any real meaning or happiness. He has all the toys that he wants — a nice house, nice car, nice stuff. He has a wife and kids. He has friends. Yet he still feels so… empty. Like it’s all just a game. He worries that he’ll stay stuck in this life, and that in a couple of decades he’ll look back and feel like he wasted the whole thing.

Mitchell has tried talking to Amy about feeling so unsettled and unhappy, but she kind of blows it off as “a mid-life thing” that he’ll get over. Mitchell isn’t so sure.

A couple of months ago, Mitchell decided he’d try visiting a local church. Maybe what he’s looking for is what he’s had all along. Maybe there’s something about this whole “Jesus loves you” thing that he learned as a kid. He feels like it’s a long shot, but he’s also feeling increasingly desperate.

So this coming Sunday, Mitchell will be sitting in a church somewhere. He’ll listen carefully to the lyrics of the music and the words of the message. He’ll watch all the people around him for any sign that they have figured out how to get whatever it is that he’s been missing in his life. He doesn’t really know what to do, but he’s open to suggestions.

If God is real — if everything he learned as a kid is true — then Mitchell is hoping Jesus will love him enough to make himself known. Because if it doesn’t happen soon, Mitchell has no idea where else he might turn.

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Opening the doors of a church is a heavy responsibility. On any given day, Mitchell might walk through those doors.

Sometimes we arrive at church thinking that it’s all about us — about enjoying the worship, about learning from the Bible, about reconnecting with friends, about fulfilling responsibility.

The truth is that it’s all about Mitchell… about connecting him with God and others.

Okay, that’s not quite theologically correct. It’s really all about God — about him being glorified, about displaying his grace in a compelling way so that Mitchell can see the love of Christ fully revealed.

It takes a lot for a guy like Mitchell to walk through the doors of a church. There’s a whole lot of story that leads him to that moment. We may feel like it’s just another Sunday. We can be busy setting up chairs, brewing the coffee, catching up with friends, chasing around the kids, etc. But for Mitchell, it is an opportunity for a divine turning point in his journey.

Mitchell is coming. Mitchell will be watching. Let’s be ready!