We took the LightChildren to see Cars this evening. It is a really good movie about hubris and the need for community. I really recommend seeing it. It’s worth the price of admission for the cow tipping scene alone. There is fodder for laughter for children and adults.

Pixar did the animation, so it was flawless. I won’t ruin it and tell you about all the little extras they threw in, but when you go, watch the screen carefully. It has a lot of texture.

Being Pixar, they threw a short feature in at the beginning called One Man Band. This short, of course, had nothing to do with the main feature. It was about a one man band in an empty town square playing for no one with an empty cup in front of him. It seemed as tho the poor one man band was to go hungry that evening, when along came a tiny little girl with a single gold coin. She stopped at the fountain in the middle of the square and knelt to make a wish. Just as she was about to throw her coin into the fountain, the one man band began to play his very best, brightest tune and smiled in her direction. The little girl looked over at him and then walked toward him. She reached out and began to drop her single sparkly coin in his cup,

When another one man band began to play on the other side of the square; a plaintive love song on violin and harpsichord. The little girl turned her head and began to listen to the other one man band. Pretty soon she walked over to him and reached out to put her coin in his cup and just as she was about to let it drop,

The first one man band struck up again louder and brighter and using more instruments,

To be met with the second more plaintive and wistful and more strings,

And back and forth until it became more about the contest than about winning the coin until at last the two were in head to head battle in the middle of the square in front of the fountain and the little girl stumbled and the coin fell through a grate into the gutter; lost to all.

Now this all happened in less than 5 minutes. But it made me think of the church (as in the Church, as in the body of Christ worldwide.) Not everyone, not all Christians. But a large portion of Christians and certainly some churches are doing battle with the wrong things. They/We have entered into a contest with other churches and are trying to win the wrong prize. As a result, the true harvest is slipping through our fingers and falling down the drain.