Dirty Church Buildings & Bad Impressions

Try this experiment. Put a dirty mop bucket in plain sight in the church. Just leave it sitting in a corner for 6 weeks. The first week everyone will notice and we’ll get lots of complaints. By the third week, not so many. By the sixth week most people will be saying “What mop bucket?”  Here’s the point: it doesn’t take long to get used to our surroundings.  We don't notice the dirty carpet, the food crumbs on the floor, the broken fixtures, scuffed up walls, or the clutter in the class rooms. We don't notice, but our visitors do.

I think it is disgraceful for a church building to be dirty and unkempt.  It’s evidence that people don’t care.  Even worse are the people who create a mess and don’t clean up after themselves.  Dirty carpet, messed up rooms, coffee cups on the sanctuary floor, overflowing trash cans, foul odors, and food crumbs are sights you’d expect to see in a dimly lit nightclub; but not at God’s House.  Not at Pace Community Church.

Please do me a favor.  Clean up after yourself.  Don’t leave a mess for someone else to pick up after you.  We have a housekeeping team, made up of volunteers, who do an exceptional job of ensuring that our facilities are in pristine condition every weekend.  But they can't do it all themselves, nor should they be expected to.  Everyone shares in this responsibility.  Empty the trash cans that you use. Don’t leave your coffee cups in the sanctuary.  Don’t drop gum wrappers or cigarette butts on the ground either.  Did you dirty the dishes?  Wash them yourself.  If you use a room for some ministry activity, then clean up when you get through and vacuum the carpet while you’re at it, because someone else is going to use the same room tomorrow.  Did you turn on the air conditioner?  Then you turn it off.  Don’t assume someone else will do it.

Let’s remember.  This is God’s House, not our house.