Last week at the evening service I was talking about the centrality of praise and adoration in the life of the Christian. I wasn’t so much talking about singing praise songs or listening to your favourite praise album. I tried to describe it as a sense of well being. It’s knowing all will be well when you have no evidence to substantiate the feeling. It is this sense of “well being” that praise nurtures in a person that makes the Christian an attractive person and wins admiration. It what “ Malcolm Gladwell idescribe as the stickiness factor in his Book entitled the “Tipping Point “

Gladwell seeks to describe what he believes brings about a mass movement. The message has to be sticky. It has to have a relevance for the people who are invited to engage with it. Freedom is such a sticky idea that once it has been experienced its almost impossible to shut it down. The recent uprisings in the middle east certainly bear witness to this amazing truth. So how can we as Christians understand the sticky aspects of Christianity.

I suppose we should ask ourselves what it is that is sticky about our church and about the message of the gospel? What is it that is sticky about praise? Do we have these sticky attributes in the way we present ourselves in our communities? I’m going to suggest that we need the following six sticky attributes if the church is going to grow and be effective.

The first sticky attribute must surely be Acceptance. Churches that are growing are churches that are following the example of Jesus and taking all comers. It used to be that churches gave off the impression that you had be be a fully paid up card carrying Christian if you wanted to participate in the life of the church. What many are discovering is that people come to faith because they have got involved with a church perhaps in some practical way. It is was the openness of the church to accept them that made all the difference. I know this is a truth that I’ve come to appreciate more and more. We find people outside the church community coming forward to volunteer with various aspects of our social outreach programme. The interesting thing is that before long we begin to see people of their own volition beginning to turn up at worship on a Sunday. The gospel is not just a doctrinal statement it is a living dynamic word that changes men and women from the inside out.

The second attribute is Relevance but you know what I’ll talk about that tomorrow.

Holding your nerve. Getting up in the morning to face the day. Engaging with the everyday issues of living, these experiences can sometime be overwhelming. There are times when we’re not even sure who we are. To often we’re trying too hard to please this person and please the next person.

Holding on to an identity that grounds us and saves us from being swept overboard can be an almost impossible challenge. Too often we’re ashamed of our past or even our family tree. The world is full of people who want to be someone else. Recently I was reminded of Henri Nouwen the well know 20th century thinker and theologian. Have a listen to this sermon preached by Nouwen in which he speaks so passionately about the love of God and knowing that you were the beloved child of the father.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Do you know he once spent three or four days just sitting in front of Rembrant’s painting of the Prodigal Son. He said it changed him from the inside out as he began to understand what it meant to know that he was loved by the father unconditionally.

I don’t know about you but after hearing this sermon I was greatly encouraged. All of us are much more that we will ever imagine. If we could plant ourselves in the love of God how differently we might look upon ourselves and on others.