Sunday, September 28, 2008

Chickens and Churches

Today during Sunday School at church, we were reading the part in 3 Nephi when Jesus appears to the Nephites. But before he appears, they hear His voice saying to them, "How oft would I have gathered you as a hen gathers her chickens, and ye would not." The teacher asked the class if anyone had ever seen a hen gather its baby chicks. Nobody raised their hand but me, so he asked me to describe it. My mother keeps chickens, so that's where I've seen this. It's adorable. Basically, the mother hen has a certain clucking sound that she makes if she spots danger, and as soon as the baby chicks hear it, they all run underneath the hen. The reason why this is a perfect metaphor is because the Lord is always wanting to protect us under his wing, yet we are the ones that have to listen for the clucking and go towards the shelter. The hen doesn't chase her chicks around trying to shelter them, the choice is theirs. The choice is ours to either draw closer to the Lord and be protected by him, or wander far away, ignoring his beckoning.

That's the Sunday message for today. And I have a new idea, which I'm going to start doing. Every Sunday I'm going to post the picture of a different church in my neighborhood. There are a billion! So I'll never run out. And they are all so fascinating to me. We'll start with my favorite:

It's the Soul Saving Station. How convenient--I feel so lucky to have one in my neighborhood. How do the rest of you get by?

2 comments:

Donnie Barnes said...

Being in the country is tough. I mean, when your soul needs saving, who wants to have to get in the car for a long drive first? I mean it's probably not even safe to drive when you're in search of that kind of thing. I won't even go into how I have to research my road trips before I go to make sure I always know where the closest "station" is in case an emergency hits!

Hmm. I don't SEE any lightning. ;-)

Lis said...

My favorite thing about that church is that it's the "General Headquarters" . . . as opposed to the Specific Headquarters?

Poor Donnie is going straight to hell.