Job Interview or Doctor’s Visit?

Recently, I was challenged by this question: Is a church more like a job interview or a doctor’s visit?

A job interview is where you put your best foot forward (along with everyone else who is there), emphasize your strengths while glossing over your weaknesses, smile even if you don’t feel like it, try to impress the person doing the hiring and generally do your best to appear as positive as you can.  We tend to look at the others in the waiting room and compare ourselves to them – hoping we don’t seem less qualified than they do.

A doctor’s visit is where you walk into an office where everyone knows you’re sick and in need of help.  Everyone there is in the same boat.  We haven’t come to impress anyone.  On the contrary, we have come for a remedy for what ails us.  We have come to find help and we’re trusting the doctor to provide that help for us.  We don’t compare ourselves to anyone else in the waiting room because we all have problems – different kinds of problems to be sure, but we are all afflicted.

When you come to church, is it more like a job interview or a doctor’s visit?