There is a new store in Kansas City called Pizzeria Locale.  There are so many pizza places and we’ve seen all the different types.  I thought to myself, what is this place going to offer?  Are they going to have some gimmick for the kids, or be a hipster place, or are they going to try to be more of a Italian upscale restaurant.  I am always curious to try new things, but what I found was beautiful in its simplicity.  They had a small restaurant with black ceiling and white walls.  In the restaurant was one counter with glass covering it, and one giant pizza oven.  You walk up and they have one size of pizza, something in between a small and medium, lots of toppings, and one round old fashioned concrete oven.  We ordered and 5 minutes later our pizza was ready.  They literally place the pizza in the oven on a rotating conveyer and one rotation the pizza is ready.  They said they went to Italy to research and design an oven that would replicate the sweet spot on a wood stove oven throughout the process.  The simplicity, the taste, the efficiency was mesmerizing.  I came in thinking just another pizza place and was blown away by so much more.

After pizza my daughter wanted to eat frozen yogurt and I really wanted a milkshake so we compromised at a place that had both.  We walked into Mely’s Frozen Yogurt and Ice Cream and I was a little bit drawn aback by the amount of junk in the store.  There were protein bars, all sorts of prepackaged candies, ice cream flavors, three frozen yogurt machines, limeades, slushes, you name it, she had it.  You walked in and were overwhelmed with the stuff, it was hard to move there was so much in the store.  It looked like the ceiling hadn’t been fixed and there hadn’t been any upgrades since 1970 in the facilities with old ceiling fans microwaves, blenders, and stuff everywhere.  It is safe to say my milkshake was below average and my daughter didn’t finish her frozen yogurt.  I had a different feeling when I left the store than I did the pizza place, one of confusion, overwhelmed, exhausted, and maybe even a tad miffed.

I began to wonder what if the two different experiences were experiences of people in churches across the U.S.  The church that tries to keep their message simple and fresh with one major component (the pizza oven). This church invests all their resources and their time constructing this methodology and practicing it.  The people then can enjoy the fruits while not being exhausted and torn in so many directions.  They have a clear focus that is not fancy, or too overdone, but is clean, concise and people feel refreshed when they leave.  How many churches have so many programs and are trying to do so many different things that they end up just confusing and exhausting their people?

I feel as if discipleship is the pizza oven that a church should focus everything around.  As I talked to one of the workers at Pizza Locale, he told me that the pizza oven is built first and everything else is built around it.  It has to be the first thing that goes into the restaurant.  In the church, discipleship has to be the force that drives everything.  It has to be established before anything else is setup.  It has to remain the focus for people to understand what it means to follow Jesus.  The programs are nice but we must not forget the main thing within the church.  “Go make disciples of all Nations” Matthew 28:19.  So next time you think let’s add this or add that to bring people into the church just remind yourself that more is not always better.