Have you caught the "Insanity" yet?

Last weekend my family and I made the short drive over to Concord to celebrate my daughter's birthday at The Great Wolf Lodge.  If you are not familiar with The Great Wolf Lodge it is a hotel with a pretty big indoor water park, and to use the water park you have to stay at the hotel.  Now aside from the water park the hotel is your typical hotel and when I am cramped up in a small space with three, bouncing-off-the-walls children, the TV becomes a source of refuge.  While flipping through the channels I came across an extended infomercial for the home-workout DVD called "Insanity."  Now remember, I don't have cable so I don't see these things too often (while I am sure those with cable have seen it countless times) and as I watched this extended infomercial I found myself getting sucked in.  The leader of this cult-like experience, Shaun T (who coincidentally will be in Charlotte this weekend), is hard to ignore.  Even though it is just a TV program he is more than in your face.  The participants who are featured in the show are over the top with their praise for the program and it is hard to ignore, what appears to be, the evident change in their physique.  But what is the most captivating is the excitement that exudes from everyone who is a part of this "Insanity."  You would have thought each person just received a new car from Oprah or won the lottery.  Their excitement and energy pulled me in with a Star Trek-like-tractor-beam force that kept me from changing the channel.  And as I sat there and tried to figure out why I was so "zombied" to this show it hit me: I was caught up in this insanity because what I was witnessing was exactly what we see in churches across the country every week.  People who are so excited to go to church that they cancel their tee times to be there.  People who are so thankful for everything they have that you have to beg them to not give away everything they have.  People who are begging to teach Sunday school, even and especially the classes that their kids aren't in!

Now, no I have not been drinking, and yes I am being sarcastic.  But this did make me wonder what would it be like if everyone had that same excitement for their faith that these folks had for Insanity?  What if they realized that, just as Insanity changes their body, faith changes their entire being.  What if church people had that type of excitement, an excitement that others couldn't ignore and caused them to want to be a part of it too.  An excitement so powerful that it pulled them in with a Star Trek-like-tractor-beam force.  What if?

Instead church people typically are not described as excited but instead we look more like a dysfunctional family and who wants to join up with a dysfunctional family?  Instead of being excited about our faith, like these folks were for Insanity; excited because of what it did for them and how much they wanted others to experience it; we forget what our faith has done for us and our excitement seems less genuine.  Instead of excitement we are more concerned about determining who is right and who is wrong.  Who is in and who is out and that typically does not lead to excitement.

I can only imagine what church would look like if we had Insanity type excitement.  And not the excitement that comes from a heavily caffeinated cup of coffee but the type of excitement that brought about real change, like the change that Insanity promises.  That change is there in our faith I just wonder if we have forgotten about it.

 I wonder what an Insanity church would look like?  What if we had that type of excitement for a faith that promises and delivers real change?  I wonder what that would look like?  What if...?