“Peggy” has become the symbol of customer service gone horribly wrong. It isn’t as if we need this reminder that things have changed drastically from the way things used to be, after all, “Peggy” is a popular commercial series because we have all had an experience similar to talking on the phone with “Peggy.” “Peggy” reminds us that businesses have lost focus of their original intent – to provide a service to customers in exchange for the customer’s money. But when money is in the equation, the customer often gets overlooked…and often the employee as well. When companies lose sight of what’s important and focus on the bottom line, it is unfortunate. When a church loses sight of what’s important, well, that’s a whole lot worse. In the New Testament we read of Jesus chastising religious leaders who were more concerned with traditions and regulations than they were about people. The Pharisees were more concerned with counting out tiny seeds than they were with helping a sinner discover God’s way. The synagogue rulers were more concerned over orderly worship on the Sabbath than they were with the sick Jesus healed in their presence. The apostles kept children away from Jesus out of some fear that they would disturb him. The Jericho crowd openly rebuked a blind man who was crying out to Jesus because he wanted to see…ironic – his vision was better than theirs at the time. I write this, not out of a response to something I have seen, but from a thought presented in a book I am reading that made me re-evaluate myself – as I tend to fix my eyes on the wrong things from time to time. I guess we all become fixated on things that are not as important as we make them out to be. So this is not a rebuke, but an encouragement to check our focus. Let us not become so fixated on the songs that are sung, that we fail to worship. Let us not become so enamored by the “301” on the attendance board that we miss the “1” who needed a kind word. Let us not become so program-focused that we ignore the ones the program was designed for because we were busily making the program better. Let us, instead, fix our eyes on Jesus. Then, with our eyes fixed on Jesus, let us respond to Jesus in worship, and in service, and in thankfulness, and in compassion, and in love. If our eyes are always fixed on Jesus, we will never have to worry about “Peggy” in our congregation. - Don’t forget – big announcement coming on January 29th ! (And for you worriers – it is a good announcement, not a bad announcement.)

-Steve Gauntt