Viral Church

To catch a virus isn’t a good thing, and to have one in your computer isn’t a good thing. But for the church to “go viral” is definitely a good thing.

This weekend, people will be ditching you for water skiing, picnics and the cabin in the mountains. So the preacher is going to need to involve the people who took time out of their holiday schedule to join the community of God in worship. In other words, we work with the people we have.

Wait a minute … that’s actually Jesus’ big idea in this text.

If the church calendar were being redrawn today, we’d call this Viral Marketing Sunday. “Viral marketing” is an advertising buzz phrase right now, but even if you aren’t familiar with it, chances are you’ve been a part of it. The concept of viral marketing is that a business gets its own customers to market it — with word-of-mouth advertising through pre-existing social networks of product users. So even if attendance today is weak, there’s power in the few who are present.

Think of the classic Faberge shampoo commercial from the ’70s. That feather-haired blonde knows you’ll be so excited about Faberge that “you’ll tell two friends, and...