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Are You A Fan?
Written By Timothy Fish
Published 11/11/2008
Are you a fan of South Park Baptist Church? Maybe a more important question is, are you a fan of Jesus Christ? Fans make the difference between something languishing in obscurity or being well known. Can you imagine what things would be like around here if there were no Cowboys fans? There would be no point in playing the games because no one would show up to watch and no one would pay to advertise on television. Those of us who don’t watch the games wouldn’t know how well or how poorly they were doing because no one would mention the score at the water cooler. It is the fans who give the Cowboys the popularity they enjoy.
I’m an author, most recently of For the Love of a Devil. I won’t embarrass myself by saying how few I’ve sold at this point, but the majority of those that I have sold are due to the support of fans. When we look at why books sell, we can examine many things from marketing efforts to store placement to how well the book is written, but none of that compares to what the fans do for the book. If people are talking about the book and encouraging their friends to read it, it will sell. If they aren’t, the book won’t sell.
Getting back to the original question, are you a fan of South Park Baptist Church? Are you telling your friends about it? That is the first sign of a true fan. A true fan tells others, just like Cowboys fans can’t help but talk about the last game. Are you motivated to see South Park Baptist Church succeed? That is another indication of true fans. A true fan is joyful in success and has a desire to do what is needed to see her team win. In the case of the Cowboys, it may be yelling at the television screen. In the case of a book, it may be telling others about it or turning the book face out in a bookstore. In the case of South Park Baptist Church it may be inviting people to visit or giving more money than the ten percent implied by a tithe.
True fans want more than what they get out of it. What Cowboys fan doesn’t want to see the team go to the Super Bowl? “How ‘bout them boys?” they’ll ask. Most fans get little more than being about to claim that his team went to the Super Bowl, but that doesn’t keep him from wanting it to happen. A true fan of South Park Baptist Church wants more than to have a good Bible study class on Sunday morning and a safe place for her children to stay while she attends worship. A true fan will want all of the Bible study classes to be good and to have the resources they need. A true fan will want the youth, the senior adults and those in between to have the things they need. A true fan will support the church financially, temporally and unselfishly and the church will be better because of it. So the question remains, are you a fan of South Park Baptist Church?
