On The Distinction Between BBQ And The Kingdom Of God
By Dr. R. Scott Clark - Posted at The Heidelblog: All my reading material was on my computer, so on the way into the air and on the way down I read the American Airlines American Way magazine.1 It is not often that one finds stories about churches in the in-flight mag, but there it was: New Zion Missionary Baptist Church. Why? Because the church operates an apparently spectacular BBQ restaurant in Huntsville, Texas. It seems that back in the 70s folk were fixing up the church, someone was making BBQ for the workers, and someone else asked if he could buy some of that good-smelling BBQ. Before they knew it, New Missionary Baptist Church had a revenue stream and a new ministry. Now the “New Zion BBQ” is one of the more famous BBQ places in America.2 There are a couple of lessons to be learned here. The first is that the church got into BBQ business the way churches often get into such things: it just happened. People doing ordinary things and failing to make some important distinctions
