Confession? I was doing a number of things simultaneously long before the experts gave it a name and years before they began debating its advantages and disadvantages. I don’t multi-task out of a personal conviction that it increases my efficiency; it’s simply the way I’m programmed. It’s hard for me to do one thing when I can do four. It requires an intentional effort on my part to “stay in the moment”!

That back story accounts for one peculiar aspect of my morning makeover. For years now I’ve plugged my hair-dryer and my flat iron into an extension cord, the better to dry my hair while doing leg exercises on my Chuck Norris total gym, picking out clothes in the closet, and making up the bed. I kid you not. My multi-tasking self enjoys the freedom of not being tied to the wall. I hope you’re not rolling your eyes at me. My family does, too, but if you join them, you’ll miss the best part of the story.

One morning I pulled the tangle of cords and beauty appliances out of my travel bag, plugged the whole kit and caboodle into the wall and switched my hairdryer on full blast. Nothing. I tried a different setting. Nothing. I cleaned the little vent and tried again. Zip. I was about to conclude the dryer was useless, finished, kaput, dead, when I saw the problem. I had plugged the extension cord back into itself instead of into the wall! I realize I’m not sounding super intelligent, but I’ve counted that cost, and I’m willing to take one for the Rockstar team because I see a very useful illustration in this story.

Plugging into a local body of believers is beneficial and necessary, not to mention a biblical expectation. Hebrews 10: 25 offers this warning, “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.”

And yet, as important as it is to gather together without other believers, let’s not be deceived into attending church will tend to our soul. We need to be diligent to see that we’re hooked up to the real power of God to feed our cavernous souls and equip us for the demands of daily life. Church is wonderful, but if that is all there is to our faith, it’s nothing more than behavior modification. The church is an extension of Christ’s body. She has no power of her own.

Christianity that starts and stops at the church doors produces bewildered believers holding onto a faith that is as powerless and useless as my hairdryer. Let’s plug into Jesus, Rockstars. He is our Source!