I love the movie Mystery Men. It is a spoof about inept superheroes. Their “powers” are in the range of abilities that every average person has. For example, Invisible Boy can only achieve transparency when absolutely no one is looking; if any one looks at him, including himself, he becomes visible. One of his fellow “superheroes,” the Blue Raja (who hurls silverware with deadly accuracy), asks, “Pardon my incredulity, but how can you be sure that you achieved transparency at all?” To which Invisible Boy replies, “When you go invisible you just feel it.” At one point in their “training,” their mentor, the Sphinx asks another “superhero,” Mr. Furious, “Why do stand apart while the others train?” His subtle point is that “you are as much a misfit as the rest of these misfits; you need this just as much as they do.” There’s something to that, too. That’s what church is. We are all mostly inept—kind of like Jesus’ team—perhaps you’ve heard of them: the disciples. We have just ordinary powers—but when they are brought together, there is a spark in that chemistry that none of us has when we are in isolation of others. If you are a follower of Christ, God made you apart of a “team” that is the local church—and you’ll never be all you could be apart from your teammates.
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