Please Tell Your Face!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I love Southwest Airlines! I love the Boeing 737 series of planes that they use; I love the friendly, funny and sometime talented flight crews that serve us as well and I love the overall flying experience. Because of my experience, I have developed a SOUTHWEST AIRLINES FACE.

Southwest does not use assigned seating but rather it is open seating called up by the letter A and the number 1 up to 60 in numerical order and B and C following. A typical 737-300 or 500 series plane can hold 137 passengers. I make it a point to ask before I board whether or not the flight is full or not because that will determine what my face will look like, my SOUTHWEST AIRLINES FACE.

A 737-300 or 500 series place has ABC, DEF seating which causes in an open seating arena for people to grab the aisle seat or the window seat, leaving the middle seat open. If I know the flight is not full, I want a seat to myself; therefore I use MY SOUTHWEST AIRLINES FACE. I don't want anyone seating next to me so my face shows it. I wouldn't say it is a mean face but it certainly isn't nice. As my church reminds me all the time, I am a very handsome, charming man; however, if I am tired, irritated, or something is on my mind, I can look MEAN AS HELL,( church members words). Imagine what I can look like if I TRIED to look mean.

If the flight is full, I have a different tactic. Since all the seats are going to be taken anyway, it is useless to try and scare someone away because someone has to sit by me; therefore, I put on my other SOUTHWEST AIRLINE FACE. I am charming, smiling, engaging, dang near flirting (my church members who read this are nodding their heads). I choose who I want to seat by me by trying in my facial expression to invite them to take a seat. After all, if I have to be couped up in this plane sitting next to someone, I would rather it be next to someone who is pleasant to be around.

We do the same things in churches today. We bring our FACE to church. Either it is our "don't mess with, Don't bother me, Don't sit here, why are you here face, or its our, We are glad you are here, won't you have a seat, Is there anything I can do for you face. Many visitors have already made their assessment about our churches by the way they are received by the people, especially our faces.

You can say you love the Lord all you want to, "We are a friendly church" and all of that but if your face doesn't show it, they won"t believe it. Some members have left churches where they loved the singing, were fed by the Word and enjoy the Pastor but they can't stand the "FACES".

God told Jeremiah in 1:8 not to be afraid of their faces because sometime people can scare you. I wish sometimes people could see how they look in church; distressed, sitting on a tack or pin, sucking on lemons or a sour patch jolly rancher and we wonder why people don't want to come to our church. Look at your face.

In BTU(another discussion, another day), it wasn't Biblical, there is no chapter and verse, no Greek or Hebrew interpretation, but they sang "

If your happy and you know it,

then your face will surely show it,

if your happy and you know it

Say Amen.