Lipstick on a Pig

"You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig!" The phrase is attributed to Anne Richards, the outspoken former governor of Texas. People may have never encountered a pig wearing lipstick, but they get it —they know what the phrase means. In the life of the church, we're very familiar with efforts to put lipstick on a pig. We've renamed almost everything in our attempts to attract more people, be more relevant, or even mask an unpleasant task: Sunday school to Sunday morning Bible study, Wednesday night dinner to fellowship meals, coffee time to community café, discipleship to small groups, and the most popular—committees to teams. But Don Simmons says it takes more than a name change...