What Roomba taught me about church

 Last year we bought a Roomba.  If you’ve never heard of Roomba, it’s a robot vacuum cleaner made by iRobot.  It’s actually quite ingenious, and like having a pet that cleans up after itself.

To vacuum a room, you put Roomba down in the middle of the floor, and turn it on.  Roomba then begins a circular sweep of the room, learning the room layout as it goes.  If it bumps into something, it bounces back, turns, and moves forward again.  It Roomba gets hung on a rug, it rears up on one side and frees itself from the entanglement.  Stairs?  No problem.  When Roomba senses it is near the top of the stairs, it turns without going over the edge.  Plus, there’s a little brush that goes round and round, sweeping the baseboard when Roomba is near the wall. 

It occured to me tonight that Roomba has a lot to teach small-church pastors.  Here goes: