September 12, 2024
I was reflecting recently on how busy life seems at the moment. Many of the people I know are feeling like they are swimming upstream and barely keeping up, or in some cases falling further and further behind whatever schedule they feel that they should have been on. It was in this frame of mind that I came across something I had written almost three decades ago. And yet, somehow, most of its key thoughts seem as strangely relevant as they did back then.
It was back in 1997 and I had just read what was then the new Regis McKenna book, Real Time. Mr. McKenna was advising companies that were struggling to compete in the modern markets of the day. For the first time many of them were grappling with the accelerated pace of technological change, and it was disrupting many of their tried and true formulas for success. They felt, for example that they were having to make more and more decisions in real time, rather than being able to meticulously plan them out, as they had in the past.
But interestingly, McKenna contended that technology, or rather, the rate and pace of change of technology had altered more about our lives than just new ways of doing things. It had ushered in an era of unprecedented choice in almost every area of our lives. Suddenly, instead of just a couple of choices, we faced a multitude of choices for everything. Not only did we have over 25 choices for something as simple as toothpaste, laundry detergent, and facial tissue, we also had an ever changing multitude of choices for things as complex as health care.
In many cases the choices were so multitudinous that the act of choosing became a big, or even bigger job than the use of the choice. Some of us, who grew up with only two or three viewable television channels were faced with a choice of over a hundred - and it has only gotten worse since then. A quick calculation shows that if you peeked at each channel for 30 seconds to determine whether or not it was something you wanted to watch - a 60 minute show would just be wrapping up by the time you finished reviewing the choices.
An immigrant to America at the time was heard to comment that our lives were being choked by a plethora of mundane choices. It is not that choice is bad, but the sheer number facing the typical American in a given day, week or month for relatively unimportant things left little time to exercise the choice itself. A marketing survey at the time noted that choices for most commodities were up statistically over 3-fold, and yet the time available to browse the choices was actually down by more than 25%. And it has only gotten worse. We live in an increasingly fragmented society in every sense of the word. And not only do we have to make all these choices, but we are forced to make the same ones over and over and over again - because suddenly all the old choices disappeared.
Having to constantly adapt to new ways of doing things and choose between an ever-widening array of new and improved's, because the old one no longer exists has now made our most precious asset our time!
Peter tells us in
II Peter 3: 8 With the Lord . . . a thousand years are like a day.
We know what that feels like! We now regularly have days that seem like only an hour - far too short to accomplish all that we needed to do that day.
And when time becomes so precious and short, we begin to make other choices - namely, we choose, either consciously or unconsciously, what we are NOT going to do. When we run out of time, what will get the short end of the stick? Increasingly for many it is our spiritual life, and our walk with our Lord, that seems to wind up short changed at the end of the day!
The church of 1997 was not immune to this malady, and neither is the church of 2024. The factors involved are far more involved than the simple explanation offered by McKenna, but the fact remains, year-over-year we feel busier. And on some days, when it seems like a perfect storm of responsibilities piles upon us, that vitality we once felt seems to have sprung a leak!
In every church body there is a natural ebb and flow of gifts and talents. Elderly people retire and spend larger portions of the year in the south, or just slow down because of health issues. Others move away. But in a healthy body, the slack is always picked up as new gifts are developed and younger people in the Lord mature in their walk. Increasingly, however, it is these new talents that are finding it difficult to "stand in the gap."
They have to choose to spend more of their increasingly precious time for the Lord, when our society is burning them out on "choices" till they do not want to choose anymore!
The other insidious side effect of a society swimming in multiple choices for everything is that we come to believe that if we had chosen better, it would be a perfect "fit" for us - with so many choices, there must be one just for me - if I can just find it. The next result is that we become a constantly choosing, never satisfied society. Instead of investing to make something better, we switch in the hope that our next choice will already be better - negating the need for increased effort on our part.
When this kind of thinking begins to infect our approach to God, a dangerous trend emerges. People start to substitute choices for commitment to grow - switch rather than commit to make it better. In the extreme its symptoms are church hopping and a steady turnover in key positions, in a vain hope to find a body or position to fit the person the way they are. This is the exact opposite of the model we find in the early church. In the early church people were discipled, gifts were nurtured, people moved when they were finally ready for the job that awaited them and to which they were called in God's demanding mission to evangelize the world. Interestingly, Acts is full of examples of the key positions in the body, each having an "understudy" who was groomed to one day step into the lead role when he or she moved on to their next task. Such "understudies" seem to be harder to find in today's greater church.
The message here is that each of us should be serving in our primary calling, while also "stretching" in an understudy role for our next more demanding task. Such growth for service is not easy, nor was it necessarily intended to be.
The story is related of the Queen of Sheba that she once sent two wreaths of roses to Solomon, one real and one artificial. To test his reputed wisdom, she defied him to detect the genuine from the artificial. Solomon at once directed that some bees be brought into the room. Immediately they flew to the real flowers and ignored the counterfeit.
The real disciples of Christ, it is said, are known by the bees that cluster around to sting them.
Artificial flowers do not attract stinging bees. Likewise, neither does artificial religion.
While
Hebrews 13: 8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
His church is not. It must continually adapt as Paul did -
I Corinthians 9: 20-23 to the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law, ... so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law ... etc.
The question then comes down to what should the church do to cope with these challenges that threaten its vitality? Somehow, my answer seems as relevant now as it did back then:
First, emphasize discipleship in everything we do. This means using every program as an opportunity for the exercising and nurturing of gifts - the program being as much for the servers, as it is for those being served.
Second, is a need to encourage people to stretch to develop a new aspect to their ministry. Each pick a new area to champion and make it happen.
A third focus, I think, must be a commitment to serious study of the Word. God's Word has time and time again proven itself to be the compass we need, if we will but take the time, not just to read it, but to understand its message and apply it to our personal situation.
Lastly, we must spend time communicating with our Lord - speaking and listening. When we call Christ our Lord, it is a statement of our commitment to follow where He leads. To follow, we must hear the directions. In a society where time becomes rare and precious, this requires discipline that can only be acquired by practice and encouragement by example.
In most of my own spiritual walk with the Lord, He draws me back again and again to one set of verses and they seem as appropriate now as they ever have.
Hebrews 10: 24-25 And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and good works: not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another, and so much more as you see the day approaching.
Amen.
Please feel free to share this DeacoNote with a friend, or post a related thought in the Comments below.
Your Brother in Christ,
Warren
Warren J. Ayer, Jr.
Chairperson, Board of Deacons
United Church of Colchester
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