The Lazy By-Product

After just participating in the security screening/check-in process at LAX I got to thinking about how less than 10 years ago the procedure to get on board a plane was much easier. Right after 9/11 it was clear that traveling was going to become a rather challenging experience and there was the growing pains we all felt while participating in the new protocols. Now? It’s normal. We know what to expect, we stand here, hand this/that to the person, take that off, put that on, pat-pat, now wait. We’re not surprised any more.

I know this is a bit of a US perspective, but I think we thrive on efficiency and organization. If I can do it/think it/want it guaranteed there are others so let’s form a group and do/think/want together!

Where this gets interesting is in the area of faith/religion. There is a certain comfort that goes along with having a group to participate in the religious experience with. I don’t really want to get in to the whole “need for community” thing as I actually think that’s an entirely different topic altogether. What I mean is that I think we look for ways to organize as it makes things much simpler/easier. We can collectively each take a portion of the organization and do our part and then collectively as a whole we can move in an organized, efficient way. Or even better, let a bunch of people keep it organized and I’ll just show up…

I would dare say someone doesn’t want to join a church to “get organized”. I think what I’m trying to say is that I believe there are so many churches/communities/groups/etc. because there is something not completely connected with the fact that in and of ourselves we are complete with God. We don’t trust that. We feel like we need someone professional to tell us what we don’t know and explain stuff to us.

There is one primary issue facing churches all the time right now and that is the numbers are down. Across the board, around the world, the numbers of attendees are decreasing. Is faith decreasing? I don’t think so. Are churches not adapting quick enough? I don’t think so – there are more flavors of church around than ever before. So what’s the issue?

In my opinion, we’re fat and starved spiritually at the same time. We have God/religion wrapped up in this nice little organized package, but that organization is making us lazy, so there’s less draw to continue. We don’t have to worry about working on our marriage as there is a marriage retreat coming up and we’ll get the help we need (and if it’s not good, we can go to another church that has a better program). We don’t need to worry about really digging in to teach ourselves what the bible says or other truths that are out there for the taking as we can show up on Sunday and get fed (and, by the way, if we don’t like the preacher we can just go to another service or church in the area that we like better).

This is not just an issue for churches. Schools experience the same issues. With so much access to information but less ambition to work to learn, teachers are facing some real challenges. Parents look to schools to teach the kids and if they aren’t achieving, it’s the school’s fault.

What if we could take the organization and flip it completely on it’s head? What if we worked harder on learning about God, walking with God, and in doing so walking with others and less on just trying to stay organized? That could be a small group that you actually interact with, but that’s ok. It could grow to be a larger group and that’s ok too. The point is, don’t organize to be the people of God, be the people of God and let the organization work itself out. It won’t be pretty. It won’t be clean. It won’t fit on a Visio flowchart. But it worked for the early church and I believe it can work again.

Photo credit: gadl