Culture’s theft of time from the American church

Posted by Seth Fuller on Apr 20, 2011 in Modern Day Issues

In recent months I have struggled with deep discouragement. It is the kind of repeated discouragement that is compounded by common imperfections of my life that I have failed to overcome. It is the kind of discouragement that comes from knowing with 100% certainty that I will fail again, and I will have to build the courage to make another attempt. What makes this even more difficult is that knowing that I will fail crushes almost any desire I have to try.

I do not consider myself a weak person, at least in some respects. But I have failed hundreds and even thousands of times. By the grace and strength of God I have gotten up time and time again. Countless times I have I felt like David when he said, “Answer me quickly, Lord, my spirit fails. Do not hide your face from me or I will be like those who go down to the pit.”

Lately a lot of my discouragement has centered on the contrasting relationships I have with churchgoers and the worldly. I am surprised about how much I enjoy being around non-Christians. I find it increasingly easy to relate and interact with them. Because I am with the same non-believers almost every day, I get to know them intimately and can share Christ with them more often than my churchgoing counterparts. As for churchgoers, for various reasons I find it increasingly difficult to have relationships with them.

What is the cause of this? I think a major culprit is the theft of our time in the American church. It seems that if we do not fit into the natural routines of each other’s lives, then our potential relationships with each other are an unfortunate casualty; I’m sure the feeling is mutual yet undesired. I think most Christians can share a part of the blame for this problem, but in some ways we are also victims of our culture’s thievery. Our lives may be too busy, and I think perhaps we need to slow down and refocus our schedules for a bit more flexibility and purposeful randomness.

How do we fix this problem? Honestly I don’t exactly know. I’m still thinking these things through. Even if I did arrogantly assume that I had all the answers, it would still be an issue that would take decades of mass effort to accomplish. But in an effort to contribute my very small part, here is an outline of some of my own thoughts on the dilemma that I may further develop as time goes on.

• Culture is against the church
  • Daily bombarded with distractions of information, entertainment, and visual media. Culture attempts to define our interests, beliefs, and priorities.
    • Cultures prompts us to spend our time watching visual media, listening to music, making money to purchase must-have items (ie., iPods, phones, tvs), etc. Do we realize that this industry’s job is to manipulate our emotions so that we think we must be a part of these events and own these items? Should we rather seek to be manipulated by the perceived needs of those around us?
  • Social networking. While social networking can be a valuable tool of communication, it often steers our energies and concentration away from real life relationships with those we can impact the most. Seems also to lend itself to indiscretion, gossip, and complaining, which is further divisive to relationships.
  • Because of these distractions our relationship skills can become out of practice. It can be uncomfortable and inconvenient for us to build new relationships. Plus we may fear that these relationships will never come to fruition because the distractions of our lives will kill any momentum and they will die.
  • Culture has negatively influenced relationships within churches.
    • We tend to live where we work, not where we attend church. This means that we are often separated from other members by great distances that make relationships with other church members a challenge. This also may partly explain why we may feel closer to our co-workers than our fellow church members.
    • Professionalism has infiltrated the church. To keep folks interested, many churches feel the need to have a full calendar of planned/managed activities and events. Because of the work and the stress involved, many of these events are self-defeating and ultimately function as a distraction to the higher purposes of serving each other and the lost. Many of these events do not result in the spiritual growth of the body or the spread of the gospel, but rather more as a means of busyness.
  • Current culture is increasingly unsupportive of the the importance and understanding of monogamous faithful marriage and the bearing of children. These two God-ordained aspects of life are foundational to the goodness of mankind and above all, the spiritual growth and maturity of the Church.
  • The “Fast-food” culture pervades into Church culture.
    • Do we expect fast results and as such are trained to be impatient when relationships do not come to fruition as quickly as we think they ought?
    • Have television and movies trained us to think that relational issues should be solved in 30 minutes, so to speak?
    • Has the entertainment industry trained us to think that relationships should be “entertaining” at all times? And if the people we know do not entertain us, do we not seek out relationships with them?
• Conclusion
  • Because of the impact of culture on our available time, there is none to waste. Leisure and relaxing activities are however important.
  • Introspection and restructuring of culture’s hold on our lives so that we are in control of how our time is spent, rather than culture controlling our time.
  • Encourage and work with one another to build new relationships, fighting against culture for momentum, so that relationships will not die. All parties must be in it for the long haul.
  • Churches may need to revisit their schedule of activities, considering the precious limited time and energy of the working class. They should check to see if they are contributing to the tiring of their congregation, or their spiritual refreshing. Decreasing structured events and increasing activities involving basic fellowship may be more helpful.
  • The Church must fight for and promote the importance of marriage and children in society.

Obviously this is not an exhaustive or complete list.