I was sitting down in a section of the day’s church gathering that they called the Divine Worship.
As is my wont, I made notes of what the preacher was saying. As I listened and noted and also considered the rest of the session and indeed the service, there was something gnawing at me. The whole proceedings appeared somewhat disconnected from real life. There didn’t appear to be anywhere to plug what was going on into what people would endure or experience in their lives over the rest of the week. It just appeared to be lovely religious/spiritual platitudes and sentiments that struck the right chord with what people were expecting from such a service, but beyond that, there was little in the way of something substantial.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not driven by the need for EVERYTHING that’s said or done to be hugely practical. I believe some things that are said or done are for the moment and is there to consider and ponder at the time and rejoice, or respond in some other way. So my quibble wasn’t really about there not being enough practical applications in everything said or done. The issue was more that there appeared to be NOTHING that you could draw on to help you whilst engaging with life in its different guises.
Reflecting on that got me remembering how this was not a one off occasion. Sometimes it appears as though people go through a process of change in the time of the service that gets them happy to holler and excitable, and then once the service is over live as though what had been said had no bearing on their lives. There’s a disconnect right there. The disturbing thing about that disconnect is that it supports a split personality. It suggests Christianity is a pill you take at the end of the week that helps you ignore life, and it lasts for the duration of a service, and then you’re right back in life again and there’s nothing you can do.
Chanting recitations of popular scriptures may help some, but because they are now more mantras for positive thinking, rather than actual connecting points to the life of Christ and its impact on us, the disconnect becomes even more severe.
Yet …
To a degree life in Christ has to be about disconnecting at some points. Times when Jesus would go up alone into a mountain, or out in the wilderness were necessary times where He evidently disconnected with the world around Him to discover a closer connection and communion with His Father. On tapping that depth, He would then reconnect with His world with insight and refreshing reinvigoration that enabled Him to interact with His world in the light of the mission He was on.
Disconnecting to reconnect, then is no bad thing. If the disconnect enables us to reconnect with renewed vigour.
My challenge is whether gatherings of saints offer that opportunity to purposefully disconnect, or whether it is an excuse to enter realms of a fantasy life that will in no way impact on what God has commissioned us for. Even more dangerously is if that fantasy world prods us to make demands in the real world that in no way relate to what God has put us on the planet to do.
The delight in the challenge is when the disconnect to reconnect works as it did for Jesus and as a result we witness and become involved in the lives of others who have been disconnected from God for so long and thorough our lives they get to make steps to reconnect.
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
C. L. J. Dryden
Life With CD 