Finding Common Ground

The church in today’s world often struggles at the point of engagement. In our secular culture, the church frequently falls silent as an influence of salt and light in the midst of a society burdened with the frequency of demanding voices and unsettling demands for our attention. It is true that few can reasonably expect to compete with Broadway, the Vegas Strip, and Wall Street for the attention of most people who are wholeheartedly absorbed into the popular culture of American Idols, Jeopardy, and Deal or No Deal. Every relationship seems to be a bartered or brokered connection with paybacks or rewards determined at the expense of those who lose. Even within the church, the mindset of many is to associate matters of worship or discipleship as items on the inventory of “to be done” or “left undone” based on personal time availability – determined by the cultural demands of the moment. Golf outweighs witnessing every time. Baseball practice consistently wins over choir rehearsal. And ACC Basketball for sure outweighs Sunday night worship. Jesus said it would be harder for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of heaven than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. Heaven help us all if the opportunity comes only on a sunny day. The lake, the river, the mountain, the ballgame, the “something else” will surely come as an option. Do we dare stop long enough to listen to God?

Numerous appeals are made from time to time to change the schedule of worship. The idea of different times is not the real issue. The concern is for convenience. The issue is participation level … when the competition is not so great. Perhaps we could appeal for Tuesday noon abbreviated services on a bi-monthly basis as a culturally accepted time to honor our God?

The ability of those in our generation to attend to God at any time is challenged constantly. The need however is a common one. We need God. We need hope. We need salvation. And our need is answered by God’s love. Our urgent effort to find an identity and meaning in all our searching or the attempt to turn off our self-made despair by distraction and self-medicating ourselves into stuporous states of existence remains common. People are desperately looking to make sense of the lives they live and without receiving the gift of God, they fail to find it.

Our common ground is our common need of God’s grace, forgiveness, and love to guide us. His instruction is life-giving. Why else would we accept the rebuke and call to repentance of our Lord and still desire to keep following Him if it were not Truth that spoke with power and brought positive effect for our future. In the sending of His son to be our Savior, God initiated the way of hope for us all. Appealing to our common misguided attentiveness to things is not the place from which life will be renewed. Awakening to the God who loves us is.