No More Box

I remember getting my first Pocket PC. It was a new toy and needed to know everything. What can it do? What kind of software can I get for it? Are there any tricks? Add ons?

In the midst of that search, I stumbled across a site called Pocket PC Passion. The tagline for the site was "Because there is only room for one passion in life."

Lately my life has felt rather distracted and disorientated. I have redefined, at least on a surface level, so much of my identity. My core convictions and beliefs are still the same, but the way they live themselves out in the world has had to change to accommodate the new "box" that they have to live in.

This of course has led to several thoughts and internal struggles, the most pressing (to me) being how/why we "do church" the way we do?

My job for the last many years has been on staff with a church. I was part of the "institution." As I have thought through how busy my life has become since becoming a "lay person", I have begun wondering, more and more, why we "do church" the way do.

The programs we run and the systems we create seem to be about centering the life of the church around itself. We try to get people out to our facilities and officially sponsored programs. We program additional functions to fill in where there are weaknesses in our people in order for our church to seem more well rounded. As the church grows and the facilities increase, we add things like gymnasiums, workout rooms, coffee bars, daycare, and dry-cleaners who accept competitors coupons (or was that only in the mega-church from King of the Hill?), all in an attempt to get people to the church facility more often in more ways.

Meanwhile, our personal lives become more fragmented. We commute to work, commute to church, and as our kids become busier in life as well our lives decentralize into various segments that are distinctly separate from each other. Church is a part of our lives, maybe even a big part, but it is just one of many parts, and like everything else, it is given it’s proper time and place.

My theory is, that maybe we have decentralized the wrong thing. Maybe instead of centralizing the church and its programs, we should work to decentralize the church and centralize our lives.

For me, part of that centralizing is a physical centering. With the exception of my wife’s job, we live work and play in western Orange County, FL almost exclusively. There is very little we travel to go do. This is where we live and we love it.

For some, commuting is necessary, but the real importance of this idea of centering is less physical travel and more clear cut mission and purpose. What is the mission of your life?

Personally, I am still working through a lot of this. I don’t have a clear vision of the particulars and what it should look like, but I have a glimpse of what the theory should look like.

In the present model of church, the church will look like a tall pillar with various programs stacked on top of each other. If there is a small group program, than central pillar will also have some small circles surrounding it, but still rooted to the main pillar.

Your life, however, will be a series of overlapping circles with church representing one or two or more of those circles. Everything is spread out and disconnected.

My thought (my vision), we be a reorientation of life so that my life was one tall central pillar with a clear cut purpose and mission at the center. And the church would recognize that consistency in people’s lives is more important than consistency in their programs and they would, therefore, decentralize themselves to saturate the world around them instead of just being pillars the world may or may not notice.

I think this idea I am presenting would look better with pictures and it is obviously incomplete, but its intention is to clarify and solidify my thoughts and hopefully add to the discussion of what will the church look like in the future.

What do you think? How centralized or decentralized is your life? Do you have a clear cut mission?