The USA Today (August 29, 1D) has a feature article on the continuing decline in the number of viewers watching the "Evening News". The networks apparently still don't get it. America is NOT even remotely interested in the daily droning of the network annointed guardians of our minds. They do not realize that the average American is quite capable and willing to acquire the facts concerning that days events, interpret them, and draw their own conclusions. All this long before the 'triplets' seek to invade our cherished privacy. We have turned them off and tuned them out. The stats look like this:
Brain = down 7%
Katie = down 7%
Charles = up 3%
Net Results = down 11%
However, this does not deter CBS et al. They continue to whistle through the cemetery as though some new fad, some new feature, some new ? ? ? will resurrect their decades old choke hold on America every evening at 6:30 PM. NOT! NOT! NOT!
The church in America engages in a similar lunacy. The tincture of reality seldom, if ever, graces the assessment of our, to quote Jim Collins, "Brutal Reality". We continue to decline at a rate that accelerates faster than NASCAR. Denominations continue to bring sophmoric and utterly ineffective pseudo solutions to profoundly real problems. Their chief concern is to preserve staus quo and most of all, protect the 'coffers'. Don't do anything that might disturbe the constituency and perhaps cause them to dry up the cash flow. The church in America continues to 'count the numbers on the roles' much like the networks count viewers.
The viewers are disappearing and so are the members. Soon, the church will be forced to face 'Brutal Reality' or resort to counting the dead in the cemetery out back!
We simply must face our 'Brutal Reality'. We must confess that we have become so much like the world around us that there is little or no distinction. We have reduced the responsibility of belonging to a sparodic 'guest appearance' on an occassional weekend when we don't have any other activity that we prefer. We have reduced Pastor/Shepherds to mere managers of the gig once a week with a lot of activity in between, but most certainly, nothing that grapples with the utterly essential dynamic of Transformation, redeemed sinners becoming like the Chirst who purchased a people for Himself and left us here to honor Him as Salt & Light!
So, we either change, or start numbering those grave markers out back. Which will it be?
Tom
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Our family ditched our TV in the middle 1980's. It was one of our better moves in terms of time saved, increased interpersonal interaction and for cutting down our exposure to drivel.
Of course then the internet developed and we have the same temptations and battles all over again on a different field.
Have you read the book, How The News Makes Us Dumb by C. John Sommerville? An excellent book that I try to remember when I find myself spending too much time cruising the news on-line.
Another excellent book - more germane to this particular post, perhaps - is "This Little Church Went To Market" by Gary E. Gilley.
Many people identified with the churches today are not regenerate. It has a lot to do with the "gospel" that is being proclaimed. If Jesus is just another god in the pantheon of the modern western family there is no reason to expect that he will get more attention than the other gods of money, ambition, sports, etc.
Post a Comment