Drifting on the Apathetic Tide...

Today's post is stimulated by my reading of the book, "Deeply Woven Roots" by Gary Gunderson. This book is now almost 15 years old, but is rich with insight into the strengths of faith communities and their link to health, wellness and wholeness. Mr. Gunderson also points out the problem of faith communities not engaging in the problems of the world around them, but rather allowing complacency and apathy to move them along a path of non-intervention and lack of prophetic witness to the social problems all around them. I also happen to be physically at the Outer Banks as I write this, so am in touch again with the tides - quite remarkable.

Christian teaching (along with most other faith traditions) holds that we are to be "in the world, but not of the world". Meaning that we are to hold ourselves apart and not be complicit in the way that we engage the "powers and principalities" of the secular world. Unfortunately, all faith communities are made up of human beings (the only thing they could be made of) who bring into the gathering their own foibles and biases towards what is "right" and what can be done "by next Tuesday". Because of our impatience we build idols instead of doing the more difficult job of listening for direction from a source outside of ourselves.

Faith communities find themselves in no better shape than the rest of the world. Divorce rates are the same, interest in anything but ourselves dwindles, people come to church to be entertained rather than discomforted. Long gone is the drive to "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable". Faith communities drift along on the sea of apathy wishing that things could be different, but not wanting to hold each other accountable for actions unbecoming the doctrine of loving each other as we do ourselves.

How do we resolve this issue? How do we find a rudder and begin to travel in the direction of communal betterment (and personal betterment)? It happens through deep and intentional prayer. It happens through caring for one person and one issue enough to understand another's viewpoint and life. It happens through the creation of true community - it can happen when we congregate and unify our worldview.

Join Possibilities Journey Inc (www.possjrny.org or on Twitter: @possjourney) as we build a healthier community and world one faith community at a time.

Peace and grace,
Dan