TV, Duct Tape, Churchaholism and a Puppy

During my final year of bachelorhood, I had a string of unstable roommates. Granted, most of them were stable in and of themselves, it's just that they couldn't stick around for long. But you know, it wasn't me, it was them. (That's what they always said, anyway.)

The most memorable roomate among them, though, was Nate. Nate was your typical rock-climber DJ mime from Ohio. Eventually he got a puppy (against the rules) without asking me, and after a month decided to move elsewhere so he could keep it. Nate didn't do me much good as a roommate, except for one thing. One evening I complained that it was too easy just to sit down and watch TV instead of getting my stuff done. He said, "Why don't you just get rid of it? You don't need a TV." Simple advice, but it hit me between the eyes. So I did it.

In and of itself, TV is not a bad thing. Just like any medium or entertainment, it's like duct tape... you know, light side, dark side. But when you start getting stuck to it, it wraps itself around your arms and legs, and you fall over and at first you call out for help but then you feel all cozy and decide that the floor's not as hard as you thought, and maybe if you can slide yourself over to the fridge life might not be so bad after all.

But my point is (yes, there's a point!) that when good things become addictive, we need to learn how to live without them for awhile. Now my wife and I watch half an hour of Good Morning America each day, a couple of Simpsons episodes on DVD each week, and the occasional something else. But for a long time we watched no TV at all. And during that time I learned what it was like to actually get things done, and not rely so heavily on entertainment.

Do you think church services are kind of like that? Like TV or Sex or Prescription Drugs that can strangle us if we get too attached to them? I wonder often if Christendom has lost track of its spiritual identity without the standard Sunday morning presentation. Maybe we need a fast. Maybe we need to take a break from the Sanctuaries and Sermons and Choirs just long enough to remember what it means to follow Christ with our lives. Maybe if we did that, we would have to re-think what it means to not "forsake our meeting together", and we would invite people over for dinner and pray with people at work and share our souls with good friends without falling back on just inviting them to church like we've always done.

And when the fast is over, I suppose we could come back to the old Sunday morning bit with a new perspective... for that weekly experience to be a beautiful part of our faith, not the only part.

And by the way... if you're gonna do this, don't just rename the Sanctuary the Auditorium, call the Sermons Messages, and replace the Choir with a Worship Team. That doesn't count.