I love traveling across our area and seeing the towns and villages where our United Methodist Churches are located. As I stop to pray for the church, its laity, clergy, and ministries, I wonder what that church means to the community it sits in the middle of. Is it seen as a beacon of hope? A refuge from the storm? A place of welcome? A source where basic needs (like water and food) can be met? Does it offer a spiritual path that enriches the lives of those it touches? Does it matter at all to those around it? If it closed its doors the day after tomorrow, what would be different in the town? Would anyone even notice?
When I was growing up, we derided “Elevator Music”
which was found in department stores, doctors’ offices, and, well, in elevators.
Muzak was invented in 1934 by Major General George
O. Squier as a way to send recorded music to businesses without the use
of a radio signal. Science entered in when it was found that music could be
used to bolster productivity in workers and calm people down. One of the
company’s slogans was, “Muzak fills the deadly silences”. At the height of its
popularity, Muzak reached tens of millions of people a day, from presidents and
astronauts to someone in the produce section of a grocery store.
A professor at Queens College said of
Muzak: “[it’s] a kind of amniotic fluid that surrounds us; and it never
startles us, it is never too loud, it is never too silent; it’s always there.”
Sometimes, I wonder sadly if the same
can be said of our churches.
Have our churches blended into the
landscape so completely that people don’t even know we are here anymore? Are we
“there” but not “out there” in a world that has so much brokenness and so many
needs? Have we watered down Jesus’ message so much that it no longer startles
us?
How can you and your church move out of
the background shadows and sing loudly and boldly a new song of hope, healing,
and liberation, so that the entire community can dance to Love’s song?
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