Tuesday, August 01, 2006
The Tyranny of Options
I love music, I really do. My "media" collection is pretty large. I still have my old LP's and listen to them from time-to-time, couldn't dare throw one away, even one I have on CD, because there is just nothing like that sound you grew up with. I have spent countless hours with music.
My new car has created a dilemma for me. The sound system is amazing. AM/FM - 6-CD changer, cassette tape deck, and satelitte radio. That last option alone is mind-boggling, over 150 channels of micro-formatted, commercial free music, all of this by the way, available from conveniently and safely mounted steering wheel buttons.
And I hardly listen to a song all the way through anymore.
I may love what I am listening to right this moment, but there just might be something a little better on the next channel, or CD in the changer. I no longer enjoy the music, I find myself in a frenetic search for the perfect music for the moment. How fast am I driving, how's the weather, what's my day been like? - that means I need to listen to....But wait! - wouldn't XXX be just a bit better? DARN! that CD is at home - I know maybe it's on the the satelitte...and so it goes.
As a kid, I could spend an hour listening to the same song over and over, cleaning the records, tweaking the equalizer so that the song sounded just right.
Some songs have become a part of my bones. Ask my wife, every now and then something pops up from my youth and I sing it, remember each lyric, as if the song was in heavy rotation today.
I wonder, in this consumer age of church offerings. Whether it be the options among congregations or the options within congregations, if people are not franctically searching for just the right experience, concerned always, simply because of the sheer plethora of options, if there isn't something just a little bit better just around the corner.
But in such a state, can those Christian experiences you have searched through become a part of your bones, instantly available when triggered? Or, are they so much noise just passed by in search of the unreachable perfection?
Christianity is about depth, not breadth. It's about becoming a part of your bones.
Options are attractive to be sure - I am always attracted to that next possible listening opportunity. But attraction is not enough, not in church. How do we pull people deeper? How do we get them to look past the available options and to choose just one of them?
I think we start by looking at thousands of people in pews and not being satisfied that they are there, but instead wondering why they aren't there the rest of the week.
Related Tags: options, depth, faith, church, Christianity
My new car has created a dilemma for me. The sound system is amazing. AM/FM - 6-CD changer, cassette tape deck, and satelitte radio. That last option alone is mind-boggling, over 150 channels of micro-formatted, commercial free music, all of this by the way, available from conveniently and safely mounted steering wheel buttons.
And I hardly listen to a song all the way through anymore.
I may love what I am listening to right this moment, but there just might be something a little better on the next channel, or CD in the changer. I no longer enjoy the music, I find myself in a frenetic search for the perfect music for the moment. How fast am I driving, how's the weather, what's my day been like? - that means I need to listen to....But wait! - wouldn't XXX be just a bit better? DARN! that CD is at home - I know maybe it's on the the satelitte...and so it goes.
As a kid, I could spend an hour listening to the same song over and over, cleaning the records, tweaking the equalizer so that the song sounded just right.
Some songs have become a part of my bones. Ask my wife, every now and then something pops up from my youth and I sing it, remember each lyric, as if the song was in heavy rotation today.
I wonder, in this consumer age of church offerings. Whether it be the options among congregations or the options within congregations, if people are not franctically searching for just the right experience, concerned always, simply because of the sheer plethora of options, if there isn't something just a little bit better just around the corner.
But in such a state, can those Christian experiences you have searched through become a part of your bones, instantly available when triggered? Or, are they so much noise just passed by in search of the unreachable perfection?
Christianity is about depth, not breadth. It's about becoming a part of your bones.
Options are attractive to be sure - I am always attracted to that next possible listening opportunity. But attraction is not enough, not in church. How do we pull people deeper? How do we get them to look past the available options and to choose just one of them?
I think we start by looking at thousands of people in pews and not being satisfied that they are there, but instead wondering why they aren't there the rest of the week.
Related Tags: options, depth, faith, church, Christianity
