Where Is Our Passion?
by Chris Drury, SRBA Music Consultant

Have you ever watched people? I mean really watched them.   If you have then you probably noticed that they are more like programmed equipment than beloved creations with a unique purpose. I know that was a harsh statement but as I am writing this article I am sitting in a Dunkin Donuts inspecting individuals as they come and go. I am witnessing customers' social interactions with the employees and regrettably these consumers appear to be anything but courteous. I have been discreetly watching a senior couple seated across the room and since their arrival not once have they exchanged any form of communication with each other…at all. A mother is purchasing donuts for her four children in what seems more obligatory than openhandedness. The very same children have no gratitude for the treat their mother has ordered and the mother is completely ignoring their ill-mannered behavior. The workers appear to be here because it is their only option. These employees are verbally pleased to provide, but their body language screams despondency. It seems to me the only life occurring in my current locality is on a biological level.

Are these beings experiencing life, or are they ensnared by the obligation of their own existence? Where is passion? Where is our sense of wonder? I ask myself these kinds of questions on what seems like an hourly basis and it’s not always concerning ministry. People just seem to be lacking fulfillment in every avenue of life and it makes me wonder if we are truly aware of what God offers.

The Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard was a father of a belief known as existentialism, a philosophy that affirms individual responsibility of existence. So if a being dies with no sense of purpose or meaning then ultimately this person never existed. In short those who have no purpose are here only contributing in the conversion of oxygen into carbon dioxide. 

I bring this up to raise a question. Where is the church in this epidemic of false insignificance? Didn’t Jesus say that He came to give life and give life more abundantly?  So where is it? This lack of significance explains some of the world’s catastrophes. It explains the outbreak of despair and depression. It gives explanation as to why some who seem to acquire everything this life offers commit suicide. One has to ask; do these people end their existence because they never engaged in life?

I have been called to full-time ministry. I interact with ministers frequently and most have the same demeanor as those I am observing right now. The chosen that are promised joy, significance, purpose, and peace right now in everyday life. seem to be suffering the same disease. When we invite people to church to experience worship and God’s life altering presence that we supposedly experience, do we think we’re fooling anyone.? I believe the world yearns for much more than a God who is only present from 10:30am-12:15pm Sunday mornings. People do not want a relevant message or flawless music as much as they crave an encounter with God and the abundant life His spirit offers. We try so frantically to upgrade our worship services, but what we as human beings want is new life that only a purpose-giving God can bestow.

I write this with the hope of giving readers a different lens through which to view our own lives. Instead of being bogged down with the quest for a modern or traditional appeal, maybe we should ask if we are truly displaying God day after day. I marvel at how intense our worship would inevitably become if Christianity ceases being spectators' sport and begins to consistently encounter God and exhibit the life we so desperately desire.