An effect with an interesting cause.

Northern Wisconsin is in the midst of a five year drought.  Snow and rain levels have been down significantly.  Pond, creek, and lake water levels reflect the drought.  Yet when our lake was down to lower levels than anyone could remember, there had to be another reason.  

It turns out that the person in charge of regulating the water flow at the south end dam, was not doing their job properly.  They were simply letting the water flow at high levels through the dam and into the Brill river, which runs down to Rice Lake.  At the Memorial Day Weekend Lake Association meeting, rumor had it that the person had been let go.

But why is there a dam there in the first place?  Is it just to regulate the water levels on the lake?  Did it have something to do with the logging that went on in the area in the late 1800′s and early 1900′s?  The loggers didn’t want a dam to block their logs from going down stream to the mills.  No, the dam was built at the same time a hydroelectric plant was built on the Brill river in Rice Lake back in the 1960′s.  The water level had to be regulated to keep the hydroelectric plant working.  The problem is, they closed the plant down in the late 1970′s.  But, they are still using the dam to regulate the water levels for a purpose that doesn’t exist anymore!

Asking the right questions

When the “water level” is down in the church, do we ask the right questions?  If worship attendance is down, if giving goes down, if the number of people participating in our ministries is down, do we ask the rights questions?  Or are we afraid of the answers people will give us, that we find out we’ve been focusing a lot of time, energy, and resources on something that isn’t needed or wanted anymore (like the dam and the hydroelectric plant)?

In the book “Frogs Without Legs Can’t Hear,” David Anderson and Paul Hill write that the central question the church needs to ask is, “Are we passing on the faith and forming faith in others?”  This is both an evangelism question and an education/discipleship question.  But it is also a question that reminds us that our primary concern is not about worship attendance, finances, and the numbers of people participating in our programs and ministries (though those are important measurements indeed).  The primary concern is inviting people into a living relationship with God, helping them to listen to God, to notice God’s presence in their daily lives, and to have that relationship with God shape how they are in relationship with other people.  

A “once a month” Christian

I went fishing with an old friend of mine.  We hadn’t talked in many years, and in the course of our conversation and catching up he apologetically said that he was only a “once a month” Christian.  I was distracted by the fish on my line, so I asked him what he meant by that.  ”I only get to church once, maybe twice a month, so I’m a once a month Christian,” he clarified.  He then went on to say that church was pretty boring most of the time, though he liked talking with his friends and neighbors afterward during the coffee hour.  

As I put my fish on our stringer, I thought about the loaves and the fishes, and Jesus calling fishermen to catch people instead of fish.  It made me sad to realize we’ve convinced people that what it means to be a Christian is to go to church, and if you’re not at church you’re not a Christian.  Sounds to me like the stupidity and futility of opening a dam to lower a lake to run water to a hydroelectric plant that doesn’t work anymore.   Are we truly listening to God?  Are we forming the faith and passing it on to others?  Are we helping people to be Christians, have a living faith, whether they’re in church one hour a week or not?