de[vices]: CD Players and Church Services.

this week at school we've been priveledged to have Dr. Marva Dawn with us doing a series of lectures. the lectures have been very good and i have enjoyed her a lot. she has been talking about consumerism in society and how it affects the church. she used analogy about something and it stuck with me and got me thinking and i want to use her analogy to make my own connection. she explained how our society has moved into a society based on devices. for example: if you had a child and you had two choices either to give them a guitar and guitar lessons or give them a CD player with 3 CDs, which would be better in the long run? well naturally we see that learning how to play music on a guitar is far better in the long run then giving them a CD player with 3 CDs. give a kid a chance to learn guitar (or any instrument) they form a number of relationships; with their teacher, fellow students, strengthen relationship with parents, with the audiences, etc...this does not happen with a CD player and CDs. if anything a CD player tends to isolate us while we listen. also the guitar forces us to be participants in the music and active. the CD player renders us passive; inactive...lazy. not only do we not learn music but we are always looking for the next big thing. we're always looking for the next cool CD because we grow tired of the CDs we have and we need something new, it becomes less about producing music and more about being entertained by music.
the question then is: has our weekly church services become our CD players? in the music world only a small portion of the people put effort into making the actual music, the majority of the people, the listeners, do simply that...just listen. sounds quite familiar when i think of a church service, where a small minority actually are actively involved in producing the service while the mass majority sit by and "listen". they just take it in.
our weekly sunday morning church services have indeed become our devices. the Church has become a society in and of itself that depends on devices and those devices are our weekly services among other planned programs. they have made us utterly passive and inactive in our walk with Christ and as a Church body in large, neutering our desire to be participants in our faith. like a guiatarist that refuses to learn anymore scales and rhythms, opting for the ease of throwing in a CD to be entertained, we as the Church and as individual followers of Christ have stunted our own growth by relying on the ease of wandering into our pew to be entertained. we rely so heavily on the service to feed us our weekly supply instead of digging in and learning how ourselves. but this is more than just the individual learning not to rely of the sunday service for the rest of the week, it is about the Church as a whole learning not to lean on the crutch of an all encompassing weekly service to be the crux of our existence.
Are weekly gatherings of believers important? YES!
but perhaps the way we depend on them as the centre focal point of the "ministry" that is done through the church as infact rendered us, as a body of believers, impotent.
see CD players are not bad. they are very good. listening to music helps you know about music; what it sounds like, what notes make you feel good, what notes make you uncomfortable, what bands are popular, how to distinguish styles, etc. but all it can do is teach you about music. it can help you know about music. but it cannot help you actually KNOW music.