My desire is to have my life solely focused on being with God. All other relationships and actions flow through that primary relationship. But much of my life and many of other people's lives I observe, seem to make the relationship with God as just ONE MORE thing to do. One more relationship or activity to have to do. Sure, we want to know God. We want God to be there when the critical moments of life happen, but to really work at this primary relationship..."in light of everything else I have to get done"...feels like a burden.

In a wonderful video series called "Spiritual Disciplines for Ordinary People", John and Nancy Ortberg talk about how many folks who are "church" people, treat their spiritual life as though it is one slice among many other slices of a pie. When they have time, or when they schedule it, they will work at or pay attention to the spiritual slice. That often gets reduced down into "going to church" or "working at the church" or "raising or giving money to missions" or doing a daily devotions and so on. What God has asked from us for aeons is that we give our whole life to serving God, and let all the other parts of life, all the other relationships, including with our families and ourselves, to be part of that singular spiritual slice/life.

However, in the modern world, we reduced church down to "oughts and shoulds"...tasks or obligations that need to be done. Many of us have done those tasks for years and now we are resentful that the new folks or the younger folks won't take up the tasks and carry them on. What I hear though from new folks and younger folks is that they want to take up the cross...the deep spiritual moment to moment journey with God...instead of the tasks. There is panic in many churches that if these younger folks don't take up the "tasks" the church will fall apart or it won't function as it is "suppose to." God has managed for all these years to keep the church "on task." He gave the gift of Jesus to save us from believing more in our accomplishing our tasks than in his task. I do not fear that "our" church, but more specifically, the church of Jesus Christ, will fade or die or lose its vision if those who follow us don't fulfill all the tasks that we think they should...because we did. God save us all!