When I was young, I remember my mother loading us in the car and taking us to DR. Doyles office. I liked Dr. Doyle. He was kind and soft spoken. He reminded me of Marcus Welby M.D. (those of you who don't know who Marcus Welby was, need to keep it to yourself so the rest of us who do, won't feel old and out of touch).
Any how, Dr. Doyle was cool. He could do anything. He could deliver a baby, cure strep throat, remove your tonsils, appendix, and adnoids, set a broken arm, stitch up a wound, and counsel a crying mother who was overwhelmed by all the complexities of motherhood in the 1960's. There was nothing Dr. Doyle couldn't do.
Today, however, the Dr. Doyles are gone. They are replaced by pediatricians, ear, nose and throat specialists, orthopedic surgeons, hematologists, gynecologists, and oncologists. We have psychiatrists, nutritionalists, and anesthesiologists . . . podiatrists, neurologists, and of course our all-time favorite - chiropractors.
The world of medicine has become "specialized," and as a result we are herded around like cattle and treated like numbers. We go from one office visit to another hoping to find someone who cares. Doctors have learned to treat diseases but have forgotten how to treat people.
Dr. Doyle would be ticked!
But enough Doctor bashing already. The same phenomenon is happening in the church, and we must identify it and correct it before Christianity becomes so specialized that we can no longer worship together as human beings.
30 years ago churches all seemed the same. There was a standard way in which most churches worshipped. We sang the same songs, used the same instrumentation, used the same translation of the Bible and dressed in the same clothes. Our churches were all decorated in the same similar fashion and our kids looked so much alike that it didn't matter who we were spanking.
Then it all changed. Somebody recognized that we were not attracting new people to Christ, and made an attempt at reaching out instead of reaching in. At first it was great! People were being reached with the gospel of Christ that would have never been reached the "old way" we were doing church. Those who refused to change congregated together in churches that embraced "the old paths." Those churches grew by leaps and bounds because people that shared similar tastes found each other in their stand against modernity. Those who changed, embraced a new generation of believers in a more contemporary culture and enjoyed the same successes built around their own tastes and culture. But there is where we went wrong.
Success, numbers, energy, opinions, numbers, taste, numbers, numbers, numbers became the driving force behind all we did as a church. We failed to see that the reason for our growth was more of a re-alignment than an evangelical movement. We were circling the wagons when we should have been crossing the great divide.
Then came the internet (thanks Al). What was supposed to unite us divided us even more. We could now search the web and find people with similar tastes in an instant. Our searches became more and more refined and our connections became more and more specialized; less people with more in common.
Cultures within cultures, subcultures, microcultures, quantum social theory (if I might coin a few phrases). The more specialized we become, the fewer people we have to socialize with, and the smaller our circle of friends becomes. Eventually we find ourselves standing alone.
It is time to stop the madness! Lets quit looking for people who are just like us, because us quickly becomes me and me has only two friends - myself and I.
Has anybody seen Dr. Doyle?
PK
