Real Freedom

I saw the following quote from the Dalai Lama on Phil Laeger's website and it got me thinking.

"It is fascinating. In the West, you have bigger homes, yet smaller families; you have endless conveniences -- yet you never seem to have any time. You can travel anywhere in the world, yet you don't bother to cross the road to meet your neighbours..."

"I don't think people have become more selfish, but their lives have become easier and that has spoilt them. They have less resilience, they expect more, they constantly compare themselves to others and they have too much choice -- which brings no real freedom."

This lack of resilience that he mentions made me think that maybe he is also describing the Church in the west. Last week someone said to me that our corps needed a projector and computer so that we were more effective in our ministry. My immediate thought was "Why?". There are a number of different tools that enable us to see how our church is performing in different areas, which in the wrong hands just become a way of comparing ourselves to other churches and we have so many different choices when it comes to where to attend worship on a Sunday that it is almost mind-blowing at times.

I believe this has led us to be less resilient. I suspect that should there be a sudden crackdown on Christianity many of those who go to their Christian club on a Sunday to worship would simply find something else to do. When you here the stories of the persecuted church I suspect that most of us probably wouldn't be able to cope with the trauma of persecution because our faith is simply not real enough!