My family and I were with my wife's parents over Christmas and this past Sunday. They lived for decades in the western suburbs of Chicago before retiring to southern Wisconsin. Because of this, they have continued to subscribe to the Chicago Tribune, even though it has been more than seven years now since they have called Illinois their home state.
Recently, however, they stopped getting the daily paper, though they continue to subscribe on Sunday. They are not alone. The decline of many major newspapers' circulation has been well-documented. Many papers have had cutbacks, layoffs, and the Tribune Company itself has declared bankruptcy. Advertising revenue is down industry-wide, but some say that, with the internet, overall readership is up. The papers are feeling the pinch, all the same.
So why did my in-laws stop getting the daily paper? The front page of this week's Sunday edition illustrated their complaint. Scanning the front page, there was only one real "news" story to be found, which took up about 1/8 of the whole sheet. Around 2/3 of the page were filled with photos and graphics, including the main image of a rain-spattered window with the text "Warm. Wet. What's next?" Below the picture, which easily could have been a stock photo, were a few paragraphs that talked about the unusual weather Chicagoans were facing during the last week of 2008, but it wasn't informative and really didn't get specific.
These faithful subscribers and readers have gotten fed up with the fact that they are getting more splashy photography and chatty water-cooler conversation than hard news. And so, this retooling that the Tribune has undertaken to boost circulation is backfiring, at least with these readers.
Ideally, a newspaper should be committed to its journalistic mission as a service to its readers. There's a world out there with lots of people, events, issues, and ideas that the public needs to know about. The paper should have the resources, skill, and integrity to research and report on the important matters of the day. The reader should come to the paper with an interest in being informed, a curiosity of the world around him, and appropriate levels of trust and critical thinking as he interacts with the stories and opinions.
Instead, with circulation dropping, many newspapers have tried to figure out what the public is already talking about-- the hot new TV show, the latest gossip, a breaking scandal, etc.-- and then put that in the newspaper. It's always been included, of course, but now it's front and center, and the real news is greatly reduced or nearly eliminated.
Why am I posting about this here? I believe this whole scenario is an apt metaphor for the way many pastors and congregants approach their practice and experience of church, and it should serve as a warning to us.
As a church, we should be committed to keeping our Sunday morning worship service (our main time together as a church) focused on the "hard news" of the Christian faith: Who is God? What has he said to us? What does he want us to know about him and his purpose for this world and for us in particular? How has he gone about fulfilling his purposes in the past, what is he doing today, and what does he say he will do in the future? What does he want us to do, and how can we do it? What does this look like in our everyday life? These questions should be pursued through careful study of the Bible and done in such a way so as to honor God and serve the people of the church.
As you can see from the questions above, we can and should get around to the mundane realities of our lives when we're together as a church. But there is a big difference between starting with God and his perspective, agenda, and priorities and having all that define and direct our experience, and that of starting with our own frequently trivial pursuits and then making superficial connections from there.
As a pastor, I am responsible to help lead the church by using my gifts, skills, and resources to bring the Word of God to you through my preaching and teaching. There is an important Person to be known, His Word to be understood, His truth to be applied. There is a Gospel to be proclaimed, and a Savior to be believed and received. I am to fulfill my role in this way as a servant of God and his people. Likewise, those who come to church should be seeking to be informed of what they need to know about God and how to live in light of his Word, not looking to have someone toss around buzzwords and hot topics that the rest of the world is chasing after.
God will be more profound and powerful, and our faith will be more practical and life-changing, when we start with God and let him explain us and our world. When we start with "our world" and look for ways that God happens to intersect with it, our understanding of God and the experience of our lives will both suffer for it. In our attempts to boost readership, we may wander from our mission and lose subscribers.
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