President’s Message, March 2005

One of the interesting characteristics of our world and culture today is the desire for instant gratification. We assume that anything we want can be acquired at once. We assume that anything and everything can be done quickly and efficiently. Our attention spans have been conditioned by fifteen second commercials.

It is not necessarily difficult in such an environment to get a person interested in the message of the gospel; it is terrifically difficult to sustain the interest. Hundreds and thousands of people make decisions for Christ, but there is an alarming attrition rate.

Many claim to have been born again, but the evidence for mature Christian discipleship is slim. In our kind of environment, anything, even news about God, can be sold if it is packaged attractively; but when it loses its novelty, it goes in the garbage can.

There is a great market for religious experience in our world; there is little enthusiasm for the patient development of virtue or the long process of discipleship.

Religion in our time has been captured by the tourist mindset. Religion is seen as a visit to an attractive site to be made when we have adequate leisure. For some it is a weekly trip to church, or occasional visits to special services on a holiday. We go to see a new personality, to hear a new truth, to get a new experience. Everyone is in a hurry. People want short cuts. They want a simple formula that will get them an instant passport to eternity. They are impatient for results. Many of us have adopted the lifestyle of a tourist and only want the high points.

But the Bible does not call us to be tourists – it calls us to be disciples and pilgrims. Disciples are people who spend their lives devoted to their Master, Jesus Christ. They are lifelong learners. They do not just acquire information about God, but skills in faith.

Pilgrims are people who spend their lives going someplace. They realize that “this world is not my home” and set out for the “Father’s house”. Jesus, answering Thomas’s question, “Lord, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?” gives us directions: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me.” John 14:5, 6.

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.” Hebrews 12:1-2. We are called to be pilgrim disciples not just tourists as we run the race set before us.