So Many Choices

My associate pastor and I both have an affinity for buffets.  In order to brainstorm, we need brain-food.  So when we have strategy sessions, we like to go to the local Chinese restaurant.  The one near the church has more than enough brain-food to satisfy this man or any platoon that may walk through the restaurant’s doors.  As we all know well, the good thing about a buffet is the ability to pick and choose exactly what you like.  I usually go for anything deep fried with a lot of sauce.  Of course, for the sake of my health I’ll dab a spoonful of fried rice onto my plate and hope that the stray pea somehow makes it into the bunch.

The analogy of the buffet to religion has been used numerous times.  Many people are searching to fill the void in their lives, and they pick and choose elements from different belief systems to create their own personal plate of religion.  What many don’t realize is the sheer size of the religious buffet.  The World Christian Encyclopedia reports that there could be as many as 10,000 distinct and different religions across the globe.  And 270 of these religions have over 500,000 adherents.

The flattening of the world has increased the speed with which people can pick and choose among different religions.  The fiber optic boom of the late 1990s has laid the groundwork for the lightening-quick access to information around the  globe.  With this increasing access to information due to technological advances, the religious buffet has grown morbidly large.

The problem is that people are gorging themselves on fluff.  Americans, in particular, are satisfied.  In fact, The Gallup Poll recently reported that 84% of Americans are satisfied with their personal lives.  While this is encouraging from a political science perspective, it does not bode well for the church.  Satisfaction does not equate to salvation.  You could spend your entire life at the religious buffet line, weighing all the choices and getting fat on nothing more than deception.  There is only one Truth.  There is only one way to remedy the void caused by sin.  Sin is satisfying; it prevents us from knowing the Truth of Jesus Christ.  And in order to follow Christ, we must leave our personal sphere of satisfaction, pick up our cross, and follow Him.

My associate pastor and I discussed this problem of satisfaction and apathy within our community.  In fact, it is estimated that 57,000 people may not know Christ within our immediate community.  Both of us came to the realization that there is much work to be done; we can never become satisfied.  We must proclaim the one and only Truth until God decides that our work is done.  After our meal, the waitress brought us our checks and a couple of fortune cookies.  I laughed at the prospect of two ministers of Jesus opening fortune cookies.  But with a crack of sweetened goodness, we broke our cookies and read the fortunes.

His said, Work hard and you will be rewarded.

Not so bad, I guess.

Mine said, When you squeeze an orange, orange juice comes out, because that it what is in it.

So much for the truth…