A friend of Mr. Boh went on a trip to a land of ecclesiastic plenty.
Before leaving, Mr. Boh reminded his friend to make sure to note his observations along the way. “I can do that Mr. Boh,” replied his friend.
Friend of Boh’s journeys took him far and wide.
He spied many fascinating things.
For example, Friend of Boh noticed was how big and how many churches there where in the land of plenty. Once he was at a stop light and noticed that there was literally a church on every street corner. “I've got to take a picture of this for Mr. Boh. Four at this intersection of this little town!” thought FoB. “My city only has five believing churches. How spiritually rich these people are!”
At times, FoB MapQuested directions to a new church, and at times he was not sure if he had arrived. You see, FoB could not always tell the difference between school buildings, corporate buildings and church buildings. Friend of Boh reminded himself, “It’s not wrong, just different.”
Friend of Boh went to a church service where everything was more elaborate than he was accustomed to, much, much more! Afterward he chatted with the pastor, a man of God.
The man of God had just been on a spiritual retreat complete with meditation, prayer, long periods of silence. He told FoB that the retreat leader introduced their time together by saying, “My hope is that you will never rush again.”
Afterward Man of God was troubled; he found peace in stillness while away, but as soon as he returned to the land of plenty, it was rush, rush, rush, more, more, more.
Man of God wanted to do some research on why it is so difficult to be peaceful, to focus on God in the land of plenty. Friend of Boh queried, “Could it be possible that the focus on ‘more,’ on quantity, actually precludes a focus on quality? Could it be that quantity and quality are antithetical? Hmmm, there is much to ponder in the land of plenty.”
Friend of Boh had already noted that the quantitative was very important in the land of plenty, that “metrics,” measurements were mysteriously linked to spirituality. He remembered a quote by an Asian believer who stated that the land-of-plenty-ites “need to count their religion.” “I guess this is what he meant,” thought FoB.
While having bigger musical groups & buildings are just different forms of church, a question haunted FoB:
“To what extent should believers focus on the quantitative?
Yes, we can count the number of people attending a service, but how does one tally ‘disciples’ — people who obey Christ out of a heart of love?
How does one measure depth of relationship with God?
When does a quantitative focus become counterproductive, undermining or even (shudder) precluding the qualitative?”
“Hmmm," thought Friend of Boh, "there is much to mull over in the land of ecclesiastic plenty!”
