Cable Car Christianity

When my husband and I visited San Francisco, we trudged for miles up and down insanely steep hills, sniffing salt-laden fishy air. We listened to gulls shriek over head, and took in the view of the Golden Gate Bridge looming out of the mist to guard the sailboat-dotted bay. Then we got smart and hopped aboard a cable car.

Cable cars are the way to go in San Francisco. Cruising along at a steady 9.5 miles per hour, you might forget where you're going because it's so much fun getting there. And unlike the typical city bus that belches to a stop, dares commuters to make contact with ripped vinyl seats pocked with petrified gum, and then lurches away from the curb, a cable car beckons to those on foot with a clanging bell and the offer of a smooth wooden pew to sit on.

Kind of like church. In fact, a ride on a cable car pretty much sums up the early years of my spiritual life.

I clambered aboard into the arms of those who had embarked before me, and took off with the crowd. It was thrilling. But after a while, the newness wore off and with all of us heading in the same direction at the same rate of speed, the ride became . . . comfortable. Just as a cable car makes forward progress on its tracks by gripping a continuously-moving cable in a rut under the road, as a Christian, I, too, was basically tracking in the right direction, but in a rut.

The problem was that my focus was as much on the people around me as on God, and unfortunately, I wasn't alone. Research published by George Barna last year revealed that people were more than 50 per cent likely to say that their most significant connection was with their church's congregation rather than with God. Barna says, "That certainly reflects the interpersonal comfort that millions of people have developed at their church, but also indicates that people may have forgotten the ultimate reason for belonging to a Christian church."

I'm glad I jumped off the cable car before I fell asleep. My feet really can take me much farther. That's why God's Word implores me to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord and to run the race set before me. I still love my church family and I look forward each week to rubbing elbows with them in the pews. But in a church on a mission to grow fully devoted followers of Christ, we're not all traveling the same route at a predictable 9.5 miles per hour.

Otherwise, we might get too comfortable and forget where we're going.