Enthusiasm
Saw this great quote at WorkHappy.Net, by a man named Charles Kingsley:
“We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about.”
I didn’t know who Charles Kingsley was so I went to Wikipedia and discovered he was an English novelist who wrote the novel Westward Ho! He died in 1875 so I thought that made the quote even more interesting. Apparently, there was enough people back during the 1800’s who were trying to keep up with the Jones’, that Kingsley felt the need to make this distinction about the proper direction to take in life. This was an attempt on his part to help his fellow man.
The quote seems to go well with another quote from Douglas Wilson’s book, Mother Kirk: Essays and Forays in Practical Ecclesiology, and quoted a few days ago on his own blog:
“The churches today are effeminate because effeminate men with wireless mikes and cardigan sweaters stroll around a platform chatting with the congregants in a nonthreatening and relational way. The churches are leaderless because we are nervous about prophetic preaching, and settle instead for bland and balanced leadership teams. The churches have no sense of the numinous because men refuse to preach the greatness and glory of the living God”.
Sounds like a lot of churches I’ve grown up in or visited. Moreover, isn’t the lack of Enthusiasm somewhat behind those cardigan sweaters? I’m inclined here to caveat that we all need not jump around like raving charismatics, excited about being excited. But a simple enthusiasm toward God and his providence would go a long way, I think.
And certainly, in today’s workplace, common enthusiasm is replaced with corporate meetings, drone-like employees (who are actually praised for their droniness - yes, that’s a word!), and mission statements and visions. If anyone ever had a real vision in a corporate environment, they’d be cast as a loon and sent out to the curb. Unless their name is Steve Jobs. And even he went through a dark period where his own turned against him.
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Enthusiasm is vital. But it is not necessarily the cure for an empathetic church. Many of us have forgotten where we have come from and therefore have no grounding for where we are going. Throughout the history of America, specifically during the Great Awakening, the church had taken on this powerful enthusiasm that fed into the congregation. However when all you have is enthusiasm, and an understanding for the fathers of our faith has died away, then all you will get is soft soap evangelists without a foundation of truth. Which leads to ephemeral enthusiasm, which leads to no enthusiasm, which leads to your basic white-washed tomb of a church (pretty on the outside, while filled with death). So there may be a lack of passion, but that is what comes of a lack of historical context. Although it’s corny, history is in fact His story, God‘s story. If that truth should be apparent in any setting, it should radiate from the lighthouses of America. The church is simply bearing the fruit of its roots. And our roots are in desperate need of some watering.
Thanks for this entry, and great quotes by the way!
Kala