Ain't Nobody Got Time for That!

By: Adam McClendon

Adam is the Lead Pastor at Springhill Church and the Director of New Line Ministries.

Unfortunately, it seems that church in America is all too often more reflective of a country club organization than a life-giving, light-producing organism.

One such area in which this seems readily evident is the view of “serving” held by the membership or attendees. 

Here is a comparison of how service is viewed in the country club versus how it is to be viewed by the Christian church.

SERVICE COMPARISONS
Country Club	Christian Church
want to be served	want to serve
hire a professional	help wherever needed
want important position	want to fill need
need recognition	need purpose
think they are important	think others are important

Yet, all too often church leaders are scrambling to find people to serve within the church.  Why? 

People have a lot of reasons that they don’t like or want to serve in the church.  Maybe they feel that they’ve worked all week and church is for them to receive, maybe they put extra money in the offering so that they don’t have to do that “stuff,” maybe they just don’t feel qualified or gifted enough, or maybe the church staff tries to guilt them into serving and they don’t like the sales pitch.  Lots of excuses are available, but it seems that the one that gets the most traction in today’s American culture is “I’m too busy.  I just don’t have the time.”

Is that excuse legit?  Just where is all the time going?

Well, thankfully, the Bureau of Labor Statics does extensive research to help answer that very question.

According to their data, Americans spend has 5.1 hours per day on leisure.

Now, in all fairness, this data includes everyone 15 years old and up and weekends.  The average working parent would argue that non-working teenagers and adults skew the data.  That’s a fair critique.

So, how do working parents spend their workdays?  Even with all the other responsibilities of life, the average working parent spends 2.6 hours a work day on leisure. 

Certainly, all this data concerns averages and some people are the exception.  Nevertheless, all this information seems to reveal some important realities. 

First, the average American wastes far more time than realized, spending a disproportionate amount of time on self.

Second, everyone has the same amount of time.  Each person needs to determine more intentionally if this is how they want to use their time.

The truth is that the excuse that someone is “too busy” just doesn’t really fly.  A more accurate response might simply be, “I don’t want to.”  The evidence says that they have the time, they just would rather watch tv than serve in the church.