This is # 30 in the Crossing the Threshold series.

                                             Lost

I tuned into the ABC television series Lost only one time; and frankly I was so lost I never tuned in again. This is what happens when you enter an ongoing story long after its inception. Who are these people? Why are they on this island? How did they get here? Having no answers and lots of questions I became very confused, I just couldn’t track with it. I could not enter the story. Perhaps if someone had been there to explain it to me I might have considered it more worthwhile. As it was I was lost, so I simply turned it off. 

I think this same scenario plays itself out in a secular culture like ours, where on any given Sunday a non church going person just happens to wander into a Christian worship service. Who are these people? Why are they here? What do these rituals mean? What story are they trying to tell? Confused and finding no story interpreter they simply exit the pew and do not return.

Sad? Yes, but it is understandable. There is, however a more troublesome problem; what if the visitor had been brave enough to stay and bold enough to ask questions. Who are you? Why are you here? What story are you enacting by your actions? Would the people in the pews have been able to give the visitor compelling answers? By compelling answer I don’t mean an invitation to stay for the coffee hour or an invitation to a pot luck supper. I mean the kind of answers which would “compel” the visitor to say “this is the story I’ve been looking to be a part of all my life”. No, I seriously doubt they would have... Why? The people in the pews are just as lost; they don’t know their own story.