Time

This is one of the most valuable "T's" the Church can offer in the United States. The United States is known for being very busy and very individualistic. We will be fools to believe the Church is not influenced by that. We don't always have control over societal systems coming into being and we can't always replace the negative big picture but we can paint our own little picture. So rather then talking about the negative impacts of busyness and individualistic theologies and goals, I want to talk about how we can change our use of time to show that we are giving a very valuable attribute (time) we have as Americans in order to give value to those that are longing for community and inclusion.

If you do a simple google search, you will find an article with this quote written from a business journal

"Let us begin with the American concept of time, for theirs is the most EXPENSIVE, as anyone who has had to deal with American doctors, dentists or lawyers will tell you.

For an American, time is truly money. In a profit-oriented society, time is a precious, even scarce, commodity. It flows fast, like a mountain river in the spring, and if you want to benefit from its passing, you have to move fast with it. Americans are people of action; they cannot bear to be idle. The past is over, but the present you can seize, parcel and package and make it work for you in the immediate future."

I'm sure most of us have already heard this about ourselves. This is how we use time in America. Now whether this is bad or not, is not what I am trying to tackle, knowing we use and value time like this means we need to be a lot more intentional with it. And in the Unites States, the romantic relationship is given the most time. Which makes sense why everyone wants it. If it is given the most time, that must mean it is extremely valuable in our society. Thus, it makes sense why the gays want their relationships to respected like the heterosexual relationships, when you can say you have a boyfriend or girlfriend, wife or husband, you in other words are saying "I am extremely valuable since another human is giving me so much time." And we subconsciously believe this is true because of conditioning we go through as a child. And so the end result is, you have a society that wants to be valued by its identity in being in a romantic relationship.

The Church should never be about this. The Church is what is now a Christian's primary family. It is what comes first, then your family. Until we can practice this Biblical truth that Christ taught and the Apostles, we will lose many lonely people who are attracted to the same sex to the idolization of a romantic partnership.