Alice and I had a conversation about giving and getting this morning. She had read an article by a child psychologist who posited that cell phones have contributed unintentionally, though greatly, to our children’s understanding of life as more a matter of what they can get from it rather than what they can give to it. It had something to do with the magnetic attraction cell phones have for the people that use them because of the instant reward the phones, like drugs, can provide. Something about chemicals that get released in a person’s system (thus providing a good or high feeling) whenever she or he gets a call or text message from a friend she or he cares about or wins at a game being played on the device. And winning (or getting the prize or acclamation) and feeling good (or getting high, which creates good feeling) is what life’s about, after all.

Mmmmm. It got me to thinking, about the church among other things, and about how maybe the church (and other things) are unwittingly contributing to this sea-change shift in our values in 21st century America from values that are outwardly directed to values that focus inwardly toward self gratification, satisfaction, and the convenience of the worshiper rather than on his or her spiritual nourishment.

Take as one small example the perceived importance these days of “the offering” in the week to week worship services in Protestant churches in this country. (I’m specifically not talking about the offering in Roman Catholic worship practice mainly because I’m not Catholic and don’t know much about it, but also because I have a hunch the rubrics of the Mass are better protected from change by local authorities.) In Protestant churches the act of making an offering is down-played more and more, it seems to me, and that is simply not good for the worshiper — who needs to give and do it intentionally and publicly for his or her well-being. Nor will it be good for the church ultimately.

Just recently in the wonderfully active and nourishing small Presbyterian church where Alice and I worship and are active in the life of the congregation, the session decided to discontinue the ages-old practice of providing dated weekly offering envelops for congregants to use in giving their gifts each week. Too few people were using them to justify the cost was the explanation, which I understand. More and more folks are making their act of offering by way of placing a folded check in the plate, I guess, or they’re doing it beforehand by one or another modern means of electronic debit or payment, something the church treasurer (who is one of the brightest and articulate lay persons I have ever met, incidentally) promoted in a Moment for Stewardship on a recent Sunday.

Still, I wish the Session hadn’t done away with the old-fashioned weekly offering envelopes. For one thing, it gave the folks whose family business habit is to write just one big check for the church each month, quarter, or year along with the “bills” that are being paid, a way to participate in the act of offering each week without just looking away and letting the plate pass by. If there is just a dollar (or even nothing) in the little envelop, nobody knows, you see…except the treasurer, and he knows what’s going on. Now, with no little envelops, we’re officially discouraged from the act of making an offering, which is one of those rare outwardly/”otherly” directed acts that we don’t do nearly enough of these days and our children don’t see nearly enough of while they’re busy getting high from their cell phones.

If only they were still in the worship service when the offering happens each week, rather than having been dismissed for children’s church or Sunday school before the gospel lesson and sermon.

But that’s a topic for another blog on another day. Thanks as always for listening.