From Our Board President
Dear Fellow Countryside Members and Friends –
Now that Halloween is over, the Christmas season can begin. In fact, if you’ve been to any big retailers the past several weeks, you saw that they were already decked out for the year-end holidays. I even heard that some stores began putting out holiday merchandise right after Labor Day, but that might just be a nasty rumor. It seems that the holiday season starts earlier every year. Some of you may be old enough (like me) to remember when the Christmas season didn’t begin until the day after Thanksgiving. Oh, for the good old days.
I know we can’t go back to the ‘good old days’, but sometimes I feel that the world is changing faster than we humans can handle it. We now live in a 24/7 news environment that we can’t avoid. Every day it seems that there are news stories that are more outrageous than the stories from just the day before. And with our cell phones as our constant companions, it’s hard to ignore. I’ve read that every day, on average, we check our phones 159 times and then spend about two and a half hours on social media. And the social media algorithms feed us headlines that reinforce what we already believe. We think we’re consuming information but we’re just affirming our personal biases. And the more affirmation we consume the less empathy we show. All this information at our fingertips is both a blessing and a curse.
I think we all might be better off if we spent less time interacting with our phones and more time connecting with people. But how might we do that? For me, the two to three hours that I’m at church on Sunday mornings is a welcome respite from my cell phone and the craziness of the outside world. And it’s where I connect and re-connect with other people – not on a tiny screen but face to face. We all need human connections to thrive, and I suspect that’s why each of us is a member of this community we call Countryside Church. When the world gets too crazy, we know that we can gather on Sunday and reorient ourselves to what matters most to us. We can get grounded and reenergized to be better able to face whatever craziness the outside world sends our way.
So, as we rush headlong into the holiday season, make an effort to spend less time on your phone and more time connecting with others. It’s easy to do at Countryside Church, and for that I am thankful. I hope you are too.
Have a Happy Thanksgiving.
As always, please pay attention when you are gathering before the service and afterwards in Atherton Hall. If you notice a new face, please greet them and welcome them warmly. I’ve been heartened in recent weeks by the number of new visitors I’ve seen, and while I’ve met a few of them, I can’t seem to meet them all. I guess that’s a good problem to have.
Thank you for being a part of this amazing spiritual community,
Gary LaBedz, Board President