The Importance of Life “On the Way”

"The medium is the message." Fifty years ago, Marshall McLuhan succeeded in bringing the insights of communication theory into popular culture with this dictum. The insight it expresses concerns the value and importance of the means we use - the medium - in communication. It challenges the popular notion that what is important in communication is what you have to say, not how you say it. It alerts us to significance of how we communicate as well as what we communicate.

What is true about communication is also true about other things. We may casually assume that what we are trying to do is the important thing, while the question of how we do it is only a pragmatic decision. What works? What will help us accomplish the outcome that really matters?

I remember a golfing companion who would often say, "It's not how you drive, it's how you arrive." Of course, he would usually say that after a poor drive.  What he was saying was that the important thing was a successful achievement of the goal. How you got there didn't matter. Unfortunately, I didn't drive - or arrive - very well, so it didn't help me. But it did make me think. That might be a helpful maxim for the golf course (I'll leave that to real golfers to determine) , but can it serve as a principle for living?

The answer, I think, is "no," although I suspect we often function that way. How we "drive" matters. I don't simply mean that effectiveness in accomplishing our goals requires efficiency along the way. I'm trying to say something more important. That is, how we live life "on the way" is as important as getting where we want to go.

This is more than just saying the "end" doesn't justify the "means." While that is a general truism it doesn't really speak to how we think about means unless they are inappropriate or unethical. I'm wanting to say more than that. I want to suggest that we should see the "means" themselves as an "end."

"The medium is the message." This is a way of recognizing that we are embedding values and meaning into how we communicate - or how we live. The measure of our life and ministry is not simply the tally of our achievements, the goals we reached or things we accomplished, but how we went about that work. At a personal level we are learning to recognize that. Character matters. Integrity is important. But let's take this line of thinking further.

A new year. New beginnings. New goals. This is a time when we often think about where we are going to be - or want to be - at the end of the new year. That's true of pastors, too, though perhaps we think more about congregational goals and outcomes at the changing of our statistical year. In either case, the point of reflection focuses our thinking on the "end." Where do we want to be? How can we get there?

In our thinking about goals and outcomes for ministry do we need to think more carefully about life "on the way?" Are the values embedded in our practices as important as the values that determine our goals?

For example, let's think about church board meetings. It may be hard to imagine these monthly business meetings as an exercise in values. Some of us have been taught to envision church board processes as an obstacle to overcome, a process of permission that we need to control, even manipulate. If this is true, then the only important outcome is achieving support or permission that will allow the church to accomplish the significant goals of ministry. Line up the votes. Recruit the influence leaders. Ensure the right outcome. "It's not how you drive, it's how you arrive."

"The medium is the message." If the principle of embedding important meaning and value in the processes of communication is true, could it also be true that the meaning and values embedded in our processes also matter? Consider the irony of a church board decision to support an initiative that is driven by the value of persons, concerned to affirm their importance and actualize their unique gifts and insights, if the board decision is achieved in a way that doesn't practice the same values. Would it be appropriate to say that how the church board works together to arrive at a decision is as important as the decision, itself?

Could we consider the same issue with regard to ministry staff or church leaders? If the Gospel calls us to understand people as having more than utilitarian value shouldn't our treatment of staff and ministry leaders reflect that? Our interaction with leaders should be more than a pragmatically functional collaboration to produce spiritually redemptive relationships.

How we live "on the way" is not just part of the journey, it's part of the destination. How we lead a congregation is already part of the realization of Kingdom life that God calls us to. The journey ought to look like the end.

So, as you think about the New Year and where you want to go in 2010, remember that life "on the way" really matters. The destination is closer than you might think.