As temperatures climb up, the lawn trucks roll in. I refer to the fleet of yard care vehicles that will clog the streets of suburbia from now until Halloween. They will mow, trim, weed, and fertilize—for a fee.
Though our town prohibits the roar of their mowers and blowers before 7:00 am, the convoy carrying the platoon of lawn care commandos is in place and unloaded by O-dark-thirty most mornings.
While we could probably afford to outsource our lawn care, I’ve decided to do it myself. Want to know why?
First I need the exercise! Mowing the lawn gives me a few thousand vital steps. I need that!
Second, it gives me a big-picture view. My weekly walk-around has revealed a problem with our sump pump drainage, divots we need to fill, and pavers that need leveling.
Third, mowing my lawn offers the unexpected benefit of connecting me with neighbors. Whether it's people waving as they drive by, or the guy across the street who wants to talk—mowing connects me with my neighbors.
They say ours is a service economy, and I can hardly argue that. With every tug of my Honda’s starter cord, something whispers I'm part of a dying breed. But I wonder. Have we Christians imported that service economy mentality into our faith life? Examples:
- Personal devotions—we’re too lazy to look up passages in traditional paper Bibles. So we insist on electronic devotionals for our phones or tablets that include the Bible text (hate to wear out our fingers flipping actual pages).
- Evangelism—we’re happy to pay the pastor to do that for us. As if someone else could.
- Prayer—most of us are comfortable leaving our requests with “the prayer team” because…well…that’s their specialty.
- Interacting with our teens—we’re particularly happy to pay the youth pastor and have the spiritual care of our kids outsourced to him.
On it goes. But should it? Maybe it’s time to rethink our attraction to outsourcing spiritual responsibilities that only we should handle. Maybe it’s time to do that spiritual walk-around ourselves. In the end, this is soul care, not lawn care. Way more important.
See you outside—and don’t forget to wave!