Stand by the ways and see and ask for the ancient paths,
where the good way is, and walk in it;
and you shall find rest for your souls. (Jeremiah 6:16)

When I was a young boy, I walked to my public elementary school every school day for seven years. After school, I rode my bike to the ball park for my Little League games. Every Sunday we walked a few blocks to church. The recreation park was a little further away than the ball park and a little closer than the school. Scout Hall was behind the school, so we also rode our bikes or walked to Boy Scout meetings. Life was simple for us kids and our parents. In the suburbs of Los Angeles, the epitome of the commuter city, we lived life within a mile radius of our home. We even walked to the doctor's office.

Most people used to live this way. Before the automobile, everything had to be within walking distance, or at least horse-and-buggy distance. Communities had to develop accordingly. Each neighborhood had its local grocer, clothier, druggist, school, church, and so on. People knew their neighbors because they couldn't be avoided. One was constantly rubbing shoulders with them as one worked, worshiped, played, ate, and lived in the same area.

I like our cars. I can hardly imagine life without them. But as I was driving to school-work-store-ball game the other day, I kept wondering, is this really a better way of life? Our city, Savannah, Georgia, like every other community in America, now sprawls. We have big malls, big parks, big hospitals, big medical practices, nice roads in every direction, and nice air conditioned cars to drive in. But is this a more humanly satisfying way to live?

While driving through town one evening, I noted the remarkable differences between poor and middle class neighborhoods. The poor neighborhoods are older, more run-down, yet abuzz with life. Some folks are sitting out on their porches, rocking and talking. Others are walking on the sidewalks. Still others are congregating on a street corner or at a storefront. What do you see in the middle class neighborhoods? Nothing. Not a soul. Why not? Air-conditioning. In the "poor" neighborhoods, the "deprived" have no air-conditioning, but do have community. The "affluent" neighborhoods have air-conditioning, but consequently everyone stays inside and minimal human interaction takes place. Who then is truly deprived? From air-conditioned offices in air-conditioned cars to air-conditioned houses, the socially impoverished move about, while the economically impoverished, though sweltering, enjoy a rich community experience.(1)

We are technologically superior to previous generations. But are we losing too much in the process? First we walked, then galloped, then road on rails together. Now we drive, largely alone with the window up, and go home to hermetically sealed homes, only coming out to take out the trash or grab the newspaper. Once we entertained ourselves at home by reading books aloud. In the 1920s, families gathered around the radio. In the 1950s, they gathered around the TV. Now there is a TV in each room.(2) Computers will only make it worse. Once the home was a castle, a place of refuge for the family. When behind its doors, the family conducted its affairs without interruption and without outside influence. Now one can hardly eat a meal or conduct family worship without the phone ringing. Sacrosanct family time is violated daily. Friends and strangers alike barge right into the middle of the family's most private and intimate moments via technology. Again my question is, is this progress? When does life slow down enough so that we can talk? When do we enjoy our neighborhoods? Where do we experience community? In the last 100 years we have gone from life on a porch with family and neighbors to life in isolation in front of a cathode-ray tube. Is the quality of life improving? Is ours a richer human experience? Frankly, I don't believe it anymore. Call it romanticism. Call it naivete. Call me a Luddite. We have wonderful toys today. But they have cost us too much. Growing prosperity and technological advancement do not necessarily or automatically mark human progress.

I have labored this point because I believe the church has largely failed to recognized the death of family and community or compensate for it. Rather than reaffirm traditional practices that build family life and stimulate community, it has tended to baptize secular trends that do the opposite. The small neighborhood church has given way to the large commuter church. The friendly country parson has been replaced by the suburban CEO/pastor. Older practices such as the "family altar" and the "family pew" have received token attention while new programs have been devised that divide families and segregate the ages. In many ways we have become too clever for our own good. We are just as guilty of "chronological arrogance," as C. S. Lewis called it, as the rest of society. Repeatedly tried and proven ways of transmitting the heart and soul of the Christian faith to others have been abandoned in favor of exciting, entertaining, novel, but ineffectual alternatives. We pride ourselves in being modern. We look down our noses at previous generations. We have had a love affair with the novel and new. Educational, political, social, and religious fads have swept over us again and again, first possessing the field and all right thinking people, and then in a matter of months, fleeing to the curiosity shelf in our cultural museums, replaced by yet another untested novelty. The time has come to admit our error and pause to look back before we again look ahead.

What we hope to demonstrate in the forthcoming articles is that by returning to the practices of previous generations we may be able to revitalize the family and the church of today. The "ancient paths" of Sunday worship, Sabbath observance, family worship, and catechizing are where spiritual vitality for the future will be found.

Rev. Terry Johnson is the Senior Pastor at Independent Presbyterian Church in Savannah, Georgia.

This article is taken from "The Family Worship Book: A Resource Book for Family Devotions" by Terry Johnson (ISBN 978-1-85792401-5) which is published by Christian Focus Publications (www.christianfocus.com) and is used here with their kind permission.

1. For a highly effective critique of automobile induced suburban sprawl read James Howard Kunstler’s books The Geography of Nowhere (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993) and the sequel Home From Nowhere (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996).

2. For a powerful critique of television’s effects on culture and learning see Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in The Age of Show Business (New York: Penguin, 1985).