Our Rating

Every program that you watch on your TV has one greatly feared item. That item is its “rating,” the number of viewers that go to that show’s channel each time that program is on. Most shows also have a site for comments. They want to know the comments from each presentation. Each new presentation is based on the response from viewers of past shows.
Each show has one or more sponsors. They are the ones that pay the money to keep the show on the air. If the sponsor starts to see that show’s ratings declining, they go to the producers of the show and inform them that they must bring more viewers to the show or it will be canceled!
Now, let us take that same train of thought and move it from our TV set to the place we go for our religious instruction one or more times each week. How is its rating?
Are more old faces dying off, than new faces coming in to fill those recently vacated seats? Are we receiving enough interesting new material each week to give us a talking point for the week that follows? Are we being shown new ways to look and talk about the same thousand year old material we’ve heard about all of our lives?
Are we in the center of a protest of our teaching, a protest by people not showing up? Are we still trying to sell our product the same way it was sold in our father’s world?
Scriptures, or the interpretation of them, have modified over time, but in many places those who teach expect time to stand still. Look around us; we are living in the information age, things change by the minute! Our ratings are determined by our willingness to accept change!
It’s hard to move into the past, when the future is all around us. We must realize that our ratings are not a tool to use to judge ourselves. Those ratings are there to show each of us how to do things better. We have more tools and better tools than any generation before us. But, those tools are only as good as the use we put them to. The best tools in the world are worthless to the person that refuses to learn to use them.
The people that we talk to today are more thinking, more intelligent and more questioning than those of yesterday. Most want to hear more than; it’s so because I say it’s so, or that is my interpretation of what it says in the Book! Today’s peoples have learned to ask questions and expect answers. If we can’t give them those answers they’ll find them elsewhere. We must remember: the rest of the world is only a mouse click away!