a periodical from the desk of  Pastor White...
Text Box: I belong to the Cult of the Next Thing. I didn't choose it. I just failed to resist it. Those of us in the cult live for-well, the Next Thing. The next weekend, the next vacation, the next purchase, the next experience. For us, seeking the Next Thing is an instinct bred into us that it seems genetic. We know this is a problem. "No one can serve two masters," Jesus said, "for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon" (Matt.6:24). Well, we know this. But simply knowing it doesn't usually help. The cult is big, powerful, well organized, flawlessly run. It can usurp almost any impulse and then package it, market it, and make a profit off of it. I'm trying to leave the cult, trying to live simply. Simplicity is about something more, something other than just doing without or doing it yourself. Its essence is neither forsaking nor striving. Its essence, rather, is being content with God. There is a lady who lives this way: thankful, with enough. Her name is Helen. She lives completely outside the Cult of the Next Thing. She doesn't even defy it-she ignores it. Text Box: Helen has every reason to fear scarcity. She grew up in Russia during Stalin's madness, and her family suffered terribly. When she was in her early teens, Helen fled to Germany. Her family later tried to join her but were caught and sent to perish in Siberia. Helen ended up digging trenches in Hitler's war. Later, Helen came to Canada. Her cousin in Manitoba and his wife took Helen in as their housemaid. Helen believed the grief was over. She was wrong. The cousin raped her repeatedly and got her pregnant. Then he banished her and the child. Helen came west. In time, she married and lived frugally. Several years ago, her husband died and left her a small pension. She has every reason to hoard, to hide, to be angry. She has every reason to have rid herself of the words thank you and enough. And yet those words define her life, shape its inner places and outward forms. One day I led a prayer time. I asked if there was anyone who would like to thank God. "Oh, Pastor," Helen said. "I praise God!" "Tell us why, Helen." Text Box: "Well, the other day, it was such a beautiful day. I decided to wash my car, and as I'm washing, what do I notice? My insurance expired three days earlier. Well, right away, I walked downtown and bought new insurance. I was telling a friend of mine about it, and she said, 'You're lucky. That happened to me, and the police stopped me. I was fined $300.' I thought that was the end of her story-praising God that the police didn't catch her. It wasn't the end of the story. Helen said, "God has given me $300. That's how I see it. The Lord has done this. So I asked, 'Lord, what am I to do with this $300?' He said, 'Give it to the church.' So today I have $300 to give to the church. Praise God!" Mammon rolled in his grave. "Let your conduct be without covetousness, and be content with such things as you have" (Hebrews 13:5). Well, there it is: the virtue of simplicity, the habit of thankfulness, the discipline of enough. The sermon is only half done. "Why should I?" we might ask. "Because, "[God] Himself has said, 'I will never leave you nor forsake you” Is that not enough for each of us to be thankful?

The Cult of the Next Thing