This is a plea for the synchronous life.
I recently sat next to a guy on a 10-hour flight who was reading the Sunday edition of The New York Times. Every single word, cover to cover. That’s not the strange part. This particular copy was an issue from a Sunday six months earlier. I understand falling behind, but this seemed excessive. Does he rummage through the recycling bin to find something to read on international flights? I was tempted to lean over and tell him who had won the tight elections the paper was predicting, but I refrained. Perhaps he was a scholar or mad scientist. For all I knew he also had a flux capacitor in his luggage.
Everyone is living on different timelines right now.
Netflix knows this best. We can binge watch The West Wing decades after it leaves office. Speaking of the office, apparently Americans used to talk about television shows around the office water cooler– back when people worked in offices, drank from water coolers, and watched television shows other people also saw. Not now, when we all have our own timelines, queues, and to-do lists. Certainly there is something productive and freeing about this level of autonomy. We can join meetings while flying, read books while driving, and attend concerts while jogging.
We’ve always been asynchronous to some extent; isn’t the book just an asynchronous way to collect an oral story? Or maybe an album is the asynchronous way to transmit live music? Probably. But it seems unhealthy at this point. The asynchronous life deprives us of one of the most joyful things in the human story: the shared experience.
I was recently reading Acts 2 and noticed how much the earliest Christians did together. They eat together, share things together, pray together, gather together, and share the gospel together. Most of us find time to give, eat, and pray. But together? The coordination feels impossible. Perhaps this lack of human connection and fellowship is the very thing that makes us less fulfilled and more pessimistic than ever before? Perhaps it’s tanking our mental health, which is as low as any moment in the past century— including a time called The Great Depression.
We need to start believing that a good thing together is better than a great thing alone.
Back to this idea of the synchronous life. The synchronous life is one done together in community. It’s where we value the reality of the present and how we can engage what is actually going on, rather than mentally living in another place while life happens in front of us. It’s about enjoying summer for the tan rather than wishing it was football season. It’s loving our friends that we see each day as much (or more) than our virtual ones that we rarely see at all. It’s when we decide to care about what other people care about and meet them where they are. We learn that doing things together is a worthwhile pursuit in itself.
Last week I heard that Oasis (music of my adolescence) was reuniting and doing concerts in the U.K. I told my daughters (15 and 10). They would have been more interested if I told them I saved 20% on a gutter cleaning. They care about Sabrina Carpenter and Taylor Swift. Of course I knew Taylor Swift…but was compelled to try out Sabrina Carpenter. It’s part of being a parent; we show our kids that we care about their stuff even if we prefer our stuff. Concern is more rewarding than reminiscing anyway.
The same is true for churches. Being present is more important than being perfect. It offers a joy that cannot be found in longing for the past or glibly imagining a utopian future. Being synchronous is unsexy and unselfish. It’s complicated and frustrating. It’s never up to our standards or fully aligned with our interests. But it’s always worth it.
How can we be more synchronous?
- If our church is studying Galatians, then decide for those weeks to care about Galatians, even if it’s not our favorite book.
- Set boundaries and commit. Make time for what matters and step away from what doesn’t matter.
- Dive into one of our church’s existing ministries of mercy rather than imagining how cool it would be to have something else.
- Join, lead, and keep up with a small group.
- Work in the church nursery.
- Ask friends to go to the zoo.
- Read the book or author that a friend recommended. Even harder, listen to that podcast they shared.
Live together with one another. Don’t be aloof. Embrace the bird in the hand. A good thing together is better than a great thing alone. The synchronous life is hard, but it offers shared experiences that bring desperately needed joy.
Next time I won’t judge. I’ll just ask the guy with the old newspaper if I can have the Sports section when he’s done with it.
Finally, all of you, have unity of spirit, sympathy, love for one another, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil or abuse for abuse; but, on the contrary, repay with a blessing. It is for this that you were called—that you might inherit a blessing (1 Peter 3:8-9).
