There was a story in last week's papers about a taxi-driver who picked up a customer near Northampton to take her 75 miles south to Stamford Bridge (the home of Chelsea football club) so that she could watch a football match between Chelsea and Arsenal. Unfortunately when they arrived at Stamford Bridge, courtesy of the taxi's Sat-Nav, they had travelled 146 miles north to the village of Stamford Bridge in Yorkshire. To be fair to the driver he apparently asked confirmation from his controller when he was told to head north - and he was told by the controller that the electronic voice was right.
This is not the first time such stories involving sat-nav systems have made the news. Some people rely on them to such an extent that even their common sense is silenced. But surely on a 146 mile journey north the passenger in the taxi would have noticed from the road signs on the motorway that they were not headed towards London. If there had been an element of doubt in the taxi driver's mind a simple question to his passenger about their destination would have saved a wasted journey and the match would not have been missed.
But sometimes on our journey through life we just carry on regardless and never stop to ask ourselves where we're going and why. We may have nagging questions and doubts but for whatever reason we just allow ourselves to carry on going - even though we may be going in totally the wrong direction.
When I was a student I used to have a holiday job making bee hives. One of the things that the boss said to me right at the beginning was that if you're not totally sure about what you're supposed to be doing, stop and ask. It's better to waste a few minutes checking than it is to carry on and then find out at the end of the day that you've made a mistake that could cost the company thousands of pounds.
But how often in our churches do we stop and ask, 'what are we doing?' and 'why do we do it that way?' We live in a rapidly changing world, filled with people whose fundamental needs are the same as they've always been. And therefore as we seek to be the people of God in a changing world we need to make sure that stops are built into our journey so that we continue to meet people where they are rather than try to meet them where their parents or grandparents were.
