The Condition of Modernity

"The church is no longer salt and light to the world but the world is salt and light to the church."
"We're tryng to turn everything into a McDonalds" -some quotes from lunch

Today we had a very intriging lunch discussion about the modern world which stemmed from the original question of "How do we integrate our Christian lives into the world when we leave LAbri?"
After discussing the many ways we are such vast consumers, efficiency driven, and so infiltrated by the world around us Andrew claimed two dynamics that we must strive for in our lives: simplicity and stillness. This led to the ideas that all the machines have been created in order to bring us more time but how in reality they've all simply made us more efficient consumers of the world.
Even the church is a well oiled machine wit 30+ staff members, schedules, pages of bulletins, and computers just to keep it "active" enough. Everything has been infiltrated by this need to achieve more, succeed higher but to what end? To make us more content human beings? We're all still searching, rantng about the stress we live under or the next rung of the ladder we just must get to.
How do we counter it? How do we learn to be content with our stillness and simplicity?
For me it was found in leaving that culture that depended on day planners and emails being sent to my phone for survival. To a life that exists on working with my hands outside, in the kitchen, or cleaning. A life that brings my mind alive and to an attentive state throughout the day with the nature that aurrounds me rather than the background noise of a TV. I've found myself here and in that- my DAILY need for a Savior. A Savior hat doesn't just rescue me from my sins or promise me eternal happiness but rescues me from the post modern machine- drawing me back to a foundation that no busy schedule can strip me of. Christ asks: "To what end do you do all of this?" Is the answer heaven, storing up your treasures there, or is it an efficient life?