I often suffer from target fixation, and so do a lot of other people I know. I suspect the big difference between me and them is that I know it and I’m pretty sure they don’t.

What the heck am I talking about?

Military pilots know about target fixation. It can cause a pilot to follow his stream of strafing rounds right into the ground. Motorcycle riders know about target fixation. It can cause a rider to ram an obstacle that he or she is trying to avoid.

Target fixation is a process by which the brain is focused so intently on an observed object that awareness of other obstacles or hazards can diminish. Military and motorcycle trainers explain the phenomenon to those in their charge. [Source]

I believe that target fixation is a real danger in just about all areas of life, especially for those of us who have either learned how to tightly focus on what we’re doing or who just came it naturally.

In my case I suspect this ability to focus in partly natural, as a kid I would often drift off into my own little world of play. But through the years in the ministry I’ve learned to really sharpen that ability, and have come to depend on it.

The upside to all this is that when I have too I can focus like a laser beam on whatever needs doing regardless of the chaos around me. The downside is that when I do too much of that I don’t see the problems and dangers that are lurking there.

I think the modern Evangelical Church is in much the same boat. Here’s a great description of target fixation, as you read it try and transfer it from World War 2 fighter pilots to current crusading Pastors and churches and see if it doesn’t fit.

In World War II, fighter pilots spoke of the danger of target fixation. During bombing runs, pilots could become so focused on their targets that they’d dive, drop a bomb on the target, and yet remain so intent on hitting the target that they’d fail to pull up in time. They’d end up hitting their target and killing themselves. Although they would have achieved their mission, they wouldn’t survive to fly the next one or even to celebrate their accomplishment.

Does that sound familar to you?

It does to me! Far too often Evangelicals have gotten so focus on the target – prayer in schools, abortion, homosexuality, etc. – that they lose sight of just about everything else. Our Christ given mission to reach the world with the Gospel flies out the window as we dive towards the target, guns blazing!

In the end even when we win we lose. Sure we’ve stopped some crazy, stupid law. But we’ve also reinforced the image of us as anti-everything, closed minded bigots! So while we pat ourselves on the back in our Christian subculture media, more and more people slip away from ever being open to the Gospel, and we don’t even notice their going.

Whether we’ve succeeded in flying the church into the ground in this country and destroying it is something we can’t know yet. But we’ve clearly sustained heavy damage, and most of that is our fault, because we refuse to shake off our target fixation.

You want something to fixate on? How about this? Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:2 (NIV)