Charles R. Swindoll, in his book "Dropping Your Guard" tells of Flight 401 bound for Miami from New York City with a load of holiday passengers. As the huge aircraft approached the MiamiAirport for its landing, a light that indicates proper deployment of the landing gear failed to come on. The plane flew in a large, looping circle over the swamps of the Everglades while the cockpit crew checked out the light failure. Their question was this, had the landing gear actually not deployed or was it just the light bulb that was defective?

To begin with, the flight engineer fiddled with the bulb. He tried to remove it, but it wouldn't budge. Another member of the crew tried to help out...and then another. By and by, if you can believe it, all eyes were on the little light bulb that refused to be dislodged from its socket. No one noticed that the plane was losing altitude. Finally, it dropped right into a swamp. Many were killed in that plane crash. While an experienced crew of high-priced and seasoned pilots messed around with a seventy-five-cent light bulb, an entire airplane and many of its passengers were lost. The crew momentarily forgot the most basic of all rules of the air "Don't forget to fly the airplane!"

The same thing can happen to the local church. The church can have so many activities, programs, projects, committee meetings, banquets, and community involvements so many wheels spinning without really accomplishing anything of eternal significance that the congregation forgets its primary objective.