"Church time isn't like regular time," laughed a lay leader after fielding a question on a capital project's timetable.

She didn't mean the difference between "kairos" (sacred time) and "chronos" (worldly time), which clergy sometimes use in sermons to show that they know Greek.

She meant slowness: a tendency to recognize situations slowly, to respond slowly, to make decisions slowly, to implement slowly, and to change course slowly.

Sunday services might start on time, but it can take days for clergy to return a phone call or e-mail, even longer for good ideas to move from inspiration to perspiration, and longer still for bad ideas and failed ventures to receive a decent Christian burial.

The reasons are varied and sometimes make sense. Accountability is rarely clear when staff and laity disagree on who is in charge. Every idea and venture has a constituency whose passion can provoke a storm when denied. Tender feelings abound, and a well-meaning desire to consider all points of view can make it difficult to execute even the simplest plan.

Even though the Gospel narrative is grounded in conflict, hard decisions and a clear reformulation of what is and isn't urgent, church life tends to be shaped by conflict-avoidance, delaying decisions, resisting change, and allowing a few loud voices to drown out the urgent and unexpected.

In many churches, the pressure to perform is low, partly because members have concluded the institution won't perform, and partly because the faith enterprise is deemed less significant than other enterprises.

A church commitment is easy to drop when other pressures mount.

I have four suggestions for dealing with "church time":

First, we need to do better. Faith does matter, God does care, and commitments to serve should take our highest priority. When Jesus said we must die to self and live for others, he didn't go on to add, "If it's convenient and no one objects."

Lives are hurt when we are slow to respond. Needs worsen when we ignore them. Our world suffers when we show up late for pain, injustice and new questions.

Second, in order to do better, we need to take our own Gospel seriously enough to stop fighting over who's in charge and whose preferences rule the sandbox. Our bickering has become an excuse for inaction.

Third, we need to see the real urgency out there. These are profoundly stressful times. From job losses to foreclosures to runaway greed to lives being poured into unworthy pursuits, people are desperate. This is simply not the time for church folk to be debating sex, property rights, paint colors, hymn selection, by-laws or budgets.

Every day, people are calling for help, writing for help, crying out just beyond our hearing, and acting out in ways that demonstrate their desperation. We need to be returning those calls.

Fourth, we need to see the faith community as a holy collaboration to deal with urgent needs, not a club or clan where a few provide and many consume. That means laity and clergy learning to share authority, wealthy and not-wealthy learning mutual respect, longtimer and newcomer sharing space, and people of all theological and political persuasions realizing that faith isn't about right-opinion or institutional survival. It's about love in action.

Tom Ehrich is a writer, church consultant and Episcopal priest based in New York. He is the author of "Just Wondering, Jesus," and the founder of the Church Wellness Project, www.churchwellness.com. His Web site is www.morningwalkmedia.com.