'Tis the Season

We're speeding towards that season when many long-lost folks -- affiliates -- begin to find their way back to church.
And yet, my observation in recent years is that it's a whole lot less predictable than it used to be. The year no longer has its stable rhythms of coming and going. To be honest, I have no idea whether church attendance will be up or down during Advent this year. All I can do is watch and wait.
This reflects a general societal change. Time has no meaning any more. In a thoroughly consumerized culture, every hour and every day are the same. All moments are at our economic disposal -- time for making and spending money. Weeks and months no longer have the rhythm of working, resting and playing that once gave a kind of stable structure to time.
I wonder if one of the gifts churches might be able to give to searching affiliates is a chance to experience times and seasons. I sense that many families are becoming discombobulated by what is happening to our sense of time and routine. Could it be that the church is a place where time is honored and, in the words of Abraham Joshua Heschel, "sanctified"?
Is this an example of religious mumbo-jumbo that contemporary people can no longer even understand? Or is it a gift of authentic Christian community that God is calling us to use in order to bring blessing to a culture that has lost its way?