Dr. Moore has a great post today, Why Facebook (and Your Church) Might Be Making You Sad. His point? When we see people that are unnaturally happy and upbeat, it makes us depressed to compare them to our own wounds and scars. They all seem so happy! Everyone at church smiles and looks and acts their best, they all have it together and I am such a wreck. What is wrong with me?
I loved this part…
Nobody is as happy as he seems on Facebook. And no one is as “spiritual” as he seems in what we deem as “spiritual” enough for Christian worship. Maybe what we need in our churches is more tears, more failure, more confession of sin, more prayers of desperation that are too deep for words.
Maybe then the lonely and the guilty and the desperate among us will see that the gospel has come not for the happy, but for the brokenhearted; not for the well, but for the sick; not for the found, but for the lost.
Amen.
The way we do church, gathering on schedule for an hour to “worship” leads to people hiding their hurting behind smiling faces and their Sunday best. We are rarely honest with each other because we spend so little time together. We need to get out of the pew and get into the lives and homes and families of other believers. We need to see what is going on behind the smiles because no one I have ever met really has it as together as they seem “in church”. Brothers sharing over a cup of coffee, mothers sharing during a playdate, families spending time with other families. That is fellowship and community. Almost anyone can fake it for an hour and look happy. Those who can’t won’t come because they feel out of place. We need to shed the artificial world of church and get the church out of the building so we can see one another at our worst, not just at our best.
A great word from Dr. Moore. You should go read the whole article!
2 comments:
When I filled the IRBC pulpit late last year, I started off the sermon by telling them the time frame that the most lying occurs in our country is between 930am and 1230pm each Sunday. People greeting each other with "How you doing?" "Fine." (or some variation)
There are a lot of hurting people in our churches and somehow we need to enable people to express their hurts, etc., without being condemning or judgmental.
Of course, being the old guy in the third row, I can get away with that....
Jeff,
Well said. If we were all really "fine" we wouldn't need Jesus.
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