Snippet: Moments that Form and Shape Who We Are

Snip·pet | ˈsnipit | noun a small piece or brief extract.

A friend recently sent me a NTTimes column by Tish Harrison Warren on why churches should stop streaming services. I don’t agree with that part of the article (although I resonate with her intent). But what she says about the importance of in-person, embodied worship is so thought-provoking on many fronts:

“‘Christians need to hear the babies crying in church. They need to see the reddened eyes of a friend across the aisle,’ Collin Hansen wrote in his Times essay about online church. ‘They need to chat with the recovering drug addict who shows up early but still sits in the back row. They need to taste the bread and wine. They need to feel the choir crescendo toward the assurance of hope in what our senses can’t yet perceive.’ These are not mere accessories to a certain kind of worship experience. These moments form and shape who we are and what we believe.”

That suggests a theory about why some haven’t yet returned to in-person: they weren’t experiencing those kinds of interactions when they came to in-person. Their in-person experience wasn’t that different than their online experience (or their experience of missing worship altogether).

As a pastor, I get to interact with people on the weekend at a level most miss out on. I get that.

But I know many non-pastors in our church who experience what Warren describes almost every week because they are either bringing the hurting person, or they’re on the lookout for someone they don’t recognize and are willing to start a conversation (much easier for “outgoing” people), or they’re involved in ministries that facilitate real conversations with people in diverse circumstances (which, by the way, is a great way for “shy” people to have some of those kinds of interactions, too).

But I can’t help but wonder if how we do church these days makes it harder than it should be, and whether we need to change in drastic ways.

Not a new thought, but one that I’m thankful people like Warren and Hansen are keeping at the forefront of my mind.

Photo by Tim Kilby on Unsplash

Snippet: Buying into Lies in Our Hunger for Substance

Snip·pet | ˈsnipit | noun a small piece or brief extract.

Here’s a snippet from an article by theologian Trevin Wax:

“We long for the truth, as beggars hungry for something of substance, even while we despise the truth, as mini-tyrants who chafe at any notion there might be someone or something that exerts authority over us. Our longing for truth leads to the easy embrace of lies.”

That’s an absolutely brilliant correlation!

I think Wax would agree that the “lies” may be of the kind where a totally corrupt dictator or government deliberately spreads a lie in order to achieve nefarious ends, but it can also refer to untruths we hold to sincerely and share with others for their benefit.

I happen to belong to a worldwide subset of people (a tribe of sorts) who believe Jesus is the truth (John 14:6), and God communicates his truth to us through Scripture (2 Timothy 3:16-17).

And in my tribe, it’s common for us to talk about how people who don’t embrace Christ and his Word are easily deceived by lies embedded in our cultures or spread through various media or “secular” institutions (i.e., lies of the well-meaning and nefarious variety).

But can we (Christians) detect and talk about our own vulnerabilities on this front? In our hunger for truth, how often do we buy into well-meaning “lies” promoted by influential and oftentimes well-meaning people in our own tribe?

In my opinion, the lies we’re most vulnerable to are the ones where untruths we attached to truths, and because of the attachment (and who makes the attachment), they go unexamined.

And can we detect and talk about our vulnerability as Christians when well-meaning people in our own tribe pass on “lies” they sincerely believe are true but were hatched by people with nefarious intent?

Well, we can. But will we?

Photo by Taras Chernus on Unsplash