Church’s opportunities in current situation
THINGS can get hectic and to find our balance, we must make the church our home. The church is there to guide us, so it is wise to make use of the house of the Lord when you need guidance.
Today, we bring you wise words from the Bible that
Twill help you move forward amid the unrest. And we have Vilane taking us Back to the Cross. Be blessed ...
Zinhle Matsenjwa
HE church is uniquely positioned to respond to the political tension and division that characterises our age. Here are a few ways Christians can bring hope to the increasingly fragile culture around us.
Be a confessor in a culture of blame
It’s so easy to point the inger at someone else. Too often Christians focus on what we can’t change and ignore what we can. All of this is what confession is designed to root out. When you confess that you’re part of the problem, the solution becomes clearer. You will never address the wrong if you don’t confess.
Foster conversation in a culture that shouts
Thanks to social media, everybody has a platform. A ridiculous number of people use theirs to shout rather than to listen. This translates into real life too. Conversations seem to be devolving into an exchange of monologues between two people who don’t seem terribly interested in each other. People appear to be talking at each other as much as they’re talking with each other. I’ll share my opinions and then you can share your opinions. That’s
not conversation.
You know what’s missing in the current culture? Listening. Thoughtfulness. Humility. Kindness. Openness.
Genuine, authentic conversation features all those elements and more. When was the last time you had a genuine conversation with someone who doesn’t share your values? By that, I mean an exchange where you listened as much as you spoke and tried to understand more than you tried to be understood. That’s what conversation is. And conversation is an endangered species in our current culture. Love listens; so should Christians.
Broker meaning in the age of information
Information used to be rare. You had to ask. Find an expert. Pull an encyclopedia off the shelf. The last decade has fundamentally changed that in two ways. You can ind almost any information you want for free, and online platforms have turned almost everyone into content producers. Now we have more information than we know how to process.
Consequently, we have a new crisis. The current crisis isn’t a crisis of information, it’s a crisis of meaning. We have a million springs of endless information and we have no idea what it all means. The challenge for church leaders is not just to produce more content, but to provide meaning. I believe the future belongs to leaders who broker meaning in the sea of endless content. The key to providing meaning isn’t more, it’s better. More without meaning will make you less relevant. Better is not nearly as easy as more. Better requires thought, re lection, digestion and ultimately resonance, which tells you your content is connecting.
This provides a huge opportunity for church leaders. Who better to provide meaning than the leaders called to share timeless truth in an era starved for meaning? There’s a generation of people looking for love in a world of hate. Looking for truth in an age of relativity. Looking for something to cling to when everything else seems to be falling apart.