Owen Strachan had an interesting post last week in which he reflected on another article on the prevalence of boasting in modern social media. I won’t repeat it, but I would recommend it if you haven’t already read it. He talks about the danger of letting social media become a tool for self-promotion and braggadocio.
It is certainly a struggle to walk that fine line.
I’ve noticed something that bothers me. Maybe I’m just being crotchety in my advancing old age. But I’ve noticed that same kind of struggle in our promotion of our churches in social media.
It seems to me that we walk a fine line between praising God for what he is doing in our churches and simply bragging about the greatness of my church.
- “I’m so pumped to be part of this great fellowship.” (Maybe I just hate words like pumped and stoked!)
- This is the greatest church.
- We have the best preacher (I hear that all the time – actually, they say “the best-looking preacher” – sorry, did I doze off there for a moment?)
We extol the great things that God is doing in our church and about how he is using us, but sometimes in my admittedly judgmental ears I hear of note of pride and self-adulation.
There is no easy line of demarcation here. Words meant in the purest of praise can come across to others as boastful. Perhaps my reflections are simply based in jealousy. But it is important that we not only give all glory to God in words, but in our hearts as well.
I was reading facebook over the weekend and read a post by a friend of mine who excited about the good things that God was doing in his church. He was genuinely excited over what God had done. I read another communication from a pastor who delineated one great thing after the other going on in his church. My gut-response to this one was completely different. Why? Was one prideful and the other not? One was a friend and the other was a pastor I’m not crazy about – that may have played a part.
But I think we need to be careful was we extol the virtues and values of our churches. It is important that our advertising and our social media give all glory to God and not attempt to create the idea that ours is the cool gang and you should come so you can be “one of us.”
Ok, guys. Rant is over. Now you can tell me what a jerk I am.
We have a small but friendly and caring congregation.
But when we speak about the great things going on in our church, it is always that Christ and His cross is put forth for sinners. Real sinners…the kind we know that we are.
The gospel is preached in it’s purity. And Christ is handed over to needful sinners in His Supper.
That’s about all we have to brag about. And we try, at all times, to make Him the focus of everything that we do.
Peter and John said (Acts 4:20) that they could not help speaking of the things they had seen and heard. What if that included things .. mighty things .. God had done in response to their works?
What if a shy, insecure person who never thought God could use him were to deliver a message that resulted in a 90 minute altar call or people crying out to the Lord? What if such a person teaches a lesson that God uses to change lives dramatically? What if people had been healed and restored?
That person would have a message of experience that God truly does use the least .. the least qualified .. the least able .. to show Himself mighty and glorious. But such a person would, I’m afraid, be reluctant to tell that message in its fullness, which seems sad. Particularly because the reluctance would likely come from others’ view that he was boasting, even though He was boasting, in truth, of God’s ability to use the least among us.
I find Peter’s attitude in the previous chapter (Acts 3:12) instructive. He asks two eye-opening questions:
1. “Men of Israel, why are you amazed at this?” I can imagine someone in the crowd responding “Duh, Peter! A guy crippled from birth is now walking around, jumping, and dancing like a monkey. Most of us would file this under the ‘Amazing’ category.” In the presence of faith in the name of Jesus, though, Peter regards this instead as rather normal.
2. “Why do you stare at us as if we had made this man walk by our own power or piety?” What *is* amazing to Peter is the very idea that this miracle had anything to do with his own power or piety. I don’t think most of us have any problem with acknowledging that it’s God’s power, not our own, that does such things. The hard thing is acknowledging that it has nothing to do with our own piety, either. If good things are happening in our church, we want it to somehow reflect well on us, as though it’s our church’s piety (or the pastor’s piety) that allowed this to happen. Peter’s attitude suggests that this should be regarded as pert near ‘unthinkable’. We’re sinners, saved by grace. The idea that our own piety brought this about – give me a break! This is a result of God’s response to faith in Him. Our own piety had nothing to do with it.
Would incorporating these two attitudes make a difference in how we handle the issue at hand?
It is a difficult balance. I have written many things just being excited and have deleted them before posting because I was afraid that it would come across as boasting or name-dropping, or whatever. But, then, we also need to make sure that we don’t complain either, because that would be negative. So, if you are very sensitive you can find yourself in a position of:
1. Never saying anything positive, because it could be seen as bragging.
2. Never saying anything negative, because it could been as complaining.
This leaves you never saying anything. Sure, we should talk about the Lord, but if we don’t talk about how God is at work in our midst, then ministry becomes disembodied and philosophical and almost gnostic in the sense that there is nothing real that actually comes of it – just the ideal. And, with the ideal, we have a hammer to beat people over the head without actually considering how well, or poorly, our participation in the ideal actually plays out in the local context.
There is a difference between self-promotion and actually rejoicing in what God is doing. Talking about numbers is not bad. Numbers help us understand what is happening. Talking about church growth is not bad – we need to stop reacting against the past by sitting in a corner saying and doing nothing. However, we should be humble and give glory to God for what HE has done and talk about how we get to witness it in our local setting.
Good post. I have struggled with the same thing.
The fact is that nothing lasts forever. We would do well to remember that today’s praises will ultimately give way to tomorrow’s realities. That doesn’t minimize in any way what god is doing, but it also doesn’t change what He will do in the future. Maybe we should keep our successes in perspective on the total continuum of God’s kingdom work. We are a part of a bigger whole. Rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. Approach your success with great humility.
You’re such a jerk, Dave. (Insert smirky smiley face)
Why do you think I have that email?
I’ve come to the painful conclusion that my positive posts on FB would be about as genuine as the “friends” I have on FB.
I do try to get something on my page glorifying the Lord, but I realize this is not the most productive medium for faith discussions.
Also, some could fall into the danger of feeling that “witnessing on FB” is actually “witnessing.” It becomes, “Billboard Christianity.” Not totally useless, but not entirely effective either.
Your right . . . it’s a fine line.
Frank
One of my former Facebook friends put up something (a picture with an inspirational quote or whatever) giving praise to God. Then, this married mother of two teenage boys, put up how excited she was to be going to see Magic Mike with her friends.
I think the irony escaped her.
Joe,
One thing I use FB for is to remind me how “lost” the world is. At one in the same time, I am enlightened and heart-broken by going to FB.
I make it a point to not spend much time (anymore than I have to) in my office. I do my “research” for sermons at McD’s, and I get my motivation from FB–that is, motivation to clearly articulate the gospel to lost, desperately lost, souls.
Just this week, one of my new friends at McD’s had a stroke and died at work. I had just shared the gospel with her a few weeks ago–not the first time. Now, she’s gone.
I try to avoid “FB Religion.” I want to be real.
Frank says, “I’ve come to the painful conclusion that my positive posts on FB would be about as genuine as the “friends” I have on FB.”
Dave says, “Wow.”
My view of the bragging postings in the linked article is different, with one condition. People’s lives do vary from “total agony and despair” to “ecstasy,” my terms. If the person posting those “brags” also posts the bad times, I would not view it as bragging, but rather just showing the best of times to go along with the bad.
The sort of person who “cheats” by only posting the brags, and keeping the failures to themselves, yes, that would burn me up. I have a family member like that…
The woman who lived with my wife and me in 1994 and 1995, sometimes says things like that on Facebook about her husband. I knew him before they married, and I went to their wedding. He is a good Christian husband, who leads his family in a Christian life. So, when she says he is the best husband in the world, I am not offended. I rejoice in her willingness to tell the world what a good man her husband is. And, I agree with her. Dan is a good man. When I read those words, I get a soft feeling in my stomach, and I am glad my “foster daughter” has a good marriage.
One of many things I have learned by living in a different culture is the negativism of the US culture. Even humor between good friends tends to be negative.
And, anyone who works with women in the work place in the USA well knows a favorite topic of conversation between women is whose husband is the biggest cur of all. In 29 years of visits and living in Mexico, I have never heard a woman talk that way about her husband.
Most of my FB friends are Mexican. There is a family in our Baptist Temple who are all FB users. They post openly motivational messages about the importance of Jesus in their lives.
Bruce,
I think it can work well for many. It is the “trolls” that cause a problem.
I certainly agree. I have seen married women post the most intimate details of their marriage, and it is disgusting. So disgusting I can’t even give an example without being equally disgusting. But, many grandparents, me included, use FB as a means of seeing what their grandkids are up to.
Spot on, Dave.
I attend the largest and most active church in my town. I love what we are doing there. When people I know come from out of town and they visit the church, they are awed by its size and activity.
I’m almost embarrassed by it.
I preach in one of the smaller churches in town sometimes. They are a beautiful congregation. God is at work there as well as in my own church. I have no cause to exalt any church above our Lord who is the head of each of our congregations who together, as individual entities, make up his universal body.
Jim,
Good words. I’ve had the privilege of pastoring the largest church in town, as well as the smallest.
Both churches loved each other, loved the lost, and most of all loved the Lord.
It has been known in the Church from the beginning that the Holy Spirit never pointed to Himself or drew attention to Himself . . . He always points us to Christ the Lord.
Perhaps it is best for Christian people to follow the lead of the Spirit and point always to Christ, as did St. John the Baptist, who said:
“He must increase,
but I must decrease. ”
( John 3:30)
Let’s just brag on and praise our God. I remember hearing of two ministers back in the fifties who got into a fist fight over who had the most in attendance and converts!!!