At the time of writing it will have been 8 weeks since the UK decided to “Brexit” and leave the European Union. I was fortunate enough to be away from the UK on my honeymoon, and thankfully avoided the TV pundits prophesying impending doom and gloom on the nation. I did, however manage to observe people’s reactions from a distance on social media.
I was struck by two observations. Firstly, the volume of volatile “discussions" that were plastered on my news feed. Heated debates, deactivating accounts and even friends “de-friending” other friends over political differences. Secondly, the majority of these heated debates were between Christians. Each side zealously, and without much love, arguing their opinion. The “holy" amongst them even backing up their argument with the use of (and in most cases, out of context) scripture.
Eight weeks on I am back on Facebook observing another argument amongst a group of Christians. This time we’ve moved on from politics onto the quality of worship lyrics. A meme was posted mocking the downward progression in the standard of the words we sing together in our corporate worship. As before, heated opinion and lengthy response after lengthy response were posted throughout the day and for some reason I felt sad, discouraged and angry at what I was witnessing.
I’m not here to contribute my point of view as to whether we should be “in" or “out” of Europe, nor am I here to state whether we need to sing more Hymns or festival anthems. I do question whether social media is the right platform to air such views. To be clear I am not advocating that we shouldn’t offer an opinion to issues such as politics and worship content but I do question why I see more of these types of discussions from Christians rather than posts of love and hope? I believe we are susceptible to losing the order of our priorities.
There is nothing new under the sun here. In the book of Micah, the prophet addresses the people of Jerusalem and Samaria. Sacrifices and ceremony have become more important than love, justice and mercy (Micah 6:8) and God is calling them to repent and re-prioritize. 750 years on we can see this happening again in the lives of the Pharisees who are like “whitewashed tombs", beautiful on the outside but dead inside (Matt 23:27). Today we can often fall into the same trap of getting things in the wrong order. I have noticed that life’s demands and influences often fight for our time and our priorities. So what does this have to do with my observations on Facebook earlier? Personally I think the issues raised in both instances are important, but secondary. When the secondary things start to form the majority of what we post, talk about and give our time to surely we must reassess? My Dad often reminds me, “Gareth make sure to major on the majors”. Not to get distracted by the minors but to keep focus on keeping the “main thing the main thing.” That is to love God with all my heart, soul and mind and to love my neighbor. (Matt 22:36-40)
I believe that we are really blessed to live in such a time. We are the generation that lives in the social media revolution. The average person on Facebook has 340 friends! What would it look like if we were to take this platform and use it as a medium to share the good news of Jesus? What would it look like if we were to get radical and focused about our calling and time on earth? To share posts of good news, mercy over judgment and hope to a hopeless world?
This is one of the reasons I work for CV, we make resources that make sharing Jesus online easy and relevant to today’s culture. I dream of seeing Facebook feeds all over the world reaching lost people with stories of hope, healing and reconciliation.
