Please Forward This To Everyone in Your Email Address List…

Chain emails are something I can’t stand. They show up from co-workers, family members, and especially fellow Christians warning against some great evil that is about to happen. You are implored to pass it on to everyone you know. Of course the people who send them usually don’t forward this type of thing, but “this one is different”.

Its not that I can’t just delete them – I can. However, at best, it makes me wonder about the gullibility of people; at worst, I think it is very damaging to the Kingdom of God.

There seems to be a very predictable formula for concocting a good email rumor. You start with a good serving of some group we know and distrust/dislike (e.g. liberals, ACLU, politicians). Add to that a subject that either pulls at our heart strings or gets our blood boiling (e.g. religious freedom, our troops, the flag, little children). Include an impending deadline and some people with some official sounding titles. End with a plea to send the story forward to everyone you know. Enjoy, your chain email rumor is ready. I’m not sure what people get out of creating email hoaxes, however, if they use the standard recipe they can be pretty much assured that people will pick it up and run with it.

So how can this be damaging to the Kingdom of God? Its not just about passing on slander and gossip, which I believe the Bible clearly defines as sin, but I think at the heart of it is the issue of credibility. The rumors make their way into discussions or sermons or even calls to action at church. As Christians, we are called to tell people some pretty incredible news – The Son of God came and died and rose again. If I was not a Christian and I knew that Christians commonly passed on untrue information and stories, I would never believe them. I would not believe what they said about Jesus nor would I believe anything they had to say about answers to prayer from God. Trustworthiness is something that should describe the character of all Christians. It is import because it is the nature of God – it is import to God being able to use us for His purpose.

Lastly, people have asked, “How am I to know?” as an excuse when passing on one of these hoaxes. Sometimes it is hard to tell what is true or not – but I believe if we are passing something on as true, we should be fairly sure that it is. Did it come as an email chain letter? That is a good indication right there that it may be false. You can also check out such web sites as snopes.com or truthorfiction.com. These sites might not be faultless but at least they do provide some background documentation.

By the way, please don’t forward this to anyone! ; )

Biblish

During church services, my mind often wanders to the question of whether visitors understand the message due to the words being used.

Organizations, industries, and cultures adopt terms and words that the group understands – often shortcuts to more complex ideas – but that others outside of the group don’t readily use or understand. In addition to facilitating communication, using this jargon helps people feel like they belong, that they are part of the group. The Church is no different. We’ve adopted words and developed phrases to express Biblical truths and meanings that are often gibberish to the community around us. I call this Church Speak or Biblish. I’m as guilty as anyone in using Biblish.

Years ago, this wasn’t such an issue as it was fairly safe to assume that in America, most people had a church background and were “schooled” in the use of Church Speak. Today, this is a fairly poor assumption as a large percentage of the population is un-churched. In his book “Evangelism That Works”, George Barna reports that in one study, only one-third of those questioned knew what the phrase “The Gospel” meant – and that’s one I would think most people would know. What about other words and phrases such as “washed in the blood”, “lamb of God”, “hedge of protection”, “testimony”, “Great Commission”, “born again”, “in the flesh”, “witness”, or even “sin”.

Should we care?

I believe we should be a missional church (that’s probably another example of Church Speak). By missional, I like Tim Keller’s definition of, “adapting and reformulating absolutely everything it did in worship, discipleship, community, and service--so as to be engaged with the non-Christian society around it.” Keller says a couple of things regarding communication and being missional:

“The missional church avoids 'tribal' language, stylized prayer language, unnecessary
evangelical pious 'jargon', and archaic language that seeks to set a 'spritual tone.'”; and

“The missional church avoids ever talking as if non-believing people are not present. If you
speak and discourse as if your whole neighborhood is present (not just scattered Christians),
eventually more and more of your neighborhood will find their way in or be invited.”

We are seeing more and more new people from our surrounding community attending services Sundays and Wednesday evenings. Many of these people don’t have a church background. We need to be intentional about the language we use so that they can understand and feel part of the church.

The Business of Business is...Greed

Exxon Mobil Corporation announced the largest annual profit ever by a U.S. company - $40.6 billion! (they also held the previous record of $39.5 billion, which Exxon Mobil reported for 2006). This all at a time when record fuel prices are pushing up the cost of everything else - including food, heating, and transportation.

The quote, "The business of business is business", supposedly stated by Economist Milton Friedman, is drilled into Business majors in college. I certainly heard it when I was working toward my Masters Degree in Management. It goes along with the belief in a free market and capitalism. But how far should that mantra extend? Does business have any obligations or duties to the society in which it flourishes?

For many years, I've considered myself a conservative Christian and tended to vote Republican. Lately, I've become very uncomfortable about the strong ties between Republican policy and big business. Republican politicians seem to think that what is good for business is good for everybody. It bothered me that the first place that Mitt Romney visited upon arrival in Jacksonville during the Florida Primary campaign was Gate Petroleum. Republicans talk about conservative values and expect Christians to fall in line behind them. Is greed a conservative value? If it is, I guess I need to rethink the idea about being conservative. My Lord certainly spoke out against greed and taking advantage of the poor.

I'd probably give up on Republicans except that Democratic politicians leave me cold too.