Part 14 - Social Media 

 

Showing our best side

I want to list some pros and cons on this tool we are all becoming very used to. Please do pause and reflect:

  Pros

• What a blessing that we can stay in touch. Imagine if this had happened ten or twenty years ago.
• Prayer meetings can go ahead with zoom facilitating things
• We can share encouraging videos and blogs like this!
• We can have a pre-recorded service
• We can stay informed of what's happening in the church family
• Families can stay connected, even when people are isolating. How many facetimes have been appreciated over the past few weeks!

GIVE THANKS TO GOD FOR THESE

Cons

• We can hide behind social media and in the long term, we could use it to replace actual fellowship. When all this ends we need to get physically back into meeting together as believers in the local church.
• Fake news can circulate.
• The challenge of knowing and being known properly. The reality is that for most of us, the pastor in New York, or wherever, doesn't actually know me and I don't know him even though I might watch his sermons. I know its obvious, but people have fallen into the trap of that. Our primary focus MUST be local, for encouragement.

PROBABLY ALL OF THESE ARE OBVIOUS, but I have experienced each of these personally over the years, and so I guess others could too.

Jesus is called the head of the body, the church. '....instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work' (Ephesians 4:15-16).

One of the particular trials at the moment is that- as you will understand- a body is meant to be physically connected in its various parts. If the parts are not physically connected they have some real issues!! And we have real issues if we don't meet together. As Paul writes to the local church in Ephesians, I think he is making this very point. There is no such thing as virtual local church in normal life! However, given the strange situation we find ourselves in, we recognise that for a season we have to be apart physically. But spiritually speaking it is life support (intensive care) for the spiritual body, and not the long term solution. While we give thanks for the pros, don't be conned.