Where is God’s Voice in Today’s Church?
The Holy Scripture begins with God’s voice (Genesis 1). The Psalmist affirms that God’s voice is strong, majestic, powerful and confident (Psalm 29). The Holy Gospels describe God’s voice as parental, tender and loving (Mark 1). Holy Scripture teaches that God’s voice breathes life into things, brings light into dark places, and blesses all creation. God’s voice is central to everything.
Churches are places where there is quiet enough for communities to gather to hear God’s voice. The men and women who plan, build and maintain churches consider God’s voice central to the purpose and meaning for The Church. Every brick and beam they place and paint, creates sacred space for God’s awesome voice.
Yet, one has to wonder: Did those who built the holy spaces for God before the Internet imagine the voices that would one day compete with God’s voice in this complex world? Let us, for a moment, count the ways that other voices tempt us from God’s tender call, demanding our attention and distracting us from the all powerful and loving voice that is God speaking from the heavens, “You are my son. You are my daughter. In you I am well pleased.”
These competing voices call to us from ipod and laptop, Skype and Foursquare. We stream our TV programs. We download lectures and music from itunes. We share and view video clips, send thank you notes and greeting cards on email. We can be reached anytime, day or night, in the car, at the supermarket, at graduations, weddings and funerals.
One online add I read just yesterday said: “With this app you can access sounds from anywhere.”
Where is God’s voice in all of this noise?
The technology and education seminar I attended last week ended with a three-and-a-half-minute barrage of the voices that will revolutionize our intellectual and social landscape over the next four years. You can view this at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCsdFSt5bXI
Here are just a few of the messages from that video:
• 35 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute;
• Facebook has over 750 million active users; 50% go online every day;
• Google is the fastest growing network in the history of the world;
• Facebook tops Google in US visits and use;
• People spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook.
• 1 in 5 divorces are blamed on Facebook;
• If Wikipedia was a book, it would have 2.25 million pages.
• Wikipedia is 80% accurate.
All this is happening as I write, and the media revolution is moving ahead at a rapid pace.
By the end of the 3.5 minutes I was literally sick in my stomach, dizzy and nauseous at the thought of how this revolution is changing our social and spiritual lives.
The lesson of technology is: “Don’t sit around waiting for the storm to end. Learn to dance in the rain.”
Last week, I was given a glimpse into a thundering storm, with a dissonance so loud it knocked me off balance. I heard nothing but noise. Tempted by must-have technological creations, I asked myself: “What if God were to speak again? Would God’s voice be heard?”
Once upon a time, long ago in the human understanding of God, “The LORD saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually … and it grieved God’s heart. So the LORD said, ‘I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created--people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.’”
And God caused a great flood, and only a remnant was preserved.
Is God sorry about the Covenant made with Noah?
Is God troubled about today’s social media frenzy?
Did the scoffers and doubters who witnessed Noah’s alternate path think his ways were passé? Did they laugh and say, “What’s all the fuss about a storm? Come dance in the rain!”
In the town, where I live, a group of clergy meet once a month at a local Starbucks. You will not be surprised to hear that many of our conversations are about what some fear is a storm rising in The Church: Interest in parish life is falling off, pledges are down, Sunday School attendance is at an all-time low, young parents and children spend more Sunday mornings at the fields and gyms than in church. Sometimes a priest will call attention to this or that “other” church—the one with a big screen video, a rock band, 5000 members that meet in small groups made up from all the “best” people, especially those in thriving local businesses and politics.
And the question is: “Should we become like them?” That is when I hear the still small voice of Jesus say, “Lead us not into temptation.”
Dear reader, I do not fear for the Episcopal Church in today’s social media revolution because I know that when I go to church or lead a service, there is only one voice, one focus, one reason to come: To hear the voice of God, the only voice that really matters. And I know that, as long as there are people who truly search for God, they will seek that still small voice.
Now don’t get me wrong, the social media revolution offers many wonderful, useful, awesome and life-changing opportunities to access God’s voice. Just as the Bible was a more practical and compact way to compile, organize and package scriptures and scrolls, our ipads and smart phones give us easy and practical access to a world-wide “Bibliothèque.” Perhaps we should name this media revolution the Software Standard Version, having already been bitten by The Apple.
The Gospel of John opens with these words: “In the beginning was the Word,” reminding us that God’s voice was in the beginning framing life and naming things into being. Later God would say to Noah, “Never again will I curse the ground … this is my sign, a bow in the sky;” and when Jesus came to John at the Jordan, God spoke and said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, in whom I am well pleased.”
As long as there are human beings who venture forth in faith and with courage, they will come to church; and as long as churches remain true to a mission of love, and a purpose of service to others, their doors will invite us to hear again the only voice that matters.
As long as there are human beings who venture forth in faith and with courage, they will come to church; and as long as churches remain true to a mission of love, and a purpose of service to others, their doors will invite us to hear again the only voice that matters.
