A recent study shows that folks are more miserable after logging on to Facebook. On Facebook folks post their warm and fuzzy pics of their kids, talk about the fun things they are dong and how they love everyone. Since that doesn’t match up with all of “real” life, we get depressed when our lives doesn’t measure up to the world of Facebook. Just “log off” you say. But, it seems to me, the very same phenomenon is present in the pews of our Christian churches. At church we smile broadly, we get excited about what “God is doing.”
Our worship songs are upbeat and positive.
Nobody is as happy as he seems on Facebook. And no one is as “spiritual” as he seems in what we deem as “spiritual” enough for Christian worship. Maybe what we need in our churches is more tears, more failure, more confession of sin, more prayers of desperation that are too deep for words.
Maybe then the lonely and the guilty and the desperate among us will see that the gospel has come not for the happy, but for the brokenhearted; not for the well, but for the sick; not for the found, but for the lost.
So don’t worry about those shiny, happy people on Facebook. They need comfort, and deliverance, as much as you do. And, more importantly, let’s stop being those shiny, happy people when we gather in worship. Let’s not be embarrassed to shout for joy, and let’s not be embarrassed to weep in sorrow. Let’s train ourselves not for spin control, but for prayer, for repentance, for joy.
Have a wretched day (and a blessed one too).
Nick Sigur
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