Culture is Changing!

I was talking with a family member the other day and while we were discussing some business opportunities, she mentioned something that really hit me. She said that when it comes to doing business the culture is changing. People are not going to stores in person as much anymore and instead shopping online. It is hard to have a “Mom & Pop” shop today, because you compete with direct sellers from the internet, and the fact that people just do not really go out to shop anymore. It is just easier to sit in the comfort of your home without the worry of salesmen/women bothering you, not having to worry about packing the kids up or going out in bad weather, and you save the gas that it would take to drive there.

It all made sense to me, as my wife and I shop online much of the time, for the very reasons just mentioned. But then I started to think about the church culture and how that is being reflected in today’s Christian life. Now you can listen to sermons live via the internet from the comfort of your own home or you can just listen later. You can chat via text, IM and Facebook with your friends without ever seeing them in person. You can play video games on the internet with people all over the world from the comfort of your own home just as easily as you can attend an online church. The culture has certainly changed.

George Barna in his research has stated that if the current trends continue in the direction they are then the church is going to lose nearly half of its life within the next 15 years. This is astonishing. He will say a lot of it is because people have been and are being hurt by the church today in a variety of ways. I think, though, that we can certainly add that the culture is changing in this form as well. In this case it is not for the betterment of the church or the Christian life, because we are designed for community. Not just IM, text and email community, but face to face community. There is something much more intimate when you are together with the church family instead of hiding behind a computer screen, and I think we are losing this aspect of our church life.

There is a danger of too much individualization, and this leads to less and less community. The question becomes how do we manage the two, as there are certainly great aspects of the internet age and what it has allowed us to do, but we don’t want to make this gift a curse by losing the body of Christ, as we are called the body?

We need to find ways to build the body through discipleship and regular interaction within the body of Christ. How do we do this in today’s changing culture? This is also a challenge because we cannot just tell people to turn their computers off, because they won’t. There needs to be some new creativity in bringing the Church community together and not just on Sunday. We need each other, yet we are isolating ourselves from each other.

Ephesians 1:18, “He is also the head of the body, the church; He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He might come to have first place in everything.”

1 Corinthians 12:13-14, “For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. So the body is not one part but many.”

Hope in Nothing?

Job 27:8, “For what hope does the godless man have when he is cut off, when God takes away his life?”

Some of you reading will be able to do this easily as you have kids and others will not, but try to put yourself in this situation for a moment. You’re coming home with your spouse on a snowy afternoon and see that your driveway is fairly covered with snow. Enough that you know if you do not shovel it now it will be nearly impossible to get out of the driveway.

You tell your spouse that you will get out and shovel the drive, and they are to move the car in the road until it is clear. Your spouse tells you to watch the children, as they are already jumping out of the car, as it is hard to contain a six year old and an 18 month old when they see snow and they are home. You nod and turn to go and get the shovel, but that moment, that one moment you turn towards the door and take your eyes off your child the unthinkable happens. In that brief moment you hear a noise no parent ever wants to hear; a shrill scream that sends a shock up your spine that is indescribable.

Turning quickly toward the shriek, you find that your eighteen month old child is now underneath the tire of the car. She has stopped making any noise and is motionless. Your adrenaline kicks in now and you panic, yelling for your spouse to back-up and you jump down to your knees and try to revive your child while screaming for your spouse to call 911. Reaching the hospital you are told that there is nothing the doctors could have done, and that your beloved daughter is no longer alive. You just lost your youngest child by a freak accident, and you may never be able to forgive yourself or your spouse.

Before you think that this is a made-up story to elicit emotion to make my point shortly, you would be sadly mistaken. The story is very real and happened to a family not too long ago. This is a story that could cause anyone to question the very existence of God. Why would He allow such an innocent child to die so early? When in fact the question should be asked, is how could anyone make it through such a tragedy if there was not a God in Heaven that cared about His creation? What hope would there be? If there is no God then there is hope in nothing, but if there is a God then there is a hope that one day you will see your daughter again. Psalm 25:1 says, “LORD, I turn my hope to You.” At this time in a family’s life, this is all one can do, as 97% of families that have a child who dies by accident like this end up in divorce. Unless there is hope that there is someplace better then it is all worthless, “If we have placed our hope in Christ for this life only, we should be pitied more than anyone” (1 Cor. 15:19).

It is easy to see logically how the atheist can give no hope to such a family. Seriously, what do they say that can be comforting at all, except “I am sorry.” Absolutely nothing, because they don’t think there is anything after this life. The question then is what do the other religions give as hope for in such an occurrence? Not much. Hindus will give them the hope that they can be reincarnated so they can come back to this sinful planet and try it all over again. I guess they should be happy that they do not remember all the turmoil and heartache that they felt the first or tenth time around. They can only hope that they move to enlightenment, but again there are different views as to what it takes to attain that state. That does not sound very hopeful to a family that just had a great loss.

You can take this for every religion, except Christianity because we see that Jesus came and gave us this hope. He defeated death and resurrected for us, giving us a hope for something much better. If there is something better then there is hope for a tragedy in this temporal time. That parent can have hope if one day they know they will see their daughter again in Heaven. Before anyone asks about children in heaven, read my answer on a previous blog (http://aleris.blogspot.com/2008/09/all-babies-go-to-heaven.html). 1 Peter 1:3-4 tells us, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to His great mercy, He has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that is imperishable, uncorrupted, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.”

How did God use this tragedy for good? Glad you asked. One of the parents went on to talk about how God used this very heavy tragedy to bring them closer to Jesus and used it to bring many of their neighbors to salvation through Jesus. Do they mourn for her? Yes, of course, but they also have hope that they will see her again and are so thankful that God can cause some good out of this horrible tragedy. In the end they say, “. . . Christ Jesus, our hope:” (1 Tim. 1:1).

The challenge is can we say the same as they did? “LORD, I turn my hope to You” (Psalm 25:1).

Psalm 147:11, “The LORD values those who fear Him, those who put their hope in His faithful love.”