Unlike other jobs, I give notice to Solid Rock Christian Fellowship after almost 11 years with a heart heavy with so many emotions. I know that where I am going is where God wants me to be in the interim before I launch as a Social Media person with WorldVenture. Other doors closed this week, too. Not that I can go into any detail, but an old life is fading and a new life is beginning.
Change is something a person can count on. It’s a constant. I’ve experienced so much change the last couple of years. It leaves me breathless. Even as I watch winter fade into spring, I am excited for the future. When I sing songs in church, I hear them differently now. It begs the question: Are you really living on faith? I mean, really?
- Do you give until it hurts?
- Do you step through open doors in your life not knowing why, but doing it anyway because God opened that door? You risk awkward silences and disaster stepping through; OR you risk blessing yourself and others in the process.
- Do you go without to make something God wants happen? Or are you only willing to serve within your comfort zone?
Lastly, are you really impassioned about sharing your faith? I mean, really? I ask this because when I mention the online world and how people can funnel that passion through this tool to share the Gospel, I get one common response: “I don’t like change.” This usually follows after, “I hate Facebook.”
“I hate change,” is a barrier I come up against time and time again. It’s not just a barrier to what I do, but it is a barrier that keeps people from learning how to use the online world as a tool to build relationships and share their faith. Social media is simply a conversation. It’s like meeting someone in the hallway and asking, “How are you?” And instead of walking away after a short answer, staying to listen.
The church isn’t dying. The church has a communication problem. This problem is keeping the church in a building and causing people who are online to sound like angry Americans because the church isn’t learning how to train their people how to use the online world in appropriate ways or teaching how to contextualize responses to another person’s culture.
I would love to hear how your church is training your congregation to serve online. If you aren’t training them, why not?