The allure of shortcuts is an ever-present temptation, in matters of faith just as in other spheres of life. Friendship is hard. Church life is difficult. To cultivate a rich and meaningful life with God takes time and effort. We won’t grow in holiness and righteousness by racing to supplements designed to help us bypass the difficult labors of church life. It’s precisely in and through those labors that spiritual growth takes place.

When the COVID-19 lockdowns went into effect across the world in March 2020, pastors and church leaders pivoted quickly to live streaming and video as a way of keeping the lines of communication and connection open. Twenty-two percent of churches did a live stream before the pandemic; within weeks, the number had jumped to 66 percent, with 92 percent of Protestant pastors providing some kind of video sermon or worship service during the stay-at-home season.
On the other side of the pandemic, the number of churches live streaming their worship services has grown, and even though there have been some thoughtful calls to stop doing so, I suspect the practice is here to stay. (A new Pew Research survey offers an interesting look at churchgoer perspectives on live streaming.)
Larger churches have gotten especially good at presenting a cohesive and engaging broadcast of their services, rivaling the shiny Sunday morning television broadcasts from a generation ago. As any church with a television or radio ministry will tell you, a professionally packaged experience can extend the reach of a local congregation and the influence of Bible preachers and teachers.
The Supplement Is Not a Substitute
But there’s a downside to this boom in online worship services. We’re vulnerable to a cultural malady ailing Americans today: “substitutism.” That’s a term from Joshua Mitchell’s American Awakening. It’s a label that describes our perpetual quest for easy alternatives and shortcuts. It refers to our tendency to make a supplement a substitute.
In his book, Mitchell never discusses online church or live streaming worship services. He sees “substitutism” at work in other areas, such as social media and friendship. Take a look at his diagnosis of substitutism in these areas, and then I’ll apply these insights to worship.
At its best, social media enhances real-life relationships. Mitchell writes,

Social media can supplement our existing friendships; it can be a stimulant, which helps us keep in touch with old friends when we are not able to confirm through a handshake, a pat on the back, or an embrace, that we are indeed friends. We feel the presence of our friends through this supplement; but the supplement by itself, without the preexisting competence of friendship, cannot produce the feeling of presence. (xxiii)

Read More
Related Posts:

The New Puritans is a passionate and erudite exposé of the modern-day social-justice movement. With clarity and precision, Doyle exposes its countless flaws and hypocrisies. His book is an essential guide for anyone looking to understand why the culture war has grown so hot.

The New Puritans: How the Religion of Social Justice Captured the Western World, by Andrew Doyle (Constable, 336 pp., $28.99)
We often hear that cancel culture does not exist, that it’s a myth concocted by right-wing conspiracy theorists to provoke a culture war. With some irony, the purveyors of this falsehood tend to call themselves free-speech advocates. They use various methods of coercion, including gaslighting, to sow doubt. How many times have free-speech absolutists been met with the “yes, but” argument? Sure, I believe in free speech, but there must be limits. You can’t just say anything you want.
Jerry Sadowitz recently learned this pattern all too well. During the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the magician-cum-comic saw his scheduled performance at the Pleasance Theatre canceled for “offensive content,” which the theater alleged consisted of “racism, sexism, homophobia and misogyny.” The theater’s director, Anthony Alderson, released a statement that exemplified doublespeak. “The Pleasance is a venue that champions freedom of speech and we do not censor comedians’ material,” it read. And then came the “but.” “This type of material has no place on the festival and the Pleasance will not be presenting [Sadowitz’s] second and final show.”
Or you could have obscenities yelled at you in public. That’s what happened to the political satirist and writer Andrew Doyle. While he was enjoying a drink with friends in a Soho bar, a man called him “a f—ing Nazi c—t.” The man was enraged at Doyle for voting for Brexit and, writing as his alter-ego Titania McGrath, for satirizing left-wing ideas on Twitter. It turns out that this man was no stranger, but the son of a close friend. Doyle, in fact, is his godfather.
What is happening? Why do public figures, comics not least among them, live in fear of losing their livelihoods? Doyle recalls the above incident in the prologue to his book, The New Puritans, which he wrote as an attempt to answer these questions.

Related Posts:

It’s interesting to note that a good deal of biblical commands to pray come with a promise of the amazing results that prayer can have. This means that these commands to pray are not to burden us, but rather to inspire us. Don’t let a legalistic mindset make you focus on your own actions or efforts in prayer. Set your eyes on our gracious Father, and pray in confidence.

I once heard another believer give a stirring talk on prayer. Everything was profoundly encouraging until he said the following:
If you don’t spend at least two hours in prayer each day, how can you expect to live a godly life?
That sentence startled me because we just don’t see that in the Bible. Yes, it’s good to spend time in prayer. Two hours even. And prayer IS essential for sanctification. I know his statement was meant to encourage, but it may have wound up having the opposite effect in the long run, because it was legalistic.
Legalism is trying to earn God’s approval by our works, in this case our prayers or prayer life. Legalism often adds rules to our faith that God never gave us.
There are two main ways we can be legalistic about prayer: thinking too much about the quality and quantity of our prayers.
Overemphasizing quality might subtly believe that we can cajole God with the right mix of external factors like eloquence, passion, intonation, or fist pumps and hand raises. (This might be especially evident in group prayer.) Overemphasizing the quantity of our prayers acts as if God is keeping a quota for the number of times we pray or a stopwatch to track the length of our prayers.
Thankfully, a glance at biblical teaching on prayer shows that God cares about our heart posture in prayer and the content of our prayers instead of more arbitrary measures like quantity or quality.
I’d like to give recovering legalists some encouragement as we think about what God wants and doesn’t want in terms of the quality and quantity of our prayers.
The Quality of Our Prayers
There is nothing wrong with prayers that sound good or are emotional, assuming they’re prayed with the right heart. In fact, I want to help you improve the quality of our prayers by making their content as biblical as they can be. But we must not think we can bribe God to answer our prayers based on their quality.
We can’t forget that God is our Father. Think how ridiculous it would be for an earthly father to only pay attention to his children if they worded their requests JUUUUST right or with the right intonation.
Read More
Related Posts: