Written by T. M. Suffield |
Monday, November 1, 2021
It is easier—more comfortable, less effort, and less vulnerable—to engage with church content on social media platforms than to do so in person would be. While using the platforms to their upmost could be a helpful step into church for many—and enough so that I think it’s worth engaging in some fashion—the conversion will be hard, and harder the more you’ve suggested what you’re doing online is church. Also, plenty of people will feel the draw the other way, to disengage from meeting together and to use the online ‘alternatives’ instead.

This article in the New York Times describes two tools that Facebook are developing for churches. Firstly, a subscription service, “where users pay, for example, $9.99 per month and receive exclusive content, like messages from the bishop” and secondly a prayer service “where members of some Facebook groups can post prayer requests and others can respond.”
As my friend Duncan put it to me:
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptise them and teach them to observe all that I have commanded you. But make sure to put the really good teaching behind a paywall.
Friends, Scientology is not our model. The fact that senior leaders of a number of churches didn’t immediately smell a rat means something’s gone wrong with their noses.
I won’t speculate what their problems may be, but this is a terrible idea. So terrible it surely only needs to be laughed at. What we offer we offer for free. Yes, we ask for people’s money, that’s how all churches exist and continue to run, but these are generous offerings in response to what they received from God.
Or in the crassest terms, if you really want an extra £10 a month from someone, teach them the really good stuff. God might inspire them to want to give it to you.
Praying to commercial gods
I’m more concerned about the prayer tool, because it sounds like something we might conceivably use. But why are Facebook doing this? After all, Facebook is not our friend. People who used to work there have been surprisingly candid about their intent to ‘exploit a vulnerability in human psychology’.1 The old adage that if it’s free you’re the product rings true. Facebook are an advertising company, which they make no bones about.
I am concerned that if I input my prayer request I will be bombarded with adverts on their platforms for services which will fix my problem in some fashion. I may even be deceived into thinking this is a message from the Lord. Can the Almighty move an advertising algorithm to my benefit? Yes. But that doesn’t mean he did.
Imagine the most painful situation. A couple struggling with the deep feelings of shame and the ongoing heartache of infertility summon up the courage to input their prayers online. Adverts from fertility clinics, potentially offering all manner of unethical options, abound. At best this is confusing, most likely asking for prayer seems to have deepened their pain.
Even in a more run-of-the-mill situation, do I want an advertising company knowing my deepest thoughts? Their business is structured around knowing as much as they can about me in order to sell me things.
Or, if people are aware of this, do we want them to be afraid to ask for prayer because of how Facebook might use it?
It’s quite possible that many of the tools they’re developing will be useful to gospel ministry. Have a look at my previous post to for some initial thoughts about tools in ministry, and how to approach those questions.
Connection-makers
Facebook’s COO, Sheryl Sandberg is quoted as saying “Faith organizations and social media are a natural fit because fundamentally both are about connection.”
Are they? It’s the sort of thing that sounds very reasonable in an executive’s mouth, but let’s pause to hear the nonsense. Is Christianity fundamentally about connection? Is church? It sounds like it could be true enough for us to nod along, but it’s not actually true. It’s truth-adjacent, if you will. It isn’t wrong, but it’s not what the message of the crucified carpenter king is about at all.
“I died on the cross because I really want you all to love each other and get connected.”
Not Jesus, thank goodness
Let’s not accept the premise. Are we given ‘connection’ with God by Jesus work on our behalf? I suppose, but much better I’m given sonship, friendship, and a table richly laden. I’m adopted, not simply connected. By the Emperor of the cosmos, the Potentate of Time. As the meme goes, “you and I are not the same.”
A Centre of Gravity
Here perhaps we reach for a bigger lesson. Is there nothing that cannot be online? Is there nothing that cannot be subsumed under totalising social platforms? Sometimes it feels like there isn’t anything left. But it’s a lie. Most of what makes life good, from the Lord’s table to gathering around my table, is not online.
I appreciate that there will be some who would beg to differ, and that they have often been driven to online places that understand them from deep and lasting hurt. I can only sympathise and gently suggest that while I’m sure those spaces have been very helpful, there is better promised.
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Written by David P. Cassidy |
Thursday, August 3, 2023
Overture 23, however, provides a unique opportunity to unite around language that avoids the unclear and potentially harmful while humbly and joyfully affirming the Biblical standards for sexual holiness we expect from the Officers of Christ’s Church. I was delighted to vote in its favor, will work with others for its passage in our Presbyteries, and hope for its adoption by the Fifty-First General Assembly.

For the past several years, the PCA has been embroiled in debates about, studies of, and Overtures concerning a whole array of issues surrounding human sexuality. That’s hardly unusual for ecclesiastical communions these days. After all, these are difficult and contentious matters, and our perspectives are often shaped by personal experiences and backgrounds as varied as the creatures in the sea – and sometimes just as frightening. Such debate and dissension can be an understandably wearying process to go through. That’s aggravated by the fact that we are by nature an impatient people, made even more so by the speed of technology. We stand in front of microwaves muttering, “C’mon already.”
Yet we really should rejoice in the debate and the process. Through it all, we can grow in our capacity to listen to one another, learn from each other, and – as we all wish to do – accomplish the work of the Church in such a way that her understanding, holiness, witness, and mission are strengthened for God’s glory. We need each other to free one another from the captivity of our lack of knowledge, our misgivings, fears, parochial prejudices, and even our wounds. In the end, attentive and patient work with one another can eventually yield peaceful fruit and deeper maturity. I think that’s the outcome we see in the success enjoyed by Overture 23 at our recent General Assembly.
By a vote of 1673-223, the Fiftieth General Assembly of the PCA overwhelmingly approved Overture 23 submitted by the Mississippi Valley Presbytery. There is much in it to commend to our churches, leadership communities, and Officers, and as a testimony to the wider communion of Christ’s Church. The Overture addresses the Biblical mandate for all of our Deacons and Elders to be above reproach in sexual holiness, not only in their conduct but also in their teaching and public declarations concerning the Church’s doctrine on sexuality.
The Apostle Paul was understandably concerned about Christians learning to follow Jesus in the path of holiness as his disciples. He emphasized it, especially with the fledgling churches in his mission in the Roman world. The Classical world was a society that displayed a sexual ethic vastly different than one reflecting God’s love and kindness. Rooted in power and often characterized by both brutality and hedonistic pursuit of mere pleasure instead of love, the Roman world’s views stood in need of a great sexual revolution. That certainly arrived with the Gospel.
The Roman view gave men free rein to explore their sexual appetites but greatly restricted and frequently denied a woman’s high place in marriage, giving them no authority in their sexual relationships with their husbands (and in virtually no other way either). Both male and female slaves, including young boys and even children, were viewed as degraded objects provided for the pleasure of owners and superiors. On the other hand, Christian teaching viewed all people as God’s offspring to be honored and loved. Sexual license, the abuse of power, and the dishonoring of any through sexual exploitation were steadfastly opposed by Christian teaching. Ancient Christians recognized every person as an image-bearer of God and acknowledged that a Christian’s body is a sacred space, the Temple of the Holy Spirit.
Our approach to sexuality originates in God’s good creation of all things and in his redemption of the world from our fall into sin, joining believers by the Spirit to his Son. Referring to creation, Jesus taught that our sexual union is a gift between men and women in a life-long covenant marriage bond protecting wives from abandonment and improper divorce by unfaithful husbands. He also upheld the Law, highlighting and emphasizing not only the necessity of our external conformity to it but also our need for cleansing from every internal disordered desire that does not submit to it (see Matthew 5-7 and 19).
The Apostles preserved and applied Jesus’ teaching, urging the ancient Christians to abandon their conformity to long-held cultural norms of power and pleasure and to be instead transformed by God’s grace, embracing mutual respect between husbands and wives, chastity as singles, and purity of heart in all things.
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The pastor’s ministry does not replace mine; it refines mine. It makes our ministry better, more effective. Your pastor equips you for the work of ministry, for the building up the body of Christ into mature manhood (Ephesians 4:12–13). This ministry finds some expression on Sunday mornings as you serve, you prepare, and you exercise your own gifts and acts of love within your local body. Much of the best ministry in healthy churches happens by those who never hold a microphone.

The first step is to survive the coordinated attacks from the children. An ex-nihilo stain suddenly appears on my daughter’s dress. An episode from my son responding to his sister’s “help.” A well-placed plastic Lego planted strategically at the bottom of the steps. And of course, a soiled-through diaper just as we head for the door.
Safely in the car, we prepare to play our part of our church’s ministry for that Sunday’s gathering. I have no formal duties this week — I am not preaching or welcoming or giving the prayer of thanksgiving — but I ready myself and my family for ministry nonetheless.
A worship song plays. Swerving along the main road cratered as the moon, we arrive at the chosen traffic light signaling time to pray for the service. The music pauses, and a hush falls on the car.
Father, please be with us as we worship you in spirit and in truth. Bless the pastor to preach your word with power. Give us ears to hear and obey your word. Have mercy on your beloved people. Let us see Christ. If any do not truly know you, save them. And Lord, prepare us now to be a blessing to your people.
After we park, we turn our energies to greeting the saints and getting all of our kids into the pew.
As the service begins, we focus on the lyrics being sung, asking God to warm our hearts and the hearts of those around us. My two oldest, imitating their parents, throw up their hands. We praise him with our whole person. Lord, accept our songs in your Son. Forgive our coldness and distractions.
As worship continues, my wife and I see some new faces, some faces we have not seen in a while, some faces we have been praying for. We note people we want to make sure to talk to after the service.
The preacher soon mounts the pulpit. O Lord, give him love for your glory, love for your people, love for your word. Bless him to preach as one speaking your oracles. Speak to us through this man.
After the preaching, after the final song and benediction are given, we look around — a big part of our ministry begins. Who would you have us speak with, encourage, welcome to the church, pray for, confront? How do you plan to use us to bless those around us in the pews this week?
Does My Church Need Me?
Here is the main point, the truth that can revolutionize your walk with the Lord and your experience of the local church: If you know and love the Lord Jesus Christ, you have something to contribute to your local church every Sunday morning.
Do you believe that? Do you come not only to receive — which you should — but to also bless?
This has been hard for “normal” Christians to believe ever since the beginning. In the early church, members looked around the house churches in Corinth and saw different usefulness in the Lord, different giftings. Some seemed more essential, and others more dispensable.
Responding to such thinking, Paul writes, “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’ On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable. . .” (1 Corinthians 12:21–22).
Indispensable.
In too many churches today, the feet, hands, and ears say of themselves, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body” (1 Corinthians 12:16) — because we do not preach, teach, or host small group — we are not needed. Hands show up on Sundays, listless, merely to listen to the mouth speak. They rest in the audience, treating the local church as a theater that welcomes spectators to watch more prominent saints do actual ministry.
You are not leading worship. You are not formally greeting, nor praying in the service, nor giving communion. You aren’t ushering, or serving in the nursery, or leading a women’s ministry. What part do you really play?
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