“Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.” ~ 1 John 4:7
What did we do before email?!
I realize that email communication is so easy and simple in “staying connected” to family, co-workers, and church folk. Now we have TWITTER and FACEBOOK to feel even more socially connected to friends and family. Isn’t it great?
Nope, not really!
Email is the flat transfer of information. It can be a useful follow-up communication after an in-person meeting or even telephone call, but email isn’t guaranteed to communicate what the sender intends the recipient to hear. Email is a task-management device, at best; and at worst, it has the potential to destroy relationship, team morale, and church ministry.
When a person, a business, or a church uses email as the primary means to “nurture” relationship, then what may suffer the most is love. How can we love one another when we fail to spend time with one another, look at one another; and appreciate our diversity and creativity together? Laugh with each other, sharing moments that create memories, which form the foundation of all meaningful relationships? Learn together how to be lovers, partners, friends, and members of a faith community through challenging conversations and risk-taking vulnerabilities?
What did we do before email?
We, as a society, would sit together on front porches, in barber and beauty salon chairs, restaurants, street corners, grocery stores, coffee shops, churches, and so many other places to have conversation that increased the probability that we’d have to listen to each other as much as we talked at one another.
Emails and Web Postings. VLOGS and BLOGS. Texting and Twittering. What does all of that provide for us?
They are places to post and record whatever we want to say in whatever way we want to say it without necessarily being held accountable for our words.
We post or click “send,” perhaps not really thinking about how our words affect another. We post and send, perhaps not being held accountable to our kin because we aren’t a breath away from our words leaving our lips and entering the ears of a brother or sister, watching their reaction/reflection to what we spoke; and then responding, requiring us to listen with the same attention they afforded to us.
How do we choose a better way to stay connected?
There is so much power in the personal connection that happens when two or more are gathered. It is written in the second creation story of our Bible that God said, “It is not good for the human to be alone.” (Genesis 2:18) We are social creatures.
When 55% of our communication is non-verbal we ought to learn from the power of being personally present with one another. Add in the 38% for vocal tone and inflection and one has to wonder why we even bother trying to make email and blogs our primary means of communication!
Connecting to God through Church & Worship
Often I hear a person say to me, “Pastor, God isn’t talking to me!” or “I don’t sense God in my life at all.”
I can appreciate the pain and frustration I often hear in their voices and see in their eyes. There have been times in my life when I felt an absence of God’s presence. That doesn’t mean that God wasn’t present, but it does mean that I couldn’t connect to God or be open to allow God to connect with me.
The value of being an active and present member of faith community is that when I was disconnected to God and self, I was around those who were connected; and together we sought the power and presence of a God who is with us.
Healing takes place within the context of community, communication, and communion with God.
It is as important for a person who feels connected to God to be present in the life of the church to help others connect as it is for the disconnected to reach toward brothers and sisters and say, “I am lost. Can you help me?”
Stay Connected to Church this Spring & Summer
As the wonderful warm weather returns, and the temptation to play in the sun overtakes the heart to worship the Son of God, I challenge you to keep connected.
Often what begins to happen this time of year is the persons who have overused email as a means to communicate through the fall and winter tend to drift away during spring and summer, and then they become disconnected from the church.
Equally true, the leaders and members of the church relying on email to communicate begin to see less and less response to their pleas for assistance for events and programs and they begin to get discouraged.
Finally, the little kids inside of us want to play like we did when school was out for summer!
By the time fall rolls around some of us are missing and some of us feel isolated and some of us wonder what happened?
I encourage those of you who care about relationships of love to live them out in person and not in email; and to stay connected this summer, growing in our love for God and each other.
How shall we do this, pastor?
I suggest taking a moment to remember what worked for us before email. We pick up the phone and plan a date to be together; and we come to church to keep connected!
“Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.” ~ 1 John 4:7
