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I was in an electrical store recently looking at the huge selection of flat screened, HD and Smart TV’s on sale besides a vast range of smart-phones, tablets and e-book readers. We live in a media-saturated society where the average person watches in excess of twenty hours TV per week and is, therefore, confronted by a vast range of images, people and points of view. If knowledge is power then the average person today is very powerful indeed. And we’re not confined by TV schedules anymore we can watch TV whenever we want to at a time that suits us. And when we’ve had enough of one channel we can switch over at the push of a button to something else – almost endlessly. Maybe this is why politics is conducted in sound-bites these days rather than through lengthy discourses. People aren’t compelled, as they once were, to sit for ages watching TV they can watch it wherever they like even walking along the street. And many do. The number of people I see gazing glassy-eyed into a smart phone while out walking, maybe pushing a buggy or waiting at a bus stop, is growing all the time. Yet with their earphones in they’re completely cut-off from the world around them. Theirs is a “no-entry” world out of bounds to the passer-by. That’s the kind of isolated existence many are living today. A world of text messages and blogs where conversation through the spoken word is conspicuous by its absence.
Yet should this media-savvy person venture into any one of a thousand churches today they’re likely to be puzzled at how time has stood still. The way worship is conducted in churches up and down the land has more in common with Victorian England than with the X Factor. Not that I’m a fan of the X Factor I’m not. Too much of TV today makes a virtue out of criticising people; laughing in their faces before casting them aside as useless. Why anyone would want to put themselves through this beats me. So, despite living in the digital age (and the quality of today’s TV pictures is truly amazing) much of what is transmitted into our homes is truly awful.
The question for us, as a church, is: how are we adapting to the “Facebook” generation? We don’t need to be on Twitter or Facebook but we do need to be aware that these are the sites that many turn to receive and exchange information. We too are in the communication business. So we have a golden opportunity not only to reinvent ourselves as a church but to excel as a “positive” voice in a “negative” media-saturated world. Jesus said: seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. (Matthew 6:33, KJV). Our first priority is to seek after a life-affirming, relationship with God which sets the agenda for everything else we do. There’s a media revolution going on out there are we part of it or are we back in the flickering picture-palaces of old with a sherbet-dip and bag of crisps? Are we with the media or with the mediocre? It’s a question of imagination, flair and risk-taking. At heart I’m a traditionalist but I know that if we’re to be relevant, let alone to flourish, we need to change what we do and how we do it. But first we need to know, and experience, the love, the happiness, the joy and the peace of God for ourselves; that’s the real X factor in life. May God bless you as 2012 gets underway.
In Jesus’ name
Derek Marsh
February 2012
Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. (Matthew 6:33,
KJV)
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