Take this mashup to heart people. Seriously, we tend to over-sell what God is doing in our ministries a lot with big words. I’m beginning to see the same thing on the technological front too.
It’s not that God isn’t doing great things or amazing things with web technology; He is. But I think the general tendency is to proclaim every new ministry-advance as a technological-breakthrough, which we know isn’t true.
Let’s stay humble and keep our feet on the ground. We’re not the first and we’re not going to be the last.
Brad Ruggles says
Saw that video yesterday and got a chuckle out of it.
The point you made is very true. If EVERYTHING is amazing, awesome or the greatest thing since sliced bread, we cheapen our message.
"What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun" (Eccl. 1:9)
human3rror says
scripture ftw!
Graham Brenna says
Ooo! Nicely done sir!
Sam says
incredibly amazing awesome post.
human3rror says
THANKS! I THOUGHT IT WAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
😉
Sam says
What you say is so true. I think some times we try to hard to manufacture energy instead of relying on God. We can almost make God sound like a product instead of a person. Love it.
Steve Knight says
When I hear church leaders (I won't name any names) talk about how "Awesome!" things are in their churches and ministries week after week after week, it just begins to ring hollow. And, well, it just feels like hype. It's no longer giving praise to God as much as it's marketing a ministry. And that's what bothers me about all the "Awesome!" chatter on Twitter and blogs. It just doesn't feel honest.
When do these church leaders talk about the dark times? the hard times? the times when they're really struggling or questioning or hurting? We know they do, they *must*, because that's real life — the life we all know and experience. Again, I think this is a product of the evangelical culture that doesn't (in general) deal with problems and difficulty well or restore people who have "fallen." Any possible chink in the leader's armor could lead to their downfall, so it perpetuates this cycle of "Everything's great!" and "Everything's awesome!" I think it's a trap, and I think a lot of these church leaders know it — but no one seems to have the courage to call it what it is and flip the script.
Jeremy Young says
Good call Steve,
I recently wrote a post about Pastors and church leaders who are continuously sending out monotone tweets about how awesome church is going to be,
Man, I had to stop following these guys.
I couldn't believe they had nothing worth while to listen too.
Such a shame that these guys are influencing so many christians with meaningless messages.
@khoocreative says
I don't know – if God gives us a fantastic tool for us to use, then we should be joyful and do the best we can with it. Perhaps what is needed is a balancing out – that this world shouldn't be viewed through rose-coloured glasses – that we should be reminded to be brave in times of persecution, to be on guard against sin and most importantly, to have a reverent fear of God.
human3rror says
Chris,
good point. I'm just making a blanket-point that we can oft-be tempted to over-exaggerate our own personal and ministry impact.
🙂