Church and My Twitter Feed

"And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."  Micah 6:8
 

Lately I have become more addicted to my Twitter feed (@revanner) as I have found it to be the most immediate and reliable source of news on the various struggles for freedom in the Middle East (and increasingly here at home as well).
 

First I followed American journalists who covered foreign affairs.  Through their tweets I was introduced to journalists from Al Jazeera who were covering events and through their tweets I discovered just regular Egyptians, Libyans, Yemenis and people from Bahrain who were simply tweeting their fears, their euphoria, and what they were seeing in front of them on the streets, in the hospitals, and in their homes.  And I began simply to retweet their messages as a way of bearing witness to their struggles, hardships, and victories.  Their tweets became my guide to prayer.
 

At the same time I was also, in the same way, following the continuing labor protests in Wisconsin and other places in the midwest, astounded like so many that our own media is giving it so little attention.  I see tweets of the news from earthquake-ravaged Christchurch, New Zealand, and see the real effects of climate change on the world.
 

Through my twitter feed I can see at a glance the roiling tumult of our times, both at home and abroad, and can understand that we are living in an age that is transforming the globe at least for decades if not forever.
 

Which brings me to a day last week as I scrolled through all of that on my twitter feed.  Right there, in the middle of people being gunned down by their own government in Tripoli, digging desperately for survivors in Christchurch, and 70,000 protestors in the Wisconsin capital again and again, there was a tweet from a church pastor that I follow.  It was announcing a forum they were having in their church.  The topic?  "Is it okay to have rap music in church?"
 

Time stopped.  In that one little tweet from a very sincere pastor who is simply trying to deal with the issues in his flock, the irrelevancy of the church today hit me like a ton of bricks.  It couldn't have been more stark.  People are risking their lives, their jobs, and shutting down governments in the name of freedom and all the church is worried about is the type of entertainment provided on Sunday morning.
 

Oh, I could try to pretend that it is just that church, but I've been in churches for half a century now, and led congregations for 13 years.  The irrelevancy revealed by that tweet is one of the reasons I now lead MassBible instead of a congregation.  I couldn't be part of it anymore.  It is not only widespread, it is close to being universal.  And so I take a moment to say what many pastors want to say but can't because they need their jobs. 
 

Hello, church?  It's not about you.  The church is not for you, the church is you, and you are called to be a light to the nations.  You are called to work for justice, to extend mercy, and to do it all with humility.  That's it.  You are not called to gather once a week for a fun, inspiring time.  You are not called to define the ways of God in perfect doctrinal and creedal statements.  You are called to service.
 

I hate to break it to you, but the hours you have spent arguing about the color of the carpet, the forms and styles of worship, chairs vs. pews, ways of serving communion, eating food in the sanctuary or other precious rooms and whether the church should have a steeple are making God chew Tums at an alarming rate.
 

The debates about hierarchy, who can receive the sacraments, how much water is needed for baptism, and who is in our out of the Kingdom of God have been big enough to split entire denominations, but their irrelevance is seen quite clearly when put in the middle of my twitter feed.
 

Church (and hear this as coming from one who loves you), get over yourself.  From the call of Abraham in Genesis 12 to the day the Holy Spirit blew through the Upper Room in Acts 2, you have been called to one thing and one thing only: Service to the world in a way that embodies the God revealed in Jesus Christ.  And what way is that?  Justly, mercifully, humbly. 
 

I will say it again.  The church is not for you, the church is you.  The world is in turmoil. Forget the petty debates and the theological squabbles and get out there and do something about it.
 

That is all.