Do not confuse irreverence for relevancy in church communications

We serve a holy God.

There is a tendency today for some in church communications circles to use shocking, profane, flippant language or advertising with the rational of making the church appeal to the unchurched, or to make their communications appear edgy, professional, and contemporary.

This is wrong. Categorically, totally, completely, wrong.

As Jesus' ambassadors and representatives our words and lives are not to reflect the tone and words of our world, but to reflect his character and holiness.

The Bible is clear in how this relates to our communications:

"Live a life worthy of the calling you have received. . . .  Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body. . . . . Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice"(Eph. 4:1; 25-31).

"Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man" (Col. 4: 6).

Graceful, worthy words, no corrupt communication, are just a few of the many, many worthwhile terms that should characterize our communications. As obvious as these passages seem, their message of holy, worthy words is not universally accepted in all circles of church communications today.

Some believe that it is OK, in the interests of sharing the messages of the church, to use language that shocks, offends, or frustrates. In addition to language that would have caused my mother to wash my mouth out with soap, some of this persuasion believe sexually suggestive images on billboards and sermon topics will get people to church—where of course then a proper biblical message will be preached.

This is an unbiblical and unworthy approach.

There is much that can be said about this, but as politically incorrect, old-fashioned, or out-of-it, as it may seem today, our communications need to reflect holiness and a holy God. Jesus somehow mastered the ability to be totally relevant and yet completely without sin. Perhaps if we study him more, rather than aping what appears to work in secular marketing, we might become better at relevance without irreverence.

Snarky, profane, and cynical is the default mode of secular communications, not Christ's followers

This is not easy to refrain from being snarky, profane, and cynical.

This challenge is more than theory to me. I struggle greatly with it. I grew up the daughter of a WW2, drill-sergeant, career military father, whose language was colorful, to say the least, and often critical.  Like most kids, I naturally talked like my father, and as an adult it is a constant challenge to make my speech and communications reflect my heavenly Father and not my earthly father. But that is what they must be if I am to communicate for Jesus.

Whether part of our upbringing or not, it is easy to reflect the cynical, critical, superior tone of contemporary secular communications. That is the default tone of our sinful nature. To pick apart, to find fault, and to laugh the superior laugh of those in the know as opposed to those who create church communications that don't please our refined taste, can be delicious fun, especially if we can share it with like-minded cynical souls.

To carry that attitude into our church communications, to reflect the flippant, irreverent attitudes of the secular world in our communications then becomes the goal.

Thinking we have to communicate like the world to communicate to the world seems to be the savvy thing to do.

But it isn't right. In addition, it isn't a successful way to share our faith. When the church mocks itself, it doesn't draw people to Jesus. It gives people outside the church permission to mock the church and our Lord. It is extraordinarily, spiritually dangerous to model to those outside the church that it is acceptable to mock the King of Kings and Lord of Lords before whom we will all bow. I worry that those who do this, do not have a correct view of the Savior that their church says they are sharing. We all need a renewed vision of the majesty and glory of the God we serve, if we want to correctly communicate His message. We aren't alone in this need. In the Old Testament Isaiah had communicated as a spokesman for God to the Jewish people, for several years, when he had a new vision of the God he represented:

"In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another:

 "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty;

  the whole earth is full of his glory."

 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.

 "Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty."

 Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for."

 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?"

 And I said, "Here am I. Send me!" (Isaiah 6:1-8).

We all need to pray for a vision of our holy God. We need to pray that we will have a correct perception of his majesty, purity and power. When we get a glimpse of that, we need to repent where we have fallen short in representing Him. We need to pray that we will learn from Jesus, around whom sinners were comfortable and who was a welcome host at parties, but when he asked, "Who can accuse me of sin?" no one could answer. We need to pray that we will always do our communications in light of an audience of One—our Lord Jesus and with our eyes on him receive the wisdom for how to communicate his love for the world he died to save.

Peace should permeate our communications

In addition to the negative influence of current communications trends in the church itself, as I write this an ugly, vicious tone of public discourse has entered our world. Though each person is ultimately accountable to his or her Lord, I humbly believe from my study of scripture that there is no excuse for people who call themselves followers of Jesus to blast every foe or perceived political offense with slanderous, true or untrue, angry tirades. I do not see anywhere in the Bible were there are exceptions to these verses:

"Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: 'It is mine to avenge; I will repay, ' says the Lord.  On the contrary: 'If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.  Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.' "(Romans 12: 17-21).

"Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God. Show proper respect to everyone: Love the brotherhood of believers, fear God, honor the king" (1 Peter 2:16-17).

We were taught as children that we could disagree without being disagreeable. We would do well to remember that advice as adults.

An attitude of kindness in communications won't always be appreciated

When I tried, gently I hoped, to challenge someone who was making some rather strong, nasty statements about a church situation and those in authority, he responded angrily that Moses talked like that to people, so he had every right to do that.

"Maybe so," was my reply, "but you aren't Moses."

If we haven't been commissioned by God out of burning bush to deliver a message, we need to be careful that our tone does not exceed our authority.

You will speak in response to the voices you hear

Whether we intend to or not, we all naturally mimic the voices we listen to the most. If you spend your time listening to angry talk radio, television, and reading inflammatory or snarky blogs and editorials, you may, without thinking, assume this is the way to communicate.

Because the human heart is so naturally attracted to what is self-serving and so easily deceived, as Christian communicators we need to take extra care that the primary voice filling our hearts and minds is the Word of God. The public reputation, air time, or title of national celebrities matters little if their words do not reflect the words, tones, and attitudes of the Bible. This does not mean that a person can quote a verse out of context (as is often done) and that quoting that verse means they speak for God. Remember the devil can quote scripture and twist it for his purposes. When this happens, as it did to Jesus in Matthew 4, we should respond with the proper, peaceful, appropriate words of God.

You will only achieve the needed peace and wisdom in these situations, if you spend significant time each day in God's Word.

God's Word must saturate your life for you to be able to respond appropriately to, and communicate correctly about, the issues and challenges our world faces. To be able to do that, my personal primary spiritual discipline is to read through the Bible every year in chronological order. You need to know the entire Bible, its themes, its values, and its voice for it to influence your communications. There are many online programs (just do a search for "read through the Bible in a year") that will send you an email of a daily plan to read through the Bible in a year either to your computer or mobile phone.

In addition to the value of reading the Bible every day, listen to it. There are many websites that have audio Bible readings. Our Bible was initially written to be read out-loud and throughout most of human history hearing the Word was the primary method people accessed it. Download the Bible into your mp3 players or mobile phone and listen to it as you walk, work-out, and work. If even if you read it regularly, hearing it will give you another level of understanding and will again permeate your mind and heart so that the Bible's voice will be the primary one you listen to.

Jesus reminded us that "out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks," and out of that same heart, the computer creates church communications. What's inside you will come out in the tone and content of your communications. Let the music and poetry, the truth and majesty of God's Word, be the primary influence on your words.

Make it a matter of prayer

In addition to the work of consciously making God's Word a part of your life, pray for discernment in your choice of content, so that the words and images you choose reflect our holy God in all you create in your church communications. Pray for discernment so you will create what is pleasing to the Lord as your primary audience, not an online coterie of witty communication critics.

This is an extremely serious issue, not one to be taken lightly or to be relegated to matters of taste or to dismiss it as the viewpoint only of old, out-of-it folks who don't know how to relate to the younger generation.

No matter what age group we attempt to reach, how we initially communicate the gospel message will have a lasting effect on how people live out their faith. If Jesus is presented using profanity, snarky, irreverent, or off-color language, or overly sexualized advertising (which some members of the Christian communication community do and if you are not familiar with their work, consider yourself fortunate), how can we ever, with integrity, challenge these believers to purity in speech and life? How can snarky become sanctified?

We must go beyond bad language and a critical attitude to make sure our communication correctly portrays Biblical reality

If Jesus is presented as the giver of your best life now and all the goodies you can want from parking places to first class upgrades are yours if you follow him, what will we say when the new believer who bought into this version of Christianity is laid off with no health insurance and his wife discovers she has cancer? Or when a drunk driver kills a child? Or when work is downsized, hours cut, and even feeding the family becomes a challenge? How do you explain believers in other nations who are starving or the victims of genocide?

It is nearly impossible to guide new believers to Christian maturity if you misrepresent the foundational truths of the Christian faith. Once again, if you don't know your Bible well, you may not even know when you are communicating falsely. But ignorantly creating false communication does not make it any less false. Bait and switch in any area of advertising results in resentment and anger. Bait and switch in the presentation of the gospel can have eternally harmful consequences.

We can create professional, beautiful, and effective communications without reflecting the voice and values of the world around us

We are to be salt and light. This isn't easy to do, but it is what we must strive for. No matter how we do it, at the end of the day we always need to look at what we have created in our church communications and always ask:

* Does this reflect a holy God?

* Does it echo the words of Scripture or the howls of inflammatory media?

* Is it the representation of timeless truth or contemporary culture?

* Is this Christ-honoring?

In contemplating these questions, I'm reminded of one of the prayers of the early Christians. As they waited in the dungeons below the amphitheater before they would be taken out at dawn to be torn apart by wild animals, they knew what awaited them. There would be a huge crowd surrounding them, screaming for their blood. They would die a horrid, painful death.

We know from their prayers they were also very aware that how Christians faced that death, in a time when public preaching was forbidden and churches met in secret, caused many people to consider the claims of Christ because of the witness given by his followers in the arena as they died. As they anticipated being torn apart by animals, they knew that this would be the last time they could demonstrate what it meant to follow Jesus. As they waited in the darkness, probably as trembling and afraid, as we would be, they prayed:

"Lord Jesus Christ, don't let me cause you shame."

May that always be our prayer as we create communications for Jesus.

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