{"id":32376,"date":"2022-09-10T16:07:11","date_gmt":"2022-09-10T21:07:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/4-ways-the-church-can-curb-loneliness-in-a-non-relational-culture\/"},"modified":"2022-09-10T16:07:11","modified_gmt":"2022-09-10T21:07:11","slug":"4-ways-the-church-can-curb-loneliness-in-a-non-relational-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/4-ways-the-church-can-curb-loneliness-in-a-non-relational-culture\/","title":{"rendered":"4 Ways the Church Can Curb Loneliness in a Non-Relational Culture"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Kasuma photo – Pexels<\/div>\n

By Joy Allmond<\/em><\/p>\n

Ben Sasse, a U.S. Senator from Nebraska, says loneliness, lack of community, and hostility toward ideological outsiders are some of America\u2019s\u2014and the Church\u2019s\u2014biggest problems.<\/p>\n

And he adds that two of America\u2019s addictions\u2014politics and media\u2014aren\u2019t helping matters.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn public life, we almost have no sense of we<\/em>,\u201d Sasse said during a recent Trinity Forum lecture. \u201cAnd that is strange. You [once] had local communities, and a distant community\u2014which served a distant and lesser purpose. Distant community was not something on which we imposed all sorts of grand meaning.\u201d<\/p>\n

But currently, he says, Americans have traded personal connection for virtual identity. And it\u2019s made us all the lonelier.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, because of the digital revolution and the hollowing out of local community and the evaporation of place (rootedness), in a lot of ways, we\u2019re projecting things onto a distant national identity, but aren\u2019t sure what we share.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Sasse says that\u2019s largely due to the way Americans consume media.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe vast majority of the political addiction in our country that comes from websites and cable news channels is consumed by people watching alone,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver time, people who consume more of this tend to have few connections. We\u2019re using politics to fill in for deeper, more meaningful kinds of community.\u201d<\/p>\n

This sense of community, Sasse explains, won\u2019t come fast or come easily.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd it\u2019s certainly not going to come from politics,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s only going to come when lots of people develop new habits. We have more material abundance than any place and we\u2019re feeling more and more spiritually impoverished and less communally connected.<\/p>\n

Along with the collapse of the nuclear family, he says friendships are \u201cin an absolute devastating atrophy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sasse says in 1990 the average American had 3.2 friends. Today, he says, that average has dropped to 1.8.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut there\u2019s no data that shows you\u2019re happier if you go from 200 to 500 social media friends,\u201d he quips.<\/p>\n

So what can the church offer to a rootless society?<\/p>\n

\u201cThe things the church has to offer are the things most offensive on the surface level to the outside cultures,\u201d said Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention.<\/p>\n

Moore, who shared the platform with Sasse during the Trinity Forum presentation, says there are several ways the Church can help restore connection back into American society\u2014bridging the gap between those inside and those outside.<\/p>\n

Cherie Harder (L), President of The Trinity Forum, spoke with Sen. Ben Sasse (C) and Russell Moore (R) at a recent Trinity Forum event. – YouTube screencap<\/div>\n

1. Holding to the exclusivity of truth <\/strong><\/h3>\n

\u201cIf you talk to secular America about their objections to the Church, that [exclusivity of truth] will be one of them,\u201d Moore says. \u201cIt\u2019s a view that, \u2018The Church thinks its right and we\u2019re wrong.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re living in a time in which\u2014as Marilyn Robison puts it\u2014a society is moving to dangerous ground when loyalty to the truth is seen as disloyalty to the tribe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moore explains the people around us don\u2019t have to agree with what we believe. Rather, he says, the main objection the world has to the evangelical church is not that it seems dogmatic in belief, but the perception that Christians don\u2019t actually believe what they say<\/em> they believe.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook at the devastation from revelations from the Catholic church,\u201d he pointed out. \u201cLook at the devastation of the cartoonish and buffoonish behavior that often takes place in evangelicalism.<\/p>\n

\u201cDoes the church have the ability to speak to the moral imagination, in a way that says, you don\u2019t have to agree with us, but you can be confident that when we are speaking, it isn\u2019t in service to some other agenda<\/em>\u2014political, social, market-based\u2014but actually because we are, as Jesus puts it, bearing witness to the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

2. Embracing evangelism<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Many outside the Church, Moore says, are offended by Christians because evangelicals think non-Christian need to change\u2014to be converted.<\/p>\n

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See also  Is It \u2018Ministry Failure\u2019 To See a Counselor?<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cA Cato Institute study shows evangelical Christians who go to church more often have more positive views of Muslim neighbors, refugees and immigrants, and other ethnicities,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it\u2019s not just true in terms of churchgoing. Churches that are the most actively evangelistic are also the ones most connected with neighbors, and most love their neighbors,\u201d he continues.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you find a congregation that is working with Muslim refugees, sharing the gospel, those will be the Christians who say, \u2018You will not scream at our neighbors. We believe they\u2019re created in the image of God, we believe they are loved by God, and we will stand with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

3. Understanding who the real demons are<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Moore cites that when C.S. Lewis wrote The Screwtape Letters<\/em> from the vantage point of a demon, Lewis received criticism.<\/p>\n

\u201cMuch of the advice given in these letters seems to me not only erroneous, but positively diabolical,\u201d wrote one critic to Lewis.<\/p>\n

Lewis\u2019 reaction? \u201cIt\u2019s all<\/em> intended to be diabolical.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having an understanding of demons, Moore says, ought to lead the church not to demonize\u2014and ostracize\u2014people with different ideologies.<\/p>\n

\u201cA group of people who actually believe that there is a devil are less likely to make devils out of other people\u2014their neighbors.\u201d<\/p>\n

4. Avoiding busyness<\/strong><\/h3>\n

\u201cOne can usually tell the difference between a church that is booming and a church that is old and \u2018past its prime\u2019 on the basis on whether or not there\u2019s a church graveyard,\u201d says Moore.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey don\u2019t build graveyards at megachurches. Seeker-friendly congregations usually do not think about church graveyards; they think about coffee kiosks. We don\u2019t want to be associated with death and inactivity; we want to be associated with philosophy\u2014with activity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Referencing signs that once read, \u2018The church alive is worth the drive,\u201d Moore alluded that the default for many evangelicals is to choose a church solely based on its perceived activity.<\/p>\n

\u201cCongregations justify their own existence by the bustle of busyness within those congregations,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems to me we are living in a time when there is exhaustion from being active\u2014a time when quietness, a kind of liturgy, a kind of disconnection from the whirl and velocity of the outside world is necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n

What is our mission?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Moore says it\u2019s also necessary for American Christians to look at the outside world and recognize we\u2019re in danger of getting off mission.<\/p>\n

\u201cBehind that \u2018we\u2019 Ben referenced earlier, there has to be a more preeminent \u2018we\u2019 \u2026 a group of people who is more than the nation itself,\u201d says Moore. \u201cThen we can bridge the gap between who we<\/em> are and who they<\/em> are. And that requires remembering who we are in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n

And once the Church reclaims its identity and mission, Moore says, is when She can speak into what ails our society.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnly then can we say to rootless, exhausted, tired, lonely, Americans in the words of Jesus, \u2018Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest,\u2019\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnly then can we learn to sing to ourselves, \u2018Jesus loves them<\/em>, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

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Joy Allmond<\/h2>\n

@joyallmond<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Joy is the executive communications manager at Lifeway.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n