Community or Content

BJ served on staff with Pastor Brian for many years. He is currently serving as the lead pastor of First Baptist Church of Senoia, Georgia. This is a reprint of one of his recent blog posts. Used with permission.

Due to COVID hitting our household, my family and I were unable to attend church recently. No worries, we’ll just find a good service streaming online. We did. It was great. Some of us were still in our PJ’s but we each grabbed our Bibles and settled in. The music was upbeat and lively. The lyrics rich in theology and doctrine. The sermon was expository and challenging. I found myself praying for the pastor as he shared his heart, his vision for his church.

But something was…off. It just didn’t feel right. And it had nothing to do with what was on the screen. Actually, I think it was the fact that it was on a screen. Church is the body of Christ. Imagine a part of your body, say your foot, deciding to never join with the rest of your body. Not only would your foot eventually die from not being joined to your body, but your body would not function properly. Something would be missing. That may be a gross parallel, but it’s fitting.

The internet, the information superhighway, has brought us some wonderful things. Ideas. Networking. Research…My kids have no idea what a card catalogue is or why library books have weird numbers and letters on the spine. In an instant, I can open up peer-reviewed articles and any number of books from authors who are experts in their fields of study.

When I want to know something, I just ask the good folks over at Google or, my preference, DuckDuckGo. When I see an actor in a movie and I can’t remember where I’ve seen him before, I just open up my phone and in about 3 clicks, I now know what I didn’t just 10 seconds prior.

You get the idea. I am afraid though, that content has replaced community. I can read about WW2, but that will never replace sitting down with a 95 year old vet and hearing his story. I am in seminary and can take class remotely, via Zoom or Bluejeans, etc. I get the content of the course, but that doesn’t buy me a cup of coffee with the professor or dinner with fellow pastors where we just “talk shop.”

We are intended to live in community. Even more so for the church. While I am grateful for the church that live-streamed last Sunday, I pray that never becomes common place for my family. The handshakes, the conversations before and after worship, I missed those. The off-key singer three pews to the right, that knows it isn’t the tenor of the voice but the posture of the heart that matters most. I missed the light that flickers over the piano every couple minutes; the stains on the carpet; the same old altar that has heard the prayers and soaked the tears of faithful saints throughout the ages; the old pulpit where the gospel has been proclaimed, wedding vows exchanged, and lives changed; the hearty “Amen!” from the faithful old saint…no, my couch sufficed for a day. But ain’t nothing like being in church.