We’re in love with the spectacular. Superhero movies, bigger buildings, viral videos, and over-the-top personalities.
It’s the same in a lot of our churches.
We’ve become very noisy and personality-driven in our presentation of the gospel.
Why We’re Loud
It’s not just happening in new churches. While they impress us with awesome stage design, dramatic lighting effects, and Hollywood-quality video, many old-school churches yell just as loud. But they might do it with sweaty, red-faced preachers instead.
Either way, the western evangelical church is obsessed with an all-caps, underlined, bold-font gospel message followed by three exclamation points.
I understand why. The message is vital. People need to hear it. Eternal lives are in the balance. The stakes could not be higher. Plus, the Bible encourages us to shout for joy, sing praises to God, and to share our faith with others.
That’s not the loudness I’m referring to.
This is about the relentless drumbeat of constant hype that so many of us get caught up in.
As I wrote in Tired of the Show: Why the Church Can’t (and Shouldn’t) Compete with Hollywood, while we’ve kept busy entertaining church people, we’re losing the culture. And recent evidence tells us this approach is alienating a lot of believers, too.
In an increasingly loud world, a screaming church feels like just another harsh voice.
When Quiet Is Louder
When there are so many voices yelling at us every day, it’s tempting to think that we need to shout louder to get our voice heard.
But what if we went the other way?
What if the church, instead of yelling louder, gave a noise-soaked world something they had to lean in to? Instead trying to catch the attention of an overwhelmed culture with even more sound and fury, what if we undermined the dominant communications paradigm by doing something truly counter-cultural — a stronger, more subtle presentation of the gospel?
Maybe whispering the gospel is better than yelling it. At least in some situations.
Certainly, there already are a lot of churches practicing a much more subdued form of worship than the ones I’ve described. But that’s often more by default than a chosen strategy.
Make Them Lean In
I don’t want to be bored in church. And I don’t want to go soft on our declaration of the truth, either.
But I’m wondering if there’s something about the truth of the gospel that might be better served with a subtler presentation. What if, instead of hitting them over the head, we spoke forcefully, but softly? With our actions more than our words?
What if we decided to let our good deeds (Matt 5:16) speak louder than our new building plans, our Facebook rants, and our partisan politics? What if the power of an active, compassionate church made a jaded culture want to lean in to hear more?
I’m not saying every church needs to go quiet. This isn’t about the volume of the worship team, it’s about the volume of our rhetoric.
Simple truths, stated plainly, and lived with integrity.
In quietness and confidence shall be your strength. (Isaiah 30:15)
(Photo by Brian Smithson | Flickr)
