Why the Church Shouldn't Hashtag

July 15, 2014

Dear St. Paul’s Family,

Last Friday night, I had a memorable text message exchange with Grace, whom I remind you just turned thirteen years old.  It's also good to remember that I just turned forty-one, since our age difference is important to this story.  She and I were talking about what I would be preparing the following night for dinner, and she suggested that I add some bacon to the recipe.  (We’re Filipinos, after all, and this is Iowa.  Pork products are both nature and nurture.) 

She texted me the words, “Bacon makes everything better.” 

To which I responded, #YouveGotThatRight, using the common Twitter hashtag.  

Seconds later came her response:  “U R too old 2 use #”  (Translation:  "You are too old to use hashtags.")

When I finally calmed down from laughing so hard, I responded:  “LOL!  (Laughing Out Loud)  Who says?”  

To which she simply said, “Society.”

She was kidding, of course.  (At least I hope so.)  She likes to exercise her nascent independence and foray into adulthood by looking for gentle opportunities to tease me, and knock me down a notch or two from whatever self-ascribed superiority I might have asserted as her father during the first twelve years of her life.  That’s par for the course, I understand.  I used to tease my parents a ton when I was her age.

But what struck me, or at least the preacher part of me, was the content of our exchange.  You’re too old to use hashtags, she said.  I don’t think she meant that literally, but there is some truth to what she is saying, at least in a wider context. 

I’ll unpack what I mean by turning our text exchange into a parable.  Let’s pretend for a minute that I am the traditional, mainline church, attempting to communicate to today’s disaffected, un-churched, younger generation.  And let’s say that I make the misguided assumption that today’s un-churched youngsters want to be addressed at their level, on their own terms, connected to their own experience.  So “Magrey” decides to talk to “Grace” by establishing a whole category of language and experience: 

Relevant.

Relevance becomes an overriding strategy, a guiding principle, for deciphering the ancient and traditional language and experience of the Christian faith into something more accessible to those on the outside, and more in the “language of the street.” 

So the church decides to “hashtag” things. 

·      It hashtags the liturgies of the sacraments by speaking more “off the cuff” at the altar for communion or at the font for baptism. 

·      It hashtags the sermon by employing what Bishop Will Willimon once called “PowerPoint Preaching.”  It reduces the utility of the Bible to tidy sets of practical, take-home applications, so that by seeing the Bible as merely collections of simple steps to follow, you can, for example: improve your marriage, lose weight, find happiness, chart your career, become a better citizen, or some such pop-psychology precept. 

·      It hashtags the pastoral prayer by using spontaneous prayers more than carefully crafted ones, employing so many trite phrases like “God, thank you for this day” and “We love you, Jesus” with such regularity that prayer itself seems more cliché than actual communication with God.

·      It hashtags the hymnody of the church, so that songs with nuance and depth are replaced with lyrics based on an egocentric Christology.  Many praise and worship songs have more to do with “me and Jesus” and less to do with community, social consciousness, and justice. 

·      It hashtags the preacher, from clothing choices to hairstyles.  It hashtags the worship space, making it more like a performance hall, or living room, and less a place of mystical encounter.  It hashtags the very mission of the church, so that it is more about giving people what they want, in order to get them into the sanctuary, rather than growing people up in their faith or moving them out into service. 

Well, you get the drift.  The church “hashtags”  every time it acquiesces so much to the culture – even under the auspices of transforming the culture – that it falls short of its counter-cultural calling.

There is danger in the other extreme, of course, in which a church becomes so entrenched in tradition that it becomes impersonal, predictable, and lifelessly lacking any kind of vitality.  You and I have been to churches like that, I’m sure.  

Nonetheless, churches that try to act and speak too much in the vernacular run the risk of losing a critical sense of mystery that is essential to the faith.  It is the embrace of doubt and shadow, silence and complexity, in the way we worship, pray, read the Scripture, share the good news, serve one another, and love our neighbors.  It is a humility born from acknowledging that our finite minds cannot – and therefore, do not have to – put the Bible, or our liturgies, or our worship formats, in tidy packages, easily consumed.  It is articulating a faith that embraces mystery, because that is an essential part of the human experience.  In an odd kind of way, it is the most relevant move the church can make.   

So maybe Grace was on to something.  When I try to act cool, I wind up being the opposite of cool.  And when the church tries too hard to be relevant, it winds up losing what makes it so special, so enticing, and so transformative.  But when it embraces its unique, counter-cultural calling, it offers the world what it desperately needs and nothing else can provide.  

And that’s why our current sermon series through the book of Acts is so important for us.  For this book is replete with reminders of a time when the church cared less about being relevant and more about being faithful.  It’s a lesson we can learn today, 2,000 years later.  And it’s a lesson the world desperately needs to hear.

Grace and Peace, 

Magrey

The Rev. Magrey R. deVega

St. Paul's United Methodist Church

531 W. Main St.

Cherokee, IA  51012

Ph:  712-225-3955

Email:  mdevega@sp-umc.org

MAGREY AND GIRLS OUT OF TOWN NEXT WEEK

The girls and I will be heading out of town after the worship service this Sunday to spend some time with family down in Florida.  We will be gone from June 20-31, so the Mid-Week Message will resume during the week of August 3.