Stuff Church Offers (That the World Needs Right Now)

I was listening to Daniel Goleman on TED Radio last weekend talking about the 21st Century generation’s unique developmental journeys.  He said that we are witnessing the first generation of human beings who are learning empathy, conversation and compassion via social media.  Or not.

What will it look like when a whole generation learns how to make friends, engage in conversation, navigate conflict, and date primarily via social media?  We all know that it’s easier to be mean and trollish on social media than it is to be mean and trollish face-to-face.  What if the next generations never learn how to connect up close and personal?

Goleman says:  “Emotional intelligence begins to develop in the earliest years.  All the small exchanges children have with their parents, teachers, and with each other carry emotional messages.”

Social media is not the most reliable venue for sharing emotional messages.  We who use email every day have had experiences when we misread the tone because email doesn’t convey tone.

So . . . how can the Church impact this reality?

There are several things that Spiritual Communities offer that cannot be found in few other venues.  For example:

• Communal Singing – Only in church and professional baseball games do random people stand and sing together.  It doesn’t matter if you can carry a tune or not.  We make music together. Seasonal tip:  Go caroling.
• Compassion Curriculum – Jesus felt compassion which means that his very bowels were moved (splagchnizomai in Koine Greek) when connecting with people in need.  We teach compassion in church as we relay ancient stories and core beliefs to our children and adults.
• First Response Training – I wrote about this a couple weeks ago, but to reiterate:  we cannot assume that people know how to take dinner to families with new babies or folks recovering from surgery.  Church is one of the few communities to teach such crucial life skills in a culture of busy-ness and family disconnectedness.

For this reason and many more, I believe that the institutional church will thrive in the 21st Century.  It won’t look like it looked 50 – or even 20 – years ago.  But there is so much we can share that is sorely needed in a world craving connection.