Eek! I’ve got so much to say. Thankfully, at last, I have a forum for speaking whenever, instead of waiting on only those opportunities provided. So thank you to those special people who set up this website and blog for me with an uncanny dedication of time, energy and generosity of spirit.
A few weeks ago, I announced that I would be unfollowing most people on Facebook, not because I wasn’t interested in their lives, but because I could no longer handle the sheer volume of ‘stuff’ coming my way, often political, rude, or just too much information. It has been a blessed relief since I took the plunge. Some people said they wanted to do the same thing. One person said, “No! You have a voice. People need to hear what you have to say. You should be on every available social media forum possible!” That was encouraging, but I decided that Facebook was not the forum I wanted. It’s too ‘small’, inspite of its size, a forum full of petty nonsense and aggravating memes and posters, and posts of any quality disappearing off the newsfeed into Facebook’s own kind of cyber-eternity, never to be seen again. So a website with a blog it had to be.
Having a voice in the Church isn’t always easy, I have found. Prophetic voices often pose a threat, discomfort and nuisance to leaders. Individualistic voices are just too ‘different’ to be desirable. They don’t help with the system of ‘cloning’ that has unfortunately become so prevalent in the church ‘system’. Voices of freedom can be particularly dangerous as, while they affirm the incredible freedom there is to be found in Christ, they also run the risk of causing a healthy ‘dissent’ among the believers, setting women free, releasing people’s thinking, and calling out the ‘control’ sometimes used by leaders that has left so many confused and bewildered.
Even years of experience is not always well received, or received at all. While pastors and leaders have a regular ‘platform’ for influence, truth (and let’s face it, significance), the ‘minions’ who make up the body for them to so regularly preach at must often resort to the cheap platforms of social media to be heard or express God-given callings, individuality, and valuable insights. There is not room in the Church building on Sundays for everyone.
It reminds me of the recent situation with Covid-19 and China. In the weirdness and aftermath caused by the virus, there are changing attitudes towards the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Governments around the world are now taking the threat of China seriously, realising that their form of warfare is psychological, extremely clever, underhanded and yet simultaneously overt in its taking over of the media, using loans, investments and the buying up of international assets, and the infiltration of Western universities to spread Communist propaganda. And yet Western governments have fallen for it for years! People in positions of government, power and influence, leaders of nations, have been artfully flattered and taken in until countless nations across the world are up to their eyeballs in debt. The CCP are masters of propaganda and have employed their skills exceptionally well on the naivete of the West. What amazes me is that these leaders are only just seeing all this now! If the people ‘in power’, the leaders, had asked the ‘little people’ who have actually lived in China, working as teachers, professors and business people, they could well have learnt all this a lot sooner and not trusted themselves to the CCP. Even better, they could have asked the Christian workers who have laid down Western comforts and wealth, studied the Chinese culture, learnt the language, lived among the people, worked government-approved projects, witnessed the control, cared for the orphans, lived among the ethnic people groups, walked the streets, absorbed the heart of the people and culture, and come to understand the tactics of a Communist party.
But that is what happens when you don’t ask questions or let other people speak who may have more experience than you in an area and have something to say. That is what happens when you don’t allow the necessary voices. You miss things. You miss out. You live in your own world of ignorance instead of allowing other voices to ‘grow’ your knowledge or expand your heart. You suppress what God may be trying to say. Then you can end up in a world of hurt.
I am so grateful for the opportunities I have had to be a voice in my generation. But in this world that is changing so fast, where the unpredictabe is likely to come as quickly as the virus and more often, it is time to get out of the limitations of the Church walls, structures and expectations and, within the sanctified bounds of being followers of the one who turned over the tables in the temple, use the voices that we have.