The Church: The Media of the Lord
By Rev. Lonnie C. Crowe
“Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers.” (Ephesians 4:29; NKJV)
Each Sunday, our church makes declarations over the seven mountains of cultural influence. One of those mountains is the media. We are in agreement that much of the media is in need of revitalization. Therefore, we declare that the media we receive will be the result of truth and integrity in the lives of those who produce it.
Through our declaration, the Holy Spirit has convicted us that we Christians, too, are a form of media. God’s people are His voice crying in the desert, “Prepare ye the way of the Lord.” Therefore, we must guard our words, and we must live and speak with integrity.
There are many Scriptures that have significant implications for the concept of the Body of Christ’s role as media to the world:
We are instructed on what things we should definitely speak up about: “Open your mouth, judge righteously, and plead the cause of the poor and needy” (Proverbs 31:9).
We are reminded to be guarded in how we speak: “He who guards his mouth preserves his life, But he who opens wide his lips shall have destruction” (Prov. 13:3).
We must do all things—even speaking up for truth—in love, with gentleness and forbearance.
Perhaps most significantly for us these days, St. Paul extends caution about engaging in the divisive language such as the rude political diatribe that too often appears in the media, particularly in the realm of social networking. “But avoid foolish and ignorant disputes, knowing that they generate strife. And a servant of the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient, in humility correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth, and that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will.” (2 Timothy 2:23-26)
Consider Proverbs 18:21: “Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.” Our words, both positive and negative, both truth and fabrication (fake news including unfounded rumors), bear eternal consequences.
Our words also expose our inner nature; they flow from our hearts and reveal what is actually there. (See Luke 6:45; Eph. 4:29)
The role of media is to investigate, inform, educate, and report truth. The Church’s purpose as God's media representatives is to do likewise. Too often, our conversations sound more like the gossip columns appearing on the back pages of the newspaper or heard on celebrity gossip shows.
Those types conversations can spill into our prayer groups. We do not have to know all the “down and dirty” details in order to pray. Some prayer requests should not go public. Just because we heard it in the beauty salon does not necessarily mean that it should go on the church prayer chain or be discussed in the coffee shop. The private, fervent prayer of the righteous also avails much.
We are the newspapers that our friends and neighbors read daily. We are to be the social network that joins together a disjointed community. We are the news commentators who bring hope in the midst of despair. “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who proclaims peace, who brings glad tidings of good things, who proclaims salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns!'” (Isaiah 52:7)
As with all renewal, revitalization of the media must begin in the House of God. When individual members of the Body of Christ step out of the pews and become the media of God in our daily lives—when we speak truth and life—we will see that change reflected in the worldly media as well.
