As promised, here we are diving into the topic of hyped-up words. It’s easy for me to stay at the mega picture of hype and conveniently bow out of any ownership in the problem. It’s much more convenient to keep my eyes on the stage with a pointed finger than to close them in self-reflection with upturned palms. I don’t want to believe that I’m at all responsible for the “over-the-top” performance that church has infamously become. I’m talking about the public face of the church, the Instagram church, not every church, so don’t hear this as a blanket statement. It isn’t meant to be one. I want to believe that the problems I see have come from those “out there”: on the stages, in the board meetings, on the YouTube channels. After all, I had nothing to do with those things. No control over them and no power to change them. They’re the problem, and they can fix it. I’ll just point it out.
It’s true that change needs to come from the top down. It’s also true that it needs to come from the bottom up as well. We, as church members, have been part of creating the church culture that we find ourselves in. We don’t need to take responsibility for the actions of others, but we do need to honestly evaluate our own. I’ve never preached on a stage, been in a board meeting, or been on YouTube, but I can see ways that I’ve personally contributed to a culture of hype. I should say, a culture of hype that’s crossed the line.
As we saw in part one, there are aspects of hype that are, at times, appropriate. The definition we were working with included things like stimulating and creating interest or excitement. This, sometimes in dramatic ways. In this sense, hype can be a tool. Just like a good song creates interest and stimulates you to feel a certain way or to think about certain things, so can a good sermon stir up your spirit to contemplate God and truth and life in a new way. A well-crafted conference can bring light to a subject that has until them been left in dark confusion in the back corner of the church. It can bring people together who would usually not be together in order to gain wisdom and perspective. Time set aside, as a group, for worship and prayer can lead to breakthrough and a move of the Spirit that might not have happened if the group was not openly asking and seeking to encounter God. Often, these gatherings are exciting, interesting, and stir up emotions in us. This can be done in a way that glorifies God and builds up the Church.
A call to bench the hype isn’t a call to end all emotional experiences or to stop all excitement or to pull the plug on all programs that create interest through dramatic means. It’s a call to reexamine what’s driving those things. If we’re being driven by ambition to make a name for our church instead of making Jesus known, then we’ve crossed the line. If we’re driven by a need to prove that we’re good enough, we need to back up. If we’re driven by a subtle belief that we’ll lead someone to salvation by saving them ourselves, we’re living a heresy. There’s one Messiah. There’s One who is perfect. There’s One who is to be lifted up.
This self-reflection is both a group project and an individual one. It isn’t enough to say that the system is broken and there’s nothing we can do about it. There are a lot of things we can’t change, but I’m suggesting that hype is just as prevalent in our conversations after the service as it is on the stage during it. I’m suggesting that there are ways that many of us have crossed the line, from stimulating or stirring each other up to over-exaggerating in order to outdo each other. The words that come out of our mouths reveal who we are. “Out of the heart, the mouth speaks.” We need to take inventory of what’s coming out of our mouths. This might not seem related to hype, but I think it is, and here’s why. One facet of hype is pumping-up in order to trick someone, usually into believing something so that they then take certain actions. We all know this is how commercials are designed. It’s an old trick. Still around because it works.
How do we do this? We certainly aren’t going around trying to sell something as we mingle after church. Or are we? I would argue that we actually are, whether consciously or unconsciously. We’re selling ourselves. Hyping up who we are so that others think we pray more, read the Bible more, and know Jesus better than we actually do. We use our words to convince that we ‘ve figured out what the Christian life is about and are crushing it. Some might actually believe that this is true about themselves, but for the vast majority of us, we know that we’re much less than what we want to be. I’m writing to the second group, the ones with a gap.
We have a gap between who we are and who we want to be, and we are left with a choice. The choice is how to fill that gap. Will we fill it with frantic good works (can also be an avenue of hype), over-spiritualized speech, a million yelled hallelujahs, etc? Or will we bench the hype? This is scary because, without all the noise, the gap will be noticed. Some might measure it and shake their head; some might point at it and laugh, and others might try to throw something over it in order to preserve the “testimony” of the church. I think it’s worth being prepared for this, while at the same time remembering Jesus will not do any of these things, nor will those who are trying to faithfully imitate Him. They also have a gap. We all do. An excuse to do whatever we want? Live however we feel in the moment? Some use it as that, but like the Gap-Fillers, they’re not imitating Jesus.
To imitate Jesus is to walk in obedience to the reality of who we are and who God is. Our reality is that a gap will always be present in our lives as we yearn for holiness in bodies of flesh. We might be able to make the gap between who we are and who we want to be smaller as we grow in godliness, but this side of heaven it will not disappear and the way we talk should reflect that. Hyping ourselves up into spiritual muscle men does not change what we are underneath. The muscles aren’t real. It’s a blow-up suit we put on to impress. The hype is to mask that the substance of who we are is less than ideal.
But God.
We don’t have to live this way, in frenzied effort to fill the gap. God, in His grace, puts a big “but God” right in the middle of our gap. We’re weak, but God is strong. We’re unwise, but God is wisdom. We’re limited, but God is Almighty. We’re insecure, but God is in control. There’s no need to sell a pumped-up version of ourselves to each other.
So, we want to change, but how do we recognize this word-hype? What does it look like practically? Here are a few examples I thought of; feel free to add your own.
Telling stories where we’re always the hero, know the answers, have it figured out in an attempt to impress the person we are talking to. The key word here is always. We do get it right sometimes, and it can be encouraging to tell our victory stories, but our reality is not victory alone, so if we’re leaving the impression that we’re perfect, we’re leaving a false impression.
Exaggerating a word or picture from the Lord. When the Lord speaks something specific to us that’s meant to be shared with another person, the temptation is to add to it, improve it, or attempt to make sense of it. If the Lord gives us one word, we should share one word. If it’s a verse, we don’t need to interpret it for them (unless they ask). Obedience is to share with boldness what the Lord speaks, dressed in humility and discernment. There’s so much confusion in this area, that I hesitate to even mention it, but it’s too common to be left out.
Spiritualizing prayer requests. If someone asks us to pray that their back pain would go away., we need to pray for their back pain to go away, without making their request into some spiritual hyped-up scenario. It’s not the time to pray about the pain in society in general and the need for its healing. That’s a great prayer, but for a different occasion.
If we don’t know the answer to a question about God, the Bible, etc., we should say that. This is maybe the best way to bench the hype. Admitting that we don’t know pushes our gap right out into the open but also opens the door for honest dialogue as the answer is sought together.
There are so many others to add to the list, but I hope this short list inspires you to continue adding to it as we try to bench the hype hiding within each of us. Excitement for all that the Lord is and is doing we will keep. Emotions we need. Creative ways of stirring us to continue boldly following Jesus reflect the Creator who made us. Empty pumped-up hype, we are done with you.
Listen to Wendy’s interview, ‘Hard is Only Half of the Story: From Small-Town Girl to Missionary in Serbia,’ on the When She Leads podcast here.In this episode, Brenda sits down with Wendy Zahorjanski to talk about her life story and the writing of her book, her calling to serve Jesus as a missionary, and the continued work that she and her husband, Danny are doing with their church community in the city of Kragujevac.
Wendy is an author and missionary and you can find her book, “Hard is Only Half the Story: Real Adventures from My Journey into the Unknown” on Amazon.
You can also find Wendy on her Instagram – @wendy.zahorjanski
