Leaders shape an institution’s culture and position it for the future. Too often, however, people see leaders as having allthe responsibility in an organization. They assume that every problem is somehow the leader’s to solve. "I’m feeling frustrated, angry, insecure, anxious, etc...leadership needs to do something!” They assume that their discomfort with one decision or another is somehow a sign that a leader is “off the rails” and isn’t competent to guide the organization.

In an era of easy opinions, cancel culture, and fake news, telling the truth has, arguably, become more complex. Telling the truth has become more challenging not because we have all become less honest than we used to be, but because it has become less clear what it might mean for us to be a community committed to truth-telling. In part, what it means to be a community committed to truth-telling is less clear because we have not recognized fully the influence of the broader context in which we seek to glorify God and offer a comprehensive (and comprehensible) Christian testimony

I am concerned that as a faith community, we haven’t thought through how using digital media to exert pressure on individuals and organizations conveys God to the world or how it forms and shapes us as God’s people. Are we confident that social media activism is in accord with the picture Christ paints in the beatitudes? Does it cultivate the markers of the Christian community noted in 1 John? I have my doubts.

Our deeper problem, in my opinion, isn’t that Amazon has a monopoly or that social media is policing the truth. It is a problem of desire.  We desire more and more of all the wrong things.

Perhaps worse, there is also a way for us to use words that don’t convey reality. In other words, we don’t proclaim truth by what we say. Think, for instance, how odd it would feel for Paul to say that he was hoping to be “lucky enough” to make it to Rome.

Not flinching requires a generous, genuine care and curiosity about other people. It requires that we give people the benefit of the doubt by assuming that they are not trying to hurt us … even when it really seems like they are. At times, it requires us to set aside what we feel we deserve in order to show care for others.

What happens when our culture, values, traditions, etc., keep us from seeing what God is doing? When does our vision of what God can do become so narrow that we miss what God is really doing? At what point does our unwillingness to work outside our organizational boundaries hinder our ability to follow God, testify to His goodness, and demonstrate the power of the body of Christ?

As Christians, we cannot live on a diet solely made up of less-than theological content and expect to stay focused on our primary task of demonstrating the difference Christ’s resurrection makes to the way we live in the world. We can’t become more spiritually fit while leaving certain sorts of Christian content in our “cupboards.”

Contentment does not require an absence of desire. It is possible to be content with what we have while still wanting more; however, it is not possible to be content when wanting more (of the wrong thing) drives us to orient our lives toward getting more (of the wrong thing).

Posting a never-ending steam of gospel memes without also developing a faithful digital presence will not create a compelling, living witness. In the digital mission field, we have to live out our faith by conforming our digital selves to the image of Christ.

Once we understand that God is with us and will safeguard His Church, we can begin to develop the sort of habits we need to live differently in a world that is not as it should be. We can learn to respond to trouble without the sort of fears, anxieties, and false confidence that convey a less-than truthful picture of God to the world.

As the body of Christ endures our current moment of trouble, it seems an appropriate time to remember that “man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Deuteronomy 8:3).