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This has been brewing for a few days, so here it goes. On the evening of Christmas Day, my family and I had just come home from a long day of family Christmas festivities. The girls were in bed, and I made the mistake of turning on the television to catch the evening news. The “newsworthy” headlines were of a father who dressed up as Santa Claus and shot a houseful of family members, including his own children. This is news! On Christmas! I have to be honest, I have never been so disappointed and disgusted. Is this really news. Why has news become synonymous with, “And here’s a list of all the shootings, stabbings, and killings of the day!” All delivered with a smile and ended with a “Have a good night!”

Hmmm. What is the purpose of news like this? Some would say that it is a constant reminder of our brokenness as a society and individuals alike. I tend to think that two things happen with this. First, it is plainly and simply fear-mongering. It is stories such as these that carry us to the point of distrust, un-love, buy more pad-locks, buy firearms, demand more police. It encourages exasperation and hopelessness into despair. This is not news…Is it? Secondly, it helps de-sensitize us to human tragedy. Ultimately we become unconcerned because yesterday’s story isn’t as spectacularly disturbing as today’s. We need more and more to really be ruined.

Either way, we are carried away from what we are supposed to do and be. As a disciple of Jesus, it is part of his yoke that encourages me to look at the world through the eyes of God. Not literally, but it is empathetically. I wonder what breaks Jesus’ heart more: that we are not appalled and heartbroken at lesser tragedy or that these heinous acts occur. Be careful, I don’t think this is as easy to answer as we think.

I have had a couple of interesting conversations with some colleagues in the past week about upcoming generations and the Gospel. Upcoming generations such as Gen-Y, are less likely to gravitate to the message of the gospel as a proposition. The best way I can describe proposition is the declaration of truth that is a plan that is suggested for acceptance. This is how preaching has been done for years. But the suggestion is that those in Generation Y do not respond to the proposition. This group responds to experience…ways that they can touch, taste, feel, see, or smell what Jesus was talking about. This brought mind a quote from Seth Godin, from his book Tribes. He says this: “People don’t believe what you tell them. They rarely believe what you show them. They often believe what their friends tell them. They always believe what they tell themselves.” There is truth here, especially in relation to the conversation about Proposition and Experience. An experience of the Gospel means that everyone who experiences the good news is telling themselves about it. And as Seth said, “They always believe what they tell themselves.”

The NY Times ran a story about the sudden increase in fuller churches on Sunday morning. Of course, the churches that are featured in this article have been thriving attendance-wise regardless of the social circumstances. However, since the economic downturn that we have see over the past two months, there seems to a trend. Hard times are pressing people to seek something more. Perhaps it is the reminder that there is more to life than that, and there is a higher power, God, who is in ultimate control of everything. I invite you to check out the story and chime in with your feedback.