In this fantastic article by Brett McCracken, he argues that some of the potential positive effects of COVID-19 is that it’s likely to kill off “consumer Christianity” in mainstream churches - in effect, boiling down the excess. He also makes the point about this weekend that there were supposed to be lavish and sensational Easter services - and now there won’t be.

…coronavirus has rapidly taken away the excesses of church, all the bells and whistles, all the nice-to-haves we’ve come to see as must-haves. What remains are bare essentials: Jesus, the Word, community, prayer, singing. What remains is the reality that the church can never be vanquished: we are Christ’s body and will live eternally with him. Things are suddenly spartan in how we do church—but what we are remains as vibrant as ever.

In lots of our churches, the programs have taken precedence, not serving others. We’ve been giving to the church out of a sense of what we will get in return, and now we don’t have that.

How will the church react when all this is over?

As we get older, we start looking at life very differently, don’t we?

For example, with the new year coming up, this isn’t just a transition to a new year, it’s a transition to a new decade. Think about the last ten years. What’s different in your life now than it was just ten years ago? In the span of the eons, ten years isn’t a lot. But a lot can happen in just ten years.

What things have changed for you professionally? Do you have the same job as you did in 2010? Did you retire in this time span?

How has your family changed? Did kids go off to college? Did someone get married? Or maybe you lost a loved one...

What about spiritually? Can you say that you are a stronger, better Christian than you were ten years ago?

Some might argue that “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” Maybe your life has went through lots of changes - where does that put you in a spiritual sense that’s different than ten years ago? Are you in the same state spiritually that you were ten years ago... or are you better? Or worse? Have you gotten closer to God, or farther away from Him?

There’s nothing like the marking of a new year (or a new decade) to make one question progress. That’s the real question that faces us every day - how are we progressing in our walk with God? Milestones like the turning of a decade almost force us to look at our lives and what we’ve done.

I’m reminded of the passage in Hebrews 13 that says “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” It is not our savior who will change to meet our needs, it is us who must change to serve in His kingdom.

Not all change is good, but progression and growth in your spiritual life is always good. Have you grown in God in the last ten years? And what might the next ten bring?

"Post-Truth" is Oxford's Word of the Year. Defined by the dictionary as an adjective “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief”, editors said that use of the term “post-truth” had increased by around 2,000% in 2016 compared to last year.

How interesting. Steve Tesich, a playwright, wrote an essay for Nation magazine in 1992 and coined the term "post-truth" with this phrase:

"We, as a free people, have freely decided that we want to live in some post-truth world."

Do we care what the truth is anymore? Do we even know what the truth is anymore?

On both sides of the aisle, Republican and Democrat fake news articles have permeated Facebook. Whether you're conservative right or liberal left, you probably succumbed to reading, believing, and even sharing these fake news stories that have cropped up over the last few months, especially in this election cycle. I know this is true - many of my friends on Facebook are conservatives, and they have fallen victim to these fake news stories and misinformation.

We seem like, on the surface, that we don't care what the truth is anymore, so long as it goes along with what we believe. And that's wrong.

Because as Christians, we know what the truth is. The Bible word for this is discernment or to discern.

And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, 10 so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God. (Philippians 1.9-11)

This scripture flies in the face of post-truth. We should always be testing, always be seeking the truth in all things.

Closely related with post-truth is post-modern. This is a mindset that there is no absolute truth, and that whatever I feel is subjective to myself only. Both of these mindsets do not align with Scripture.

Our discernment in this age of misinformation has never been more important. In an era when we can instantly share a story or video, fake or true, with one tap of our finger and potentially send that message to thousands of people, what message are you sending?

Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. 3 For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, 4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. 5 As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. (2 Timothy 4.2-5)

There are some things you hear that you simply can't believe. You say, "No. No way. That's not happening. Is it?"

There's an epidemic going around with Snapchat and our teens. Snapchat, if you didn't know, is a photo/video/texting service that allows people to quickly send messages and funny animations back and forth between their friends. Lots of services do this, but the distinguishing feature of Snapchat has been that the pictures and videos are only available for a short time, a few seconds, and then they disappear.

In case you didn't know, Snapchat, as quoted by its own creators, was originally designed for sexting - sending nude photos back and forth so that they self-destructed after a few seconds, to never be seen again, and to only be seen by those viewing it at that time.

Only it doesn't work that way.

Because we always find loopholes. Whether it's with scripture, our taxes, or Snapchat, we always find loopholes to justify what we want to do.

Teens are now using Snapchat to blackmail one another.

Let me walk you through a scenario. A scenario that a friend recently told me about that actually happened.

Girl meets Boy. They hit it off. Both are upper-middle school, age 14. They immediately friend each other on Snapchat, because if you're between the ages of 13-18 these days and don't have Snapchat on your phone, you might as well be wearing hand-me-downs and shoes from 1998.

Things are fine for a while between Girl and Boy. They send goofy pics with text on them, all of it harmless.

Then one day, Boy asks Girl to send him a nude picture of herself. She does.

Why does she? She wants approval from this Boy. She wants to be sexy. She wants him to like her. She also figures that, "Hey, he's only going to be able to see this for 10 seconds, right? Because Snapchat photos go away."

Only they don't. Not when the Boy takes a screenshot on his phone.

It's a handy tool on iPhones - you can take a screenshot of what's on the screen by hitting the power button and the home button at the same time.

The Girl had not thought of that.

So the Boy blackmails her. "I have the photo," he says. "Send me a video of you doing _ or I send this picture to all your friends."

Now, there's lots of things that should not have happened here. But regardless, this is apparently a regular occurrence between teens on Snapchat. In talking to my friend about his situation, he said that the girl had said "Yeah, of course. This is a normal thing that happens. Especially with kids in high school."

Parents, how are we letting this happen? Are we that clueless?

You know of a good way for this not to happen? Don't let you children have this app!

Parents, this is out of control. We always want to assume that our child would have the sense not to do something like this, but we would be naive and wrong.

Check your children's phones today. Have them delete Snapchat, along with any other apps that hide use from parents (apps like Whisper, Yik-Yak, and Tinder come to mind). Ask the hard questions like "Have you done this before? Do you know people who do? Have you ever been asked to send nude photos of yourself?"

Parents, make a stand. Now. Before your child gets into lots of trouble.

Other Articles on Snapchat You Should Check Out

Adam McClane - Why You Should Delete Snapchat

Former Moore Youth Minister Charged With Child Sex Crimes, Using Snapchat

How many times have you been in a conversation with someone and been wondering about something?

I'll sit with friends at lunch and we'll be discussing some topic. Usually sports. There's always a question. Where'd that guy go to school? Who beat that guy's record? When was the last time that team went to the Super Bowl?

As adults in our mid-thirties, we have still not become accustomed to the idea of having access to the wealth of all human knowledge in our pockets. We will sit and argue (politely) about something when someone says, "Well, why don't we just ask Google?"

There's no need to wonder anymore - we have the answers in our smartphones, which are constantly connected and seeking out that information, important or not, that we desire.

I think if we took the same idea with Scripture then we'd be much better Christians. Instead of arguing pointlessly about an issue, we need to ask, "Why don't we just ask God's Word about that?"

We may have access the wealth of knowledge in our pockets, but we have access to God in our Bibles. We need to be looking to the Bible for answers to life's most important questions, not to Google.