Many guardians

I am convinced that the Technology Age is the brainchild of the Master of History. No great sweep of history is outside of His remit. He is the King of the Ages. Literally. Every Age does His bidding and carries His purposes: The Ice Age, Iron Age, Industrial Age, and Information Age are all the lackeys of God. No Age is exempt from His control and from His sovereignty. He measures out the Ages with the palm of His hand.

The church is tailor-made for the Information Age. The church is fundamentally about information - we have a message to communicate. Information and communication are what we do. The Information Age was destined to co-incide with our finest hour, make no mistake.

However, the challenge for the church in this Age, is to handle the proliferation of electronic voices that have disseminated the world. Opinion is free on the internet. Opinion can be the voice that speaks behind a screen. Dorothy, the Tin Woodman, the Lion and the Scarecrow all spoke with the great Wizard called Oz. It was only later they discovered that the great Oz was a voice thrown by a small man who was hiding behind a screen.

For every shallow voice, there is the voice of truth. But whose voice is the voice of truth? Church-Perspecive-Mart is always advertising big sales. Christian-Opinion-A-Rama has some great specials on at the moment.

I suspect, if I were to hazard a guess, that Paul's words in 1 Co 4:15 have never been more applicable: "Though you have 10,000 guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers." At the end of the day, less is more. The church is in need of fathers. Not remote fathers, who are by definition, absent fathers, but present fathers who are non-electronic but have real flesh and blood. Fathers in the same home, the same house. 'Guardians' are a dime a dozen at the moment, with their special brand of generic wisdom that is ready to be uniformly rolled out from a distance. God wants to give fathers; not guardians.

And further beyond that, where are those who will wait on God and turn their ear to heaven? Where are those who are going to overhear, and then trust, the conversation in heaven?

God can and will use electronic voices. Praise Him for that. May He use me like that. But let them never supplant (i) the handful of 'fathers', who are real flesh and blood (and who do not prevail from behind a screen), nor (ii) the voice of the Father who is in heaven.