Last week, on the eve of the anniversary of 9/11, Charlie Kirk was assassinated. The founder of Turning Point, USA, Kirk was an outspoken Christian conservative.
On Sunday, before our sermon, we prayed for our country in light of the assassination, the religiously motivated shooting in Minneapolis, the racially motivated murder in Charlotte, and the school shooting in Denver. We kept the rest of the service as planned. We preached on the planned text in 1 Corinthians 7 and shared the same announcements that had been planned.
On Sunday afternoon, I spent an hour and a half with a family member processing their upset that their church spent most of their Sunday service focused on Kirk’s murder.
On Sunday and Monday, Greg (my co-lead pastor) and I were met with a handful of strong reactions from those in our congregation who felt that we failed to properly honor Mr. Kirk and our nation in how we handled the tragedy.
A week before the tragedy, another local pastor shared with me that his conviction is to never speak to any cultural situation, but to have his church be a respite from the cultural storms in the world.
How should pastors handle cultural moments such as Charlie Kirk’s death?
I don’t think there is a correct answer. I would encourage charity from all sides for whatever choice your leaders made. Don’t assume that there is a political agenda from your leadership based on what they choose to say or not say. There are likely other factors at play.
How to respond to cultural moments
Here are a few ways we consider how to respond when significant cultural issues arise:
1. Focus on the eternal, not the controversies of the moment.
In a world governed by a news cycle that moves faster than the old 24-hour truism, Christians ought to have a longer view. That doesn’t mean we ignore what is happening in our world, but we ought to be careful that our diet is not controlled by the news of the moment. Paul commends both Titus and Timothy to avoid “foolish controversies” (Tit. 3:9; 2 Tim. 2:23-24). My point isn’t that the death of a saint is foolish. On the contrary. But instead, we ought to trust that the faithful teaching of God’s Word prepares us for such moments. I considered, for instance, how our sermon series on Christ’s call on us to count the cost of discipleship (Lk 14:25-33) early in the year and our invitation to understand ourselves as elect exiles in 1 Peter in the summer hopefully prepared our congregation for such a tragedy.
In an effort to thoughtfully lead our people, we prepare our sermon calendar far in advance (our calendar is drafted out until February, 2027). The benefit of this is that we can strategically ensure we are teaching our people from both the Old and New Testaments, covering a variety of topics over a longer time frame. On the downside, it means that we tend not to be very reactive to any given cultural moment. While I understand the weakness of perhaps missing moments like this past Sunday, I hope that in the long run, it means our body is receiving a balanced biblical diet.
2. Focus on the local.
As many experts have noted, part of the exhaustion of our modern world is that we are inundated and overwhelmed by information from every part of the globe. We aren’t emotionally equipped to handle the amount of information we take in. One of the gifts a local church can bring its people is to help people overwhelmed and exhausted by the constant stream of information to see God’s call on them to make an impact in their homes, neighborhoods, and workplaces.
3. Gauge how many are impacted by events.
One of the challenging aspects of the modern world is determining the extent to which many are impacted by any given event. What information people consume today is more diverse than ever before. Our algorithmically curated social media feeds can provide us with the false impression that everyone is watching and listening to what we are watching and listening to. One congregant might get most of their news from podcasts, while another from TikTok, a third from cable news, and fourth is totally disconnected from any news. Knowing who your congregation is listening to is perhaps one of the most significant challenges for pastors. I confess that my understanding of how our congregation is being informed is largely anecdotal. We may well have misjudged how important this was to our people, especially since I was just a casual observer of Charlie Kirk, while Greg wasn’t familiar with Kirk before this weekend. Perhaps we were in the minority.
4. Honor the congregation.
Part of God’s design is that the body of Christ is not a club. At its best, it reflects the neighborhoods we live in: with a diversity of ethnicities, ages, and political leanings. Often times our consciences are shaped by our experiences. God’s Word tells us that we ought to honor our own consciences while also treating other’s consciences with respect. The Word of God speaks to everyone and unifies those who are bound in Christ. So, if a cultural event affects people differently in such a way that speaking on it would not unite the people of God, a pastor ought to be cautious about whether it is wise to address the issue.
Moving forward in unity
Even in my blog, I rarely write reaction pieces to cultural moments, such as this. My preference for my preaching and my writing ministry is to, Lord willing, be guided first by the Word, and hopefully create content that ages more like wine than avocados.
May we grow as both leaders and followers, humbly granting one another charity for whatever decisions our congregations make in balancing the timeless truth of God’s Word with the pressing events of our day.
May we join together in Christ’s prayer for his people,
“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. (John 17:21-23)
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