Prineville Presbyterian Church

“Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger” ~Ephesians 4:26

 As a pastor I often preach to myself as much as I preach to others. So a very recent sermon about how we handle frustration was put to the test upon returning home after emailing our virtual worship -- and learning the video froze part way in. 

Just when I thought our return to a recorded YouTube worship answered our problems of dropped live-stream worship, now there was yet another technical frustration.

Frustration is running wild because of the many questions surrounding us today. Life is unsettled. The problem is this frustration is spilling over into people who now think its okay to be mean.

Its from verbal attacks at our nation’s capital to horrible outbursts at local stores over masks. A clerk summed it up: “it’s not that big of a deal to make that big of a deal out of it.”

Psychologist Dr Thomas G Plante writes about this spread: “…there is social contagion with incivility in that if uncivil behavior occurs and is not confronted by corrective feedback or consequences, it tends to be more readily repeated and spreads to others.”

Apparently more than just COVID 19 is contagious.

The above Bible phrase speaks to the reality of anger and what to do about it. When we speak truthfully we put away falsehoods. When we put away falsehoods we no longer feel we must protect our own egos…

…making it easier to say only those things that extend grace to whoever our audience might be.

And while it’s easy to pass this off as some idealistic pie in the sky dream, the concern for evil speech runs throughout the Bible. Like many other behaviors, what we say matters because it can build up or tear down.

Imagine the possibilities if we all took up the challenge to make grace-filled speech contagious.

Together We Serve,

Pastor Mike