A missionary is quite contradictory sphere.

On the one hand, we’re commanded by Lord: "So wherever you go, make disciples of all nations: Baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit» (Matthew 28:19). On the other hand, for somebody, this mission is conceived not as the spreading the teachings of Christ, but as an advertisement or propaganda.

Indeed, in Western christianity we can see the variants of missionary which seemingly went away from original christian goals long time ago. After all, if just care about attracting people into churches, but not think about how to bring them to Christ, so, all good causes will go down the pan. But what do we see?

There’re a lot of ways by which they try to carry people away in churches on the West: they arrange both concerts and fashion shows, and even pubs… For someone, it’s another reason to talk about «atheistic West», but let’s look at ourselves honestly: have we gone far?

Let’s pay attention, for example, on missionary activities on the Internet. It’s so hard to make preaching interesting for young people, and herewith not to extravagant. And not every missionary cope with it.

We live in the era when for majority the amount of views, likes and comments become nearly a goal in itself. And church bloggers are not strange from this vogue. For example, somebody tries «to preach» in various weird places. Just take, to say the least, the social network like «TikTok». The point of this network is that user without intermission scrolls and watches short amusement videos, not nearly overburdening his brain. Sooner or later, brain just stops to react on any content which lasts more than one minute, and if it gives a pause for thought, it’s immediately scrolled for the next travesty. And some priests try to go there with preaching…

Of course, it’s easy to gain millions views in «TikTok», but it’s needed to understand that these views won’t give involvedness, and some priest with his video, in the ideal case, will become a «meme» on which everybody will react like: «Look at this funky pope». Not more. And it’s so frustrating.

We’re not supposed under a pretext of «missionary outreach» to become a clown in the face of immature minds of schoolchildren. We’re not supposed to take coppers instead of gold which is given from God through the apostles and many generations of our christian fathers. Every modern missionary should ask himself: how adequate, useful and necessary is what I do, and if the purpose of my activity is immediate popularity?

Recorded by Natalia Goroshkova