This week many of us in ministry face a difficult question about how and whether we should address the recent events in Washington, D.C. God’s Word is always relevant, even more relevant than what we’re watching on the news. So I don’t think it’s necessary or even perhaps beneficial to deviate from an expositional series you launched last week or planned for 2021.

However, I do think pastors will need to more directly address the crisis of political discipleship in our churches. I just got off the phone with a dear brother who’s struggling to lead his church when the members seem listless toward Jesus, compared to their obsession with political conspiracies. I encouraged him to press on proclaiming Christ and him crucified, no matter the response.

We must also show the supremacy of Christ compared to the world’s idols. We can’t leave the teaching to political commentators on Facebook, cable news, and talk radio. The world does not need crosses erected on the Capitol grounds as shots ring out inside the Senate chambers. The world needs a church that lives for another world, for a “kingdom that cannot be shaken” (Heb. 12:28-29). The church needs men and women of faith, “strangers and exiles on earth,” who seek their homeland in the new heavens and the new earth, who seek a better country—a heavenly one (Heb. 11:13-16).

God has prepared for us a city—not Washington, but the new Jerusalem. If we will seek this city together, if we will humble ourselves in repentance on God’s mercy, then we might yet show this world a better way. Not a cross under which we march on the Capitol, but a cross on which our Savior suffered with joy so that we might be saved from sin.