Popularity is a continually enticing prize. Whether being popular in school, winning a political election, or “going viral” today, the appeal of mass appeal is baked into our Western culture. Indeed, popularity is a democratic form of society’s approval.

Yet, popularity is fickle. As social networks have grown, there is an ever-increasing pool of people or content to draw our attention. What’s trending today can be forgotten tomorrow. That is the struggle of chasing popularity—it’s never permanent and never satisfies.

The church is not immune to these desires, either. Lots of time, planning, and resources are spent on making faith seem more approachable. Whether through contemporary music, world-class A/V equipment, or the latest technical immersion, churches, and ministry organizations desire to be popular—a pressure resulting from the need to pay for large building mortgages or paid staff members.

I do not mean to insult church leaders, you, or myself for wanting to be popular. Indeed, even God is jealous for our attention and faith, as seen in Exodus and Deuteronomy. There is nothing inherently sinful in wanting to be valued or liked, so long as those desires do not overtake us in obsession. Instead, we should prepare ourselves to be unpopular bearers of Good News within our mission field, wherever that is.

Jesus sends us on a mission to evangelize the world with the news of His death and resurrection. While the news is joyous, it requires each hearer to submit in humility to receive Jesus’ gift—that is the unpopular message. We are intentionally sent to live, speak, and act differently throughout a world built on the self: self-love, self-truth, self-righteousness, self-identity. Ours is an unpopular, contrary message.

It has always been the case that God’s message is met with scorn. We see it when Moses leads the enslaved Hebrews out of Egypt. Jonah fears the unpopularity of his assignment so much, that he tries to run away from his task (before being swallowed by a large fish). We also see it as Jeremiah prophesied against Israel for its sins and proclaimed Jerusalem’s impending doom from the powerful Babylonian army.

In Jeremiah 37, we read about Jeremiah being imprisoned as a result of a false accusation stemming from his unpopularity. Why was he so unpopular? Jeremiah regularly warned the Israelites that they needed to renounce their sins, while false prophets told the king and the people self-affirming lies. Jeremiah foretold Jerusalem’s fall and was seen as a traitor despite the fact that this revelation came from God. Therefore, when an angry military sentry found Jeremiah leaving Jerusalem, this was the opportunity to frame him for desertion. The leaders seized that opportunity to beat Jeremiah and falsely imprison him. 

Does that sound like anyone else’s experience in the Bible? While foreign to Western cultures, many who have lived in cultures antagonistic to Christians know Jeremiah’s feelings. Many are experiencing it today in the global south, where Christianity is booming.

God often speaks as a loving Father who instructs His children in the way they should go, including warnings, cautions, advice, and promises of consequences. Humans do not like receiving those kinds of messages, so we rebel. Those are the messages Christians are called to share with our families, friends, and communities.

It’s a hard assignment.

Like Moses in the wilderness, Jeremiah in jail, or Jesus on the cross, our advocacy of God and His perfect ways will invite scorn and resistance. Dare I say, if we are not encountering resistance to our faith, we may not be living it visibly enough. This is not to say we are each called to condemn and judge the world—that’s not our role—but the conviction of our faith and its message of humility are counter-cultural. We cannot escape that.

No one wants to be jailed, but is imprisonment as bad as living an unmeaningful life? Jeremiah’s identity and purpose is as God’s messenger—it is not worth giving that up to avoid hardship. In the end, Jeremiah ends up fine, but others, like Jesus and His disciples, face gruesome earthly ends. 

That’s the kind of faith, however, that changes the world and alters eternity.

How much does your faith mean to you? Enough to be unpopular? Perhaps it is time we band together in our common unpopularity as one corporate church body to live our earthly purpose for the heavenly king.

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