How are you doing?

It's nice to know they care. Far from being a faceless corporation, it seems they are interested in our lives. Have you noticed it on your social media screen? It's been a recent change. Facebook is now asking us the question, "How are you doing?"

As a prompt to get us to update our statuses it's not a bad one. Sometimes I rise to the bait and answer their enquiry with a quip or short retelling of some ridiculous incident from my life ("I'm fine, thanks - but the cat sat on a candle and ignited her tail" ... sadly, a true story). But I'm going to go out on a limb here ... I don't think they really care how I'm doing at all. I reckon I could pour out the deepest pain in my heart and the corporation that is Facebook wouldn't step in and help. They may be asking the question but they wont come to visit me if I'm sick; they wont do my shopping if I'm housebound; they wont pray with my if I'm in despair and they certainly wont give me a lift to church. Some of my friends might ... actually, I'm sure they would. But Facebook itself ... probably not.

Of course, social networking sites don't actually promise to love us. Their role is to put us in touch with other people not to become our soul mates themselves. But it does occur to me that the phenomenon of asking a question but then not reacting effectively to the answer is one that we can all too often see outside of the realm of social networking ... and when it happens in churches it's rather more serious.

In an average congregation, there are the non-listeners ...
"How are you doing?"
"It's been an awful week"
"Great - pleased to hear it ... see you next Sunday!"

The panic-stricken listeners...
"How are you doing?"
"It's been an awful week"
"Let me get the minister ... I'm sure he'd love to help"

The over-busy listeners ...
"How are you doing?"
"It's been an awful week"
"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. I wish I had time to talk to you but I've got to get the lunch on."

And the superficial listeners ...
"How are you doing?"
"It's been an awful week"
"You need to pray more. Then it'll be fine."

But none of them really help any more than a faceless screen. Not one of them models what it is to be in a truly Christ-like community - that place where we love to spur one another on and help each other focus on Jesus even when it's hard and we're busy; that place where we want to understand what our brothers and sisters are going through deeply, so we can pray intelligently and encourage specifically.

So what are good, biblical answers to offer (and mean!) when someone gives us a negative answer to the "how are you doing?" question. Here are my starters for 10:

"Do you want to grab a coffee now? I'd love to listen."
"When would it be good to meet up and look at what encouragement we can find in the Scriptures to spur you on this week?"
"How would you like me to be praying for you in this?"
"What can I do to help?"

You might like to add your own below ...