Our Church Was Maliciously Hacked and You Won’t Believe What Happened Next

We are two weeks away from the release of our book Blogging for God’s Glory in a Clickbait World. As you might expect, our book comes down pretty heavily against clickbait posts.

We define clickbait as “the pejorative term for content, especially titles and images, designed to get visitors to click. The term is loosely drawn from fishing where shiny bait attracts the attention of a fish but conceals the hook. To some degree, what constitutes clickbait is in the eye of the beholder; however, standard tropes are readily identifiable” (from the Glossary, p. 153).

Yet for how hard we critique clickbait, my coauthor also writes in the book, “Don’t be afraid to smile when you write. . . . Feel free to include fun, even clickbait-y, posts from time to time” (John Beeson, Blogging for God’s Glory, p. 27–28).

And I agree, which is why I wrote the title to this post the way I did. It’s probably only my second deliberately clickbait title in six years of blogging. The other was from a few years ago and called, “I Read Every Jared Wilson Book This Year; You Won’t Believe What Happened Next.” But even both of these titles consciously spoof a stock clickbait trope.

Regardless, our church was, in fact, maliciously hacked. However, you can probably guess what happened next: I sent an email to our church. That’s it. Well, it took a little more work than that, but basically, that was it—just an email.

I wrestled with whether to send the email to our church at all, just as I’ve wrestled with whether to draw even more attention to the event here on my blog. When someone takes off his or her clothes and runs across the field of a professional football game, the cameras look away. Television networks do this because they don’t want to show nudity during the game but also because giving the streaker more attention scratches the itch he or she wanted scratched. I sort of feel the same talking about the hacking. But I’m sharing the letter I wrote to our church with you because of the paragraph I wrote near the end, which I put in bold. That paragraph sums up not only how our church will get through this event, but how all Christians can honor God when evil punches us in the gut.

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Dear Church,

Since yesterday afternoon, I’ve written about seven different versions of this email in my head. But this is the one I’m actually writing and sending.

Many of you noticed that the registration system for church filled up before Friday afternoon. It’s possible that if everyone—or even most—of our church wanted to come back to church on the same Sunday, we would not fit in the building. However, I don’t think that’s what happened. I’ll explain.

It appears someone has maliciously hacked our registration system, either filling out legit names and emails or slight variations of those names and emails. Again, it’s too early to be sure why this is happening, but it is clear that something is happening. The registration system is broken.

Here’s what I propose. Please just come to whichever service best fits your needs and your schedule, whether you registered for that service or not. (We’ve been publishing COVID updates here, which explains the details about each service.) Seriously, please do NOT stay away just because our registration system was hacked.

Our goal was to have up to 75 people in the first service at 8:30 am. We want this service to be the most COVID-cautious; the building is still being professionally cleaned and sanitized before each Sunday. The other services at 9:45 am and 11 am can have up to 100 people in each of these. In truth, we can have up to 120 people in each service and still remain socially distanced and under the 50% capacity goals.

Also, we now have overflow options in the church basement fellowship hall. We’ll stream the worship service in real-time on our large TVs and through the new sound system. The newly renovated fellowship hall can hold an extra 50–60 people in the first and third services. (Overflow seating is not an option during second service because our membership class is using that room.) If either the first or third services get too full in the sanctuary, please consider moving downstairs.

Here’s my final plea: please come with a big smile and a heart that is happy do whatever is best for the whole church. I believe that the way we will honor God, defeat evil, and preserve through suffering is not by outrage but by cultivating joyful Christian unity when it feels like everything is stacked against us.

Our church has been thriving through all the craziness of 2020, and I intend to do everything I can to help it stay this way. The other day I joked that twenty years from now you can tell future generations that this was the summer and fall “you had to walk ten miles to attend church – uphill, both ways, in the snow.”

Yep. But it’s also the summer and fall that Jesus was still Lord, and he reigns even now from heaven and is building his church. Come, worship the risen Lord with us tomorrow.

Sincerely,
Benjamin Vrbicek, lead pastor

* Photo by Simon Abrams on Unsplash