Who Is Responsible for Seeing What is Coming?

A Call to Watch, Weep, and Assemble Again

There comes a moment when silence is no longer humility and delay is no longer wisdom. We are in such a moment now. What we are witnessing in our cities, our schools, our families, and our streets did not arrive suddenly. It arrived unannounced because no one was assigned to watch. And where watchmen are absent, impact always feels like surprise.

Scripture is clear that there are seasons for teaching and seasons for warning. There are seasons for rebuilding and seasons for sounding the alarm. Right now, we are not in a season that can afford spiritual sleepwalking. We are in a season that requires eyes open, gates guarded, and voices willing to speak before damage is done. This is a moment to weep between the porch and the altar—not in despair, but in sober recognition that something essential has been neglected.

The question we must ask, plainly and without deflection, is this:

Who is responsible for seeing what is coming before it hits the street, the school, the family, the city?

If no one can answer that question with clarity, then the problem is not merely cultural or political. It is structural and spiritual.

In Scripture, watchmen were never abstract concepts. They were real people assigned to real walls, tasked with real responsibility. They were not commentators after the fact. They were not reactionary voices raised once damage was visible. They were stationed ahead of impact. Their assignment was not to control outcomes, but to warn in time for response. The city’s safety depended not on their ability to fight, but on their willingness to see and speak early.

Somewhere along the way, the Church retained the language of watchmen but abandoned the training. We preach about discernment, but we do not teach people how to watch. We value prayer, but we have severed it from vigilance. We comfort the wounded after the breach, but we rarely ask who was guarding the gate before it failed. In doing so, we have unintentionally trained believers to be reactive rather than ready.

This is not an accusation; it is an assessment. The modern Church is structured for care, not containment. It excels at restoration after harm, but it has few mechanisms for prevention before harm arrives. Watchmen make systems uncomfortable because they name patterns early. They speak when consensus has not yet formed. They warn when leaders would prefer to wait and see. Because of this, watchmen have often been silenced, sidelined, or spiritualized into inactivity.

But Scripture does not permit that luxury. When a watchman sees danger and does not warn, responsibility shifts. Not because the watchman caused the danger, but because they failed to steward the sight they were given. This is weighty language, and it should be. Watching is not dramatic work. It is disciplined, quiet, patient, and often unseen. But it is indispensable.

What we are experiencing now is not merely moral decline or social unrest. It is the predictable result of unattended gates. When no one is trained to watch, everything feels sudden. When no one is authorized to warn, every crisis feels shocking. When discernment is dismissed as negativity and vigilance is labeled fear, the city is left blind until the moment of impact.

This is why it is time to call a solemn assembly. Not as performance, and not as panic, but as repentance and realignment. A solemn assembly is where responsibility is reclaimed. It is where we stop asking who is to blame and start asking who is assigned. It is where the Church remembers that intercession was never meant to replace watchfulness, but to empower it. It is where we acknowledge that prayer without posture is incomplete.

This is also the place where watchmen are called, named, and trained again. Not specialists in chaos, but servants of foresight. Not alarmists, but guardians. A watchman is one who observes patterns, monitors shifts, discerns escalation, and speaks with restraint and clarity before harm multiplies. They watch cultural currents, digital spaces, educational environments, family systems, and spiritual atmospheres. They do not govern by force, but by warning. They do not control outcomes, but they preserve the possibility of response.

The Watchman Defense Corps exists because this function has gone largely untrained and unassigned. It is not a replacement for the Church. It is a restoration of a biblical responsibility the Church once understood. It is not political, militant, or reactionary. It is sober, disciplined, and preventative. Its purpose is to see early, speak clearly, and protect quietly.

This is not the hour for vague spirituality or delayed obedience. It is the hour to name what has been missing and to rebuild it with humility and seriousness. We must stop assuming someone else is watching. We must stop outsourcing vigilance to institutions that were never meant to carry spiritual responsibility. And we must stop treating warning as unloving when Scripture treats it as mercy.

So we sound the alarm—not to incite fear, but to awaken responsibility. We weep between the porch and the altar—not in despair, but in repentance for unattended gates. And we call a solemn assembly—not to perform, but to station watchmen once more.

Because the cost of not seeing is now visible. And the time to watch is before the next impact arrives.