Godgrown

Updates from March, 2011 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

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  Mark 10:08 am on March 24, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

  “2-D Me” and the Urge to Connect 

  Today was the exciting conclusion for our friends taking the MACRO course – and for me it reminds me of how important the diversity of God’s family truly is for each of us.

  The human inclination is to short-cut our relationships – we seem only able to take a friendship so far, before we simply can’t keep up with the complexity of another human heart.  We’ve all been there.  I meet someone new, I ask them those basic questions – name, occupation, etc, etc.

  But the truth is - I’ve already pidgeon-holed them; how they look, how they speak, what their body language is saying to me…I quickly “size them up” and file them away.  Filing is great when its the junk lying around my house, its absolutely lethal to a true friendship.

  But it seems only natural.  My brain can’t take the infinite uniqueness of how God has created you.  Its just easier to short-cut things between you and me.  At some point in our friendship – I tacitly choose in my mind to constrain you to some distorted caricature of who you truly are.  You become a cardboard cutout of a person…

  2D friendships are aplenty in our society today.  We’ve mechanized the categorization of our friends – what else is Facebook good for?  My profile page gives you instant access to the 2D me - my likes, dislikes, political leanings…on and on it goes.

  So how do we overcome the caricaturization of our friendships, and live in the delight of authentic relationship?

  How do we push back the boundaries of our finite human brain to live in the infinite complexity of one other person?

  …We must live with the urge to connect.

  When we have that urge to connect – when we are never satisfied with a status update or a Tweet to fully express the boundless beauty of “the other” — we live in the hunger for learning more from each other.  We’ll do anything to connect with the true human heart sitting across the table from us.  We’ll cross oceans of fear, doubt, and self-centeredness to find just out something about the other we’ve never heard before.

  Its that easy…and its the most difficult thing I’ll ever do.

  
   

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  Mark 9:25 am on February 20, 2011 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Facebook ( 3 ), Generation Y ( 2 ), Richard Beck ( 3 )   

  Facebook and Eschatechnology in the Church 

  Much has been said of late on the inter-webs about the (negative) influence Facebook and other social media websites have had on attendance at church worship services.  Richard Beck, psychology professor at my alma mater ACU (makin’ me proud!), suggests that there is a certain psycho-social human need that is met in the gathering together each Sunday morning. Seeing the same familiar faces, catching up on the goings on in the lives of friends, and “visiting,” is a major reason why many of us attend church in the first place.

  Beck says that teens and young professionals of the emerging Generation Y, among the most comfortable on technologies like Facebook, are also the folks least likely to be regular attenders of church services.  He claims that the same needs met by regular in-the-flesh gatherings can be met by checking status updates online, and most kiddos simply don’t want to spend an hour and a half doing something they can do 15 times in 5 minutes!

  Interestingly, he’s done the research and concluded that our Facebook friends (the ones we pay attention to anyway) tend to be our actual friends! Facebook isn’t replacing our social world, it is reflecting it…complimenting…even augmenting it!

  But what about the other purposes of gathering together?  Like worship, teaching, physical touch, laughter?  What about social justice, community service, and more?  Beck says that all the surface level practicals of arranging our social lives can now be done online or via texts, whereas the deeper reasons for gathering can be focused on more and more.

  Now when we gather, it is to see God glorified, or our neighbor loved – with fewer distractions! We see this happening with fewer minutes being used during a worship service to do announcements – now we just ask folks to join our Facebook page to stay connected all week long!

  Can Facebook help us “do life” with our church 7 days a week? Sure it can – but it can also perpetuate shallow relationships too.

  Can Facebook help us serve our neighbor? You betcha!  But it can also keep us sequestered to our dark little apartment, or keep blinders on to everyone who isn’t in our own little social network.

  —>  In short – Facebook merely helps you become more of who you already are! If you are a shallow jerk in your actual relationships, you’ll have apps and tools to make you an even BIGGER shallow jerk online!  (Farmville, anyone?)  If you love the LORD and are passionate about seeing his Kingdom come, you will be a part of helping it come on Facebook as it is in heaven!

  At a congregational level, if your church can’t seem to get past conversations about sports and the weather during your “fellowship times,” why will people attend your gatherings when they can meet all those needs from their smartphone?  And if your church is begging God for revival, if they are constantly listening to each other’s heart and the heart of God – there will be no shortage of ways to use the power of Facebook to meet those needs.

  Think about your faith community now – how might social media augment what you value as a community?  How might it help reorient your values in a positive way?

  God seems to reveal himself and propel us in mission each time new technology emerges (think stone tablets, Roman roads, the Gutenberg press, blogs, and more!)  With tongue placed firmly in cheek, I call this “Eschatechnology.”

  
   
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  Mark 3:49 pm on January 29, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

  Functional Saviors 

  Know anyone who takes out a double policy of insurance?  That’s when you have insurance on something, then you wrap it in another blanket of insurance.  What’s up with that?

  It just means the first insurance you bought wasn’t good enough.

  We do the same thing with God – if God is our ultimate trust – more than just an insurance policy, but the largest thing we can hold onto in our lives, and we toss in some “functional saviors” (coined so perfectly by pastor Tim Keller) are we really content with the power of God?

  What are your “functional saviors?”

  For the Jews, it was all the things they couldn’t have under the Law of Yahweh.  According to the Law, they couldn’t eat pork, so what’s the first thing you go for when life turns sour?  You got it – a greasy bag of pork rinds!

  God laments in Isaiah 65:

  65:3 All day long they insult me to my face

  by worshiping idols in their sacred gardens.

  They burn incense on pagan altars.

  4 At night they go out among the graves,

  worshiping the dead.

  They eat the flesh of pigs

  and make stews with other forbidden foods.

  11b …you have prepared feasts to honor the god of Fate

  and have offered mixed wine to the god of Destiny…

  Do you have to realize you’re dividing up your trust among idols – considering God “not-enough?”  No – I think there are lots of things that become our functional savior that we don’t even realize.  Let these questions from Darrin Patrick help expose the ‘other gods’ in your life:

  • What do I worry most about?
  • What, if I failed or lost it, would cause me to feel that I did not even want to live?
  • What do I use to comfort myself when things get bad, or difficult?
  • What do I do to cope?  What are my release valves?  What do I do to feel better?
  • What preoccupies me?  What do I daydream about?
  • What makes me feel the most self-worth?  Of what am I the proudest?  For what do I want to be known?
  • What do I lead with in conversations?
  • Early on, what do I want to make sure people know about me?
  • What prayer, unanswered, would make me seriously think about turning away from God?
  • What do I really want and expect out of life?  What would really make me happy?
  • What is my hope for the future?

  God is interested in being your only trust – your only investment – your only insurance.  Give it a try – throw off the other “blankets” that wrap around your trust in God – it is amazing how light the burden will become.