Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Technology, Social Media, and the Family

This post serves as a follow-up to a recent conversation in our church at our Next Gen Ministry's most recent Lunch and Learn called, "Technology, Social Media, and the Family."  Recent research shows that families are making technology more and more a part of their lives.  Our conversation was aimed at thinking through how families can navigate the role technology plays in our family dynamics.  More importantly, how do parents and families become good stewards of technology? And, how do we intentionally disconnect in order to grow in the discipline or rest or Sabbath?

Research:
Research on the consumption of media shows that parents are just as likely to be using technology as their kids.  In other words, technology affects family life because it's influencing the parents nearly as much as their children (Orange and Barna - Family Technology Report).

Are we addicted?  The average teen spends over 60 hours digesting media content in a week.  By the time a student is 21, he will have witnessed over 250,000 acts of violence and viewed over 2,000 hours of pornographic content.  47% of adolescents who are heavy media multi-tasters get C's or lower.  A recent study done by Abilene Christian University says 89% of students surveyed experience "phantom rings!"  I think I just got a text...let me check my phone in my pocket.

Ok, enough of the gloom and doom.  Technology in and of itself is not a bad thing.  Research shows that.  For our families and the church, I think the conversation needs to come from a place of stewardship and sabbath.

Some crucial questions:
  • Does technology help or hinder you from engaging your child?
  • How do you evaluate the quality of time you spend with your kids?
  • Do you think your kids would say you have a double standard when it comes to the consumption of technology in your home?
  • Is there a day or time each week when your family purposefully disconnects from technology?
  • Has technology become a crutch for disengaged parenting?
  • Are you setting appropriate limits for your teen as they use technology?
  • What boundaries do you need to set for yourself and your kids when they use technology?
  • How does technology affect your marriage?
Having a Family Plan:

 Jon Acuff says it like this...“The Bible is pretty clear about the exact age that you should give a kid a phone.  King David gave one to Solomon when he was 13.  Mary and Joseph gave Jesus one at 11, but  he was the Son of God, so he could probably handle the responsibility of an iPhone better than your kid.  If you add up these two ages and divide by 2 you get 12…so it’s really easy to figure that you can give your kid a phone when they turn 12."  So really, what's your plan?

How will you be a good steward of technology in your home and with your family?  If you don't have a "nuts and bolts" plan, chances are, the plan won't come to fruition.  Some basic ideas (with resources to follow):
  • Use a filtering software or contact your cell provider to see what limits you can intentionally place on your children's devices.
  • Keep the computer/devices in a central location.  Don't allow your teen to keep their cell phone in their room...Park them at night.
    • 95% of the young men I talk to who struggle with pornography do so because of the availability in which they find it through using their cell phones.  If your teen has unrestricted access to media or the internet you are basically handing them over to temptation.
  • Don't engage in problem solving or conflict resolution with your spouse or kids through text messages.  No winner there!
  • Have each member of your family sign a social media or cell phone agreement.
Important Resources:
I love technology and the newest and coolest gadgets.  Hear me again, technology isn't a bad thing.  It affords my mom opportunities to see her grandsons from hundreds of miles away.  It allows me to watch a Baylor football game on my phone in the airport!  It's awesome.  It can also keep me from really engaging my family and my faith.  That's why I have filtering software on my devices, we don't keep a computer at home, and why I put my phone on the nightstand each evening as soon as I get home.  What's the worst that can happen?  My kids feel me present in the home and teenagers call me an old man because I take so long to respond to texts.  They'll get over it...but my kids will never recover from a dad who was never really present.  That's why a conversation on the stewardship of technology is so crucial for us as we move forward!
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Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Compassion - Engaging the World Around Us

In the Student Ministry here at Northeast, we are constantly talking about the idea of compassion and that a genuine pursuit of Christ will manifest itself in the pursuit of others.  We've even got a little mantra in the Student Ministry concerning compassion...

"You can't extend compassion apart from being present."  

Being compassionate requires being present.  Giving our presence to others is the beginning of compassion.  This is what we see from Christ throughout the pages of scripture.  The most compassionate people in my life are people that I am constantly drawn to.  There is something freeing about being around them.  I feel free to be myself.  I feel free to authentically talk about the ups and downs of life.  I’m confident in sharing life with them because their consistent presence in my life speaks to the idea that they genuinely care about me.  Sounds a lot like Jesus to me.

Compassion is defined as a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering.  Feeling sorry for people is not compassion.  Compassion is being so moved that you work to alleviate the suffering.  Compassion makes people the priority.  This is the model Jesus taught his disciples.  People are the priority of the kingdom of God.  The opposite of compassion is indifference.

It’s time to mobilize a generation of students who are passionate about being present with the love of Christ in the world around them.  They’re not afraid to take up the cause, nor are they afraid to call people to the Truth.  Compassion emerges in the perfect balance of grace and truth. 

That being said, I just want to highlight for you how our students are living as a Christ-centered community working to bring compassion into the lives of the people around them.  Since the beginning of the school year our students have worked compassionately in the following ways:
  • Working to clean up a ballpark for families in New Braunfels.  The 11-12th grade guys used this as an opportunity to serve and to also invite their friends to help serve alongside them opening the door for conversations about why they do what they do.
  • Our MS girls have adopted Resources for Women in our area working to provide resources for them as they get off the ground and begin to operate here in our community.  This is an effort that has been picked up church-wide and spearheaded by 12-14 year old girls.
  • The 9-10th grade girls have taken up a cause to partner with Sole Hope in creating shoes to help children in Africa fight the problem of jiggers (www.solehope.com)
  • The MS boys recently prepped about 1,000 Easter Eggs for Eggstravaganza!  Not only did they prep the eggs, but they will be giving up their Saturday to serve the families of our community at Eggstravaganza.
  • Our 11-12th grade girls have adopted an elder care facility and can often times be found there having conversations and loving on the residents during their Wednesday night LifeGroup maybe followed by some yogurt and conversation at Orange Leaf. 
  •  Students gave up a Sunday afternoon to wrap 3,000 Christmas gifts to be distributed to families in our area through our partnership with the Children’s Hunger Fund.
  •  At Christmas, our 9-10th grade boys partnered up with Elf Louise to distribute Christmas gifts to families in need in San Antonio.  Not only did they distribute the gifts, but through prayer and courage, they also shared the Gospel in the living rooms and apartment lobbies of the families.
  •  During DNOW, our students went out and worked with about 10 elder care facilities and non-profits.  Not to my surprise, our students have been invited back by employees of the facilities.  Our MS girls went back at Valentines to love on the residents, and our 9-10th boys recently went back to play bingo and love on the residents.  One facility even requested the 9-10th girls return to lead worship for them on a Saturday afternoon.
  • During the Compassion Retreat, hungry and tired, our students served at the San Antonio food bank.  Together they prepped 45,582 pounds of food that was enough for 31,000 meals.  The retreat was also a challenging time that changed the perspective of the marginalized for many of our students.  You can catch a portion of what the students had to say about the weekend by watching the compassion celebration video.  (http://www.northeastbiblechurch.com/media.php?pageID=5)
  • Students helped set up and prepare our church-wide effort to put together 1,000 Food PAKS through our partnership with the Children’s Hunger Fund.  They were the first ones there organizing and the last to leave the building after the effort had finished.
This doesn’t even begin to cover all the things our students are doing compassionately in their community.  This isn’t about a pat on the back.  It’s about inspiration.  Our youth have been so deeply moved by the compassionate presence of Christ in their lives that they are moved into compassionate action on behalf of others.  These are the causes they are adopting.  These things aren’t organized by Student Ministry staff, but are growing out of the hearts of our teens!


I see it as a challenge to the adults worshipping alongside of them every Sunday morning.  Students don’t see the obstacles.  The simply see the potential of Christ to radically change the community around them.  They do it one obedient step at a time.  They do it in simple moments of presence.  They do.  Praise God!  I hope you are challenged by their fearless obedience.
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Thursday, December 5, 2013

Weathering the Storms of Life

If you live in Texas, then you know a thing or two about Texas weather.  Even as I’m typing this, the temperatures have plummeted a good 30-40 degrees from yesterday and I’m clearly not prepared in my short-sleeve shirt.  The bottom line – Texas weather is unpredictable. 

Life seems to mirror Texas weather.  It can change in an instant leaving us unprepared and vulnerable.  If we’re not prepared, we are likely to capsize.  If we are certain that storms will come in life (which scripture makes clear if we are obedient followers), shouldn’t we try and prepare.

When I think about storms in life, the first place I go in scripture is to the book of Job.  Yet in a place where I traditionally focus in on suffering, as I was studying to teach this go around, something about the text gripped me in a new way.  The past week we camped out in chapters 1 and 2 of Job. 

I’ve struggled with the text and why God let things go down the way he did…but then it struck me.  Job’s response revealed to me the glory given to God in the fact that Job would not curse him.  First, he takes away his possessions and his family.  These are things that surround his life.  Second, he takes away his health and wellness.  These are the things he needed to carry on in life. 

I don’t know about you, but I’m sure I would have had a few words for the big man upstairs.  Job doesn’t sin (1:22) and in a profound way accepts adversity (2:10).  Accept adversity???  I’ll be honest; I’m not the best at suffering.  I seek my own personal comfort.  But there’s something so powerful about accepting adversity.  It says we trust and value God and that our adversity is short-lived, like a vapor. 

Job sums it up like this…Naked I came and naked I’ll return (1:20-21).  He stands before God naked and stripped of everything yet he lacks nothing.  If Job is as righteous as he appears, then Satan is wrong, in which case the prosperity doesn’t matter anyway.  If righteousness is all that Job ultimately values, that cannot be taken away from him. 

The aim of Satan is to destroy Job’s joy in God.  Putting Job on display, God gains an open victory over Satan and is glorified.  Job loses everything, but responds in a profound way that makes us realize he lacks nothing.  The most probing questions here really is this, “If you lost everything, would Christ be enough?”

We don’t like the story of Job because we fear we might be hit with what he was hit with and that makes us question God and makes us a little bent out of shape…but God, even more than Job, knows what deep loss really feels like. 

The superior worth of God becomes known in Job’s response.  We now become aware of what God was aiming for…the revelation of the value of God himself.  This isn’t about downplaying the storms of life.  Job grieves his loss in a gut-wrenching way.  It’s about realizing that the only way to survive the coming storms is placing supreme value in your relationship with God.


WEATHERING the storms of life really comes down to WHETHER or not you value God the way you ought to. 
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Monday, November 25, 2013

FaceTime

FaceTime is changing the way people are able to communicate.  It was so awesome this semester to be able to FaceTime my family while I was in Honduras.  Those little snippets of familiar faces and the people I love most helped me stay focused and work hard while on mission in Honduras.  Texts or phone calls just wouldn't have been the same for me.  It was the best form of communication I could have had even though we were separated by miles.

What if we could FaceTime God?  What if we could sit in his presence and see his face?  How might that change us?  And if we can, why do we settle for other means of communication that just don't keep us motivated and able to stay the course?  I think there are moments of FaceTime in scripture that reveal quite a bit about our communication with God and how we settle or disengage in our relationship with him.  We have been walking through this idea of FaceTime the last two weeks on Sunday nights with our students.  This past Sunday night, we camped out in Exodus 34:28-35.  This passage reveals quite a bit for us as we think about FaceTime with God.

First and foremost, when you're face-to-face with God, nothing else is needed.  For 40 days and 40 nights, Moses was God-sustained.  Kind of sheds light on that whole "man shall not live on bread alone" statement huh?  This is the result of intimate, uninterrupted communion with God...that we would be God-sustained. 

The second thing we see here with Moses while he is face-to-face with God is that he desires nothing else.  His hunger was not for food, but his hunger was for the very words of God.  When we are in the presence of God, the desires and pleasures of this flesh we live in seem to get drowned out by the overwhelming sense of awe we have for the Father.  But this discipline has to be developed.  You don't just one day decide to have some FaceTime with God and end the call 40 days later on your very first try.  No, it takes someone who is in good shape spiritually to have the stamina and endurance to let go of earthly desires and sit patiently with God. 

The result though is that we come away with the greatest treasure we could ever have.  Moses comes away with the very words of God.  The true test of the heart is whether or not God's word actually is our greatest treasure. 

The third thing we can catch here is that after spending time face-to-face with God, we come away reflecting more of who He is.  Some people just have the glow.  You can identify them just by how they live and love.  I'll never forget my youth minister's wife telling me that my girlfriend (later to become wife) had the glow.  I respected her opinion so much that I was sold.  I knew she was the one.  Some of us try to manufacture the glow...hours in a spiritual tanning bed...but it just doesn't seem to come out right.  You can’t manufacture holiness.  It comes only from being in and remaining in the presence of God, face-to-face.  Moses walks in such humility that he seems oblivious to his own glow.  When Moses figures out something is going on, he puts a veil on.  Holiness isn't about us.  It's about God and his perfect holiness.  Any chance we have to sit in with him ought to humble us and remind us of who we are.  We shouldn't become proud.  How awesome was it that Moses was with God?  He had all the bragging rights, but he walked in humility. 

Finally, we see something really important about Moses and ourselves.  When he goes back into the presence of God, to meet with him face-to-face, he takes the veil off.  Every veil in our lives is removed when we stand before God.  This is true FaceTime.  It is the unveiling of our hidden lives, our secrets, and our sinful nature...at the same time, it is the perfect measure of grace in that God allows us to stand in his perfection, knowing our shortcomings, and still return us to do his work. 


You can't manufacture the glow.  It's time for some FaceTime!
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Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Shazam and The Acoustic Fingerprint

For a lot of people, accepting the possibility of a God isn’t that big of a deal. They do, however, want to know what he’s like if they’re going to consider the idea of relationship. They need some specifics.  They need to understand how life with God is played out in this life.

When I was in high school I had about a 30 minute drive to school in the mornings.  Every morning I would listen to the radio during my drive.  It would always frustrate me when I heard a song I liked, but had no idea what the name was or who it was by.  I would always hope the DJ would give me that info instead of a weather or traffic report that just reminded I was going to hit traffic and be late for school.

Fast forward to today. On the iPhone there is this awesome little app called Shazam. Shazam recognizes almost any song, tells you what it’s called, who it’s by and even gives you a link to download it. Now, whenever I’m listening to the radio and an awesome song that I don’t recognize comes on, I open up Shazam and BOOM! I have the specific information.

Shazam identifies songs based on what its makers call an acoustic fingerprint.  The fingerprint is made up of patterns of different variables identified by the App.  Those variables are frequency, amplitude, and time.  As I began to reflect on my relationship with God, I realized the questions I had about God could be answered through Christ.  It’s as if Jesus Christ is the fingerprint of God.  And since Christ dwells in me, I should be his fingerprint in this world too.  Furthermore, I realized in my relationship with Christ that frequency, amplitude, and time are big factors.  When people listen in on my life are they directed to the Father?  Does a glimpse into my life lead others closer to identifying God?

Frequency in music is about measuring sound waves.  It is about the rate of occurrence of those waves.  In my life, I need to be spending time with the Father frequently.  I need people to be able to see the results of my frequency: the rate of my occurrence with God the Father.  Secondly, amplitude is about the breadth and width of those sound waves.  Amplitude measures just how big something can get.  I hope when people listen in on my life, they experience the breadth and width of God’s love.  It’s about the greatness found in Him.  It is the full measure of his abundance.  That is what amplitude is all about.  But amplitude isn’t where it stops.  As I thought about this idea of an acoustic fingerprint, I realized it’s my job as a Christ-follower to amplify His kingdom!  To amplify means to make larger, greater, or stronger.  People have to see me decreasing and God increasing in my life.  Finally, Shazam uses time to match acoustic fingerprints.  Time in the sense of music really comes down to staying in rhythm.  To walk with God, to stay in step, I have to feel the rhythms of his heart.  In our spiritual lives, frequency, amplitude, and time are good measures of where we stand with God. 


But…it doesn’t stop with the acoustic fingerprint.  The people of Shazam have taken it a step further.  They have orchestrated the App to be able to identify songs even in the midst of background noise.  Even in the midst of background noise there should still be something so distinct in us that it remains identifiable.  It isn’t drowned out, but because of distinct patterns and identifiable markers, the App is able to recognize exactly what song it is.  With so much noise in this life, it is so important for Christ followers to remain distinct, to have identifiable patterns in their life that point back to God.  The question for us to answer is, “When people listen in on my life, are they able to identify God the Father?”
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