Unity in an Age of Division

Our church hosted a “Unity Forum” after the 2016 elections. I’ll never forget it. Pittsburgh is one city that often feels more like two. There’s Old Pittsburgh, the Pittsburgh of the steel industry, I.C. Light, and voting Republican. Then, there’s New Pittsburgh, the Pittsburgh of the technology and health industries, microbreweries, and voting Democrat.

At the forum, one side wanted to Make America Great Again, while the other side chose to stand With Her. People from both side, citizens of both the Old and the New Pittsburgh go to our church.

Instead of sitting on opposite sides of the aisle, we often share the same pew. Red and Blue are sprinkled throughout the congregation instead of neatly divided into separate sections. It’s not uncommon to see an outspoken Trump supporter squished into the same pew as someone who marched against Trump.

But on a Sunday during an election season, it can feel about as volatile as Thanksgiving dinner with your extended family. Conversations are cordial as long as no one asks who you voted for.

High Tensions

Tensions were particularly high after the 2016 elections. Social media posts from some of the people in our church were downright offensive. Congregants were wondering what we would say from the pulpit, if we said anything at all.

Our church felt more divided than ever, and we wanted to do something that could heal the disunity before the cement dried. We announced an upcoming “Unity Forum” and invited anyone with feelings—any feelings—to attend.

It seemed like a good idea.

We tried, really really tried, to lead people into face-to-face conversations with one another. We tried to help people seek to understand before they were understood. We tried to teach people how to make sure they could explain what the other person was feeling before they shared what they were feeling. We tried to create unity and, in the end, we only saw how deep the disunity ran.

We saw in our church a microcosm of our country, and we didn’t know what to do about it.

Israel’s Polarized Cultural Moment

We aren’t the first nation to live through a polarized cultural moment. God’s chosen people, the nation of Israel whom he had set free from slavery in Egypt, had their own experiences of disunity.

In 1 Kings 11-12, after King Solomon walked away from the Lord, God promised the kingdom would fall apart under the leadership of Solomon’s son—an act of judgment on Solomon’s worship of foreign gods. And, under the poor leadership of his son Rehoboam, the unified kingdom divided into two: Israel in the north, Judah in the South.

If they had cable news, the anchors would have been stoking the heated rhetoric. Some people would have had “Make Israel Great Again” bumper stickers on their chariots, while others would have been wearing “I’m with Rehoboam” t-shirts. There would have been long arguments on social media about which side was to blame for the division. Feast days would have been full of tension, not unlike our own.

Israel’s Moment of Peace

Only two generations before the division, though, the kingdom was in a far better place. King David was on the throne. The kingdom was mostly at peace with itself, even if it was at war with foreign nations. It was a peaceful, rather than a polarized, cultural moment—one in which the king had time to write poetry.

In Psalm 133, a poem which would be sung for generations to come, David muses,

Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity! It is like the precious oil on the head, running down on the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down on the collar of his robes!

It is like the dew of Hermon, which falls on the mountains of Zion! For there the Lord has commanded the blessing, life forevermore.

It’s one thing to sing this in a moment of unity, like what Israel experienced under David’s rule. It’s quite another to believe it when your kingdom is divided in two.

As one of the “Songs of Ascents,” a collection of psalms possibly intended to be sung on the way to Jerusalem, this psalm was part of a playlist that was listened to from generation to generation. It was sung when the nation was at peace and when relatives were ready to kill one another. It was sung when politics were cordial and when they were explosive. It was sung when unity was palpable and when disunity was the norm.

In a polarized cultural moment, how can we find the kind of unity David describes in this psalm? Is it even possible?

How Not to Create Unity

While most of us are not sure what oil dripping down Aaron’s head or dew on Mount Hermon feels like, both seem better than whatever we’re experiencing right now. We’re growing tired of the disunity all around us—in the church and outside of it. There’s a sense of malaise about our fragmented, polarized moment.

None of us, though, can seem to agree on what it might look like to pursue unity.

For some of us, unity means not talking about our differences. We can have unity as long as no one brings up politics at dinner or on Sunday morning. We can have unity as long we only stick to the accepted topics of conversation. It’s superficial, of course, and everyone knows it. But it’s better than losing friends over midterm elections.

For others, unity means agreeing on everything. Kyle J. Howard, in his recent article in Fathom Magazine, writes, “As a young Christian, I assumed that being ‘united’ had to also include uniformity.” Until we can agree on everything from politics to baptism, unity will always be just out of reach. In the end, we tend to just surround ourselves with people whose opinions make sense to us.

Then, there’s a third group of people who believe unity is impossible. We’re too divided and too polarized to even pursue unity. It’s going to get worse before it gets better. We’re never going to agree on everything, and superficial conversations with relatives aren’t worth it.

But is there another way?

Through and In Jesus Christ

When Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote Life Together, he opened with Psalm 133:1 as a way to set the stage for the entire book. In the opening chapter, he explains the secret to the unity David describes:

Christianity means community through Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ. No Christian community is more or less than this. Whether it be a brief, single encounter or the daily fellowship of years, Christian community is only this. We belong to one another only through and in Jesus Christ.[1]

Jesus is the one who makes true unity possible. In his death and resurrection, he created unity across racial and ethnic divides, gender divides, and political divides. It’s a unity even greater than the one David probably imagined when he wrote this psalm. The gospel creates the unity we can never create on our own.

In Ephesians 1:14-18, Paul describes the unity made possible by Jesus, writing,

For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.

Unity is not primarily something we create; it’s something we discover.

What Unity Truly Depends On

In and through Jesus Christ, we have access to unity that goes deeper than surface-level conversations and the need to agree on everything. It’s here that God “has commanded the blessing, life forevermore” (Ps. 133:3).

When I left the “Unity Forum” back in 2016, it felt like a failure. It felt like we made things worse by trying to make things better. It felt like we were trying to do the impossible at our church by being a church where both sides of the political spectrum could worship the same God from the same pew. I thought people would leave the Unity Forum and never come back again.

In the end, though, people stayed in our church. People showed up the next Sunday and sat down in the same pews. They still talk to one another. They still have hard conversations. We still address political topics from the pulpit, and it tends to offend people on both the left and the right.

No one can create unity with a Unity Forum. If that’s what we’re trying to do, we will always leave feeling like failures.

The best we can do is point to the unbreakable unity we have in and through Jesus Christ—a unity that depends not on whether we can agree on everything or how well we can avoid hard conversations, but on what Jesus did on the cross thousands of years before any midterm election.

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Austin Gohn is a pastor at Bellevue Christian Church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and a student at Trinity School for Ministry. He is the author of a forthcoming book from Gospel-Centered Discipleship on Augustine’s Confessions and young adulthood. You can follow him on Twitter.

[1] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together (New York: HarperOne, 1954), 21

Giving Tuesday: The Biblical Principle Behind a Secular Holiday

As a child, Christmas Day was the one time of year I would gladly wake up early. My brother and I would slide down the banister (against my mother’s persistent commands not to) and race toward the Christmas tree. While we waited for my parents to wake up, we marveled at all the gifts, and we'd nudge the boxes to see if we could guess what was inside. I just knew Addy, the American Girl Doll I wanted, was waiting for me.

If I’m honest, Christmas was exciting because we knew we would get a lot of toys. And if we’re all honest, this is probably where our hearts naturally lean. We’re prone to focus more on what we can get rather than what we can give. But when the Bible talks about giving, it almost always places a strong emphasis on the heart of the giver and the blessing it is to give.

Even the world recognizes this truth, in some respects. Giving Tuesday is known as a global day of giving that seeks to “connect diverse groups of individuals, communities, and organizations around the world for one common purpose: to celebrate and encourage giving."

It’s wisely situated the Tuesday after Thanksgiving and right in the mix of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. It was started, in part, as a response to the consumeristic nature that marks the holiday season.  Though Giving Tuesday wasn't started as an explicitly Christian movement, it gets at the heart of Jesus’ words that “it is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35).

THE BIBLICAL PRINCIPLE BEHIND GIVING TUESDAY

If that principle is true, then both giving and receiving are good things. But if you had to choose one, Scripture says it’s better to give.

Do we really believe this, though? Our natural inclination is to hold on to what God has given us. We may wrongly assume that because God has given us wisdom, wealth, or influence, those are ours to use for our comfort on this side of glory.

While our natural inclination may be to withhold, God has given us our time, talents, and treasures to be a blessing to others. When God promised Abraham that he would be the father of many nations and that his descendants would be as vast as the stars in the sky, he ends his promise by saying “all the peoples on earth will be blessed through [him]” (Gen. 12:3).

God was not just blessing Abraham so that he would accrue wealth, status, and influence (although he did have those). God was blessing Abraham so that he would be a blessing to the world. God’s blessing Abraham was not an end in itself. It was the means by which God would bless others.

Giving Tuesday is beautiful in its attempt to fight against our natural inclination to get more during the holiday (and every) season. Instead of asking how we might get our children, spouse, or friends the latest and greatest gifts, maybe we should ask how we can give to those that can give nothing back to us? Perhaps we should be asking how we can serve, love, and care for those on the margins of our society? Giving Tuesday campaigns provide spaces to answer these questions and to turn our questions into actions in the context of community.

GIVING IN COMMUNITY

In the west, we often view giving as an individual act. In December, my husband and I write our end-of-the-year donations to the nonprofits we support, and we usually pray for their work during this time. This is good, appropriate, and necessary, but Giving Tuesday has challenged me in the communal effort and impact of giving.

Giving Tuesday emphasizes whole communities that are working together toward causes that impact their cities through their “community campaign." In Charlotte, NC, the SHARE Charlotte community campaign raised $7 million for 235 Charlotte nonprofits in 2017. There’s something beautiful about collaborative community efforts that seek to push back the effects of sin in small ways.

We see similar efforts in God’s Word. In 2 Cor. 8-9, Paul exhorts the churches in Corinth to continue to give their resources to the persecuted saints in Jerusalem. This petition was not an uncommon practice for Paul (see 1 Cor. 16:1–4; 2 Cor. 8:1–9:15; Rom. 15:25). Throughout his letters, we learn that Paul raised money among Gentile churches for Jewish believers. Paul's efforts were evidence of God’s grace to his people since they historically did not get along.

In the case of Paul’s letters, these were groups of people (local churches) that were giving together for the good of God’s people in other locations and the advancement of his Kingdom.

Furthermore, these examples show us there is more than one way to give. Some may provide financially, like the Corinthians church’s offering to the believers in Jerusalem. Others, like Paul, may give of their time by volunteering with an organization. And some may provide talents they have to offer.

Whether you are giving your time, talents, or treasures, what might it look like for our generosity to exceed writing individual checks at the end of the year to include tangibly working alongside others to help the weak?

WHERE GIVING TUESDAY FALLS SHORT

In the SHARE Charlotte Giving Tuesday campaign video, a woman said they wanted to give people an easy way to do good. Giving Tuesday is a good and noble cause, but it falls short where many good works that are done apart from Christ fall short.

God does not just care about what we do, he also cares about why we do it. It’s not enough to give our time, talents, and treasures. The motive behind our giving matters.

The motivation of the Christian’s giving should be different. We are generous stewards because Christ has been generous to us. The God of the universe, who was rich in every regard, generously made himself poor so that we might become rich. “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.” (2 Cor. 8:9).

GIVING IS WHO WE ARE

If there ever was good work, this is it—Jesus Christ laying down your life for his people (John 15:13). So, when we give, it is not just out of a motivation to do good. When we are generous to others, it’s because the most magnificent and undeserved gift has been given to us—salvation in Jesus Christ. It is from this salvation that our generosity flows.

Because of what Christ has done for us, Christians give beyond Giving Tuesday. Giving is not just what we do; giving is who we are.

We give because of what, in Christ, has been given to us. We give because we know that it is better to give than to receive. We give because, he who did not spare his own Son will, in him, graciously give us all things (Rom 8:32).

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SharDavia “Shar” Walker lives in Atlanta, GA with her husband Paul. She serves on staff with Campus Outreach, an interdenominational college ministry, and enjoys sharing her faith and discipling college women to be Christian leaders. Shar is a writer and a speaker and is currently pursuing an M.A. in Christian Studies at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Trick-or-Treaters as Image Bearers

Growing up, I likened Halloween to banana-flavored Laffy Taffy. I didn’t love it or hate it—but if it were my only option, I'd reluctantly partake. My indifference to the holiday had little to do with the ethical debate Christians often have this time of year. I just thought it was strange. I didn’t like the idea of going to people’s homes asking for candy, or the jack-o-lantern’s taunting smirk. And I deplored the life-size inflatable replicas of my least favorite critter—spiders. I carried some of these sentiments into adulthood.

But every year, this holiday I once shrugged at leaves me in awe of God. When I look past the spider webs draped over bushes like cotton candy, and the thousands of tiny fingers swimming in bowls of sweets, I see kids imaging their Creator. Their imagination and creativity remind me that, in small ways, they are reflecting the likeness of their Maker.

Imaging Our Creator

It didn’t need to be Halloween for my brother and me to dress up. Growing up, we had active imaginations. We tied towels around our necks and pretended to be superheroes. We knew the world needed saving and assumed we were just the duo to complete the mission.

Sometimes our creativity frustrated my mother—especially when we used our “powers” to steal back “the holy grail” (also known as my mom’s favorite vase), only to break it when we returned to our “lair” (the dining room).

We loved to create—costumes, songs, paintings and more. At the time, we didn’t know we were displaying something about God.

If you only read the first sentence of the Bible, how would you describe God? You might say he is at the start of everything. He existed at the beginning. He is the main subject. But what is God doing? He is making things. When introduced in the Bible, God is creating.

Genesis 1:1 says, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (emphasis mine). In the beginning, God is making, forming and shaping the world with his spoken word.

On Halloween night, I wait to hear the doorbell ring. I find it hard to concentrate on anything else as I look forward to children arriving. Why am I excited? I want to see kids who didn’t buy their costumes from Party City. I’m excited to see what costumes they created with everyday household items.

One kid arrived at my doorstep as a washing machine made out of a cardboard box; his sister was a dryer. They glued an empty Tide detergent box and a few articles of clothing onto their "washing and drying machines."

Another girl, dressed entirely in red, stuck a bunch of colorful balls to her stomach and smiled as she held a bag of gumballs in her hand. The creativity amazes me because it shows what God is like. He is a maker and creator in a broader sense. They are like God in this regard, and many don't even realize it.

Making Something Out of Nothing

In Genesis 1-2, God creates the earth out of nothing. He speaks and nature exists. The Hebrew word for "created" in these chapters is bara’. It means to create, shape or form. The Latin phrase, ex nihilo, means to create something out of nothing. God does this in an ultimate sense.

While we do not create ex nihilo, we do create. We play a part in making, shaping, and forming things on earth.

When God gives Adam and Eve what is known as “the cultural mandate” in Genesis 1:28, he commands them to do what he does, but on a smaller level. They are to cultivate the earth. God calls them to develop and tend to the garden where he placed them. As one interpretation renders it:

“The first phrase, ‘be fruitful and multiply,’ means to develop the social world: build families, churches, schools, cities, governments, laws. The second phrase, ‘subdue the earth,” means to harness the natural world: plant crops, build bridges, design computers, compose music.”^[1]

While we develop and harness the social and natural world, we praise those that do so with excellence. We admire beautiful architecture and listen in amazement to our favorite songs and composers. We love innovation and imagination in kids and adults.

We acknowledge the beauty of creating in our everyday lives, and so do children. They paint, put on costumes, form animals out of clay, build cities with Legos, dress up dolls, pretend to be superheroes. Whether in a unique costume or a painting, as we praise our children for creating in their distinct ways, we must not forget to honor the ultimate Creator that formed our very beings.

This year, as you see children (and adults) dressed up, remember the image they bear in their creativity. In the little things, they reflect a creatively beautiful God who surpasses even their wildest dreams and imaginations.

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SharDavia “Shar” Walker lives in Atlanta, GA with her husband Paul. She serves on staff with Campus Outreach, an interdenominational college ministry, and enjoys sharing her faith and discipling college women to be Christian leaders. Shar is a writer and a speaker and is currently pursuing an M.A. in Christian Studies at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

^[1] Nancy R. Pearcey, Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2004), 47.

You Don’t Have to Be Busy to Belong

One evening when reading our dinner devotional book, I read about the Feast of Trumpets, a once-a-year event when the Israelites were called (literally) to repentance. The trumpet would sound and they’d remember that their time was God’s gift and whether they’d spent it well or not. Nancy Guthrie writes, “God set up a yearly holiday called the Festival of Trumpets to blast the people out of their spiritual laziness.”

Sometimes I wish we’d get a trumpet blast to arouse us out of our spiritual stupors, so we’d be forced to see how we use busyness to block our ears.

Slowing Down

We need trumpet calls and wake-up calls. We need to say no to the things that lead us away from the story of God and lead us to follow a story of the suburbs. The suburbs keep us busy because we think the more we move, the more we work, the more valuable we will be. If we hope to nurture a life of faith, we’ve got to stop moving long enough to hear God’s voice.

The gospel says: come to the desolate space. Tantrum, scream, cry, face your fears of insignificance and irrelevancy there. Then find rest in a rest that is not of your own making. Find Jesus. And having found Jesus, we will be sent out, and he will ask us impossible things—not to test us but to show us (even in the food we eat) that he provides not only for our hungers but also for the hunger pains of our communities.

God will be found by us in the desolate spaces. Going to desolate places might look like recalibrating our time to fit what we say we value. It might be removing our phones from our nightstands and choosing to not document our lives on social media. It may be committing to read our Bibles even when we’re not sure if God will show up.

Our time is not our own to fill like an empty shopping cart—with whatever strikes our fancy and fits our budget. Our time (like our money) is a means to love God and serve others. Paradoxically, only as we give of our resources will we be filled. This isn’t American bootstrapperism where we muscle it out to be generous; instead it’s slowing down and acknowledging that we have a Father God who sees our needs and kindly answers them for our good and his good pleasure.

But if our schedules are packed too tight—like our closets—there will never be room to let in anything new, including God. Our daily habits, our weekly schedules, and our purchases all add up to how we spend our lives. Anything we turn to that dictates our daily habits also shapes our hearts. We hunger for good work and restorative rest, and yet we stay busy because we fear we won’t find anything in the desolate places. But what if instead of circling the suburbs or distracting ourselves, we simply stopped? What if we said no more often? What would happen if we slowed down?

We could begin to live ordinary time well.

Living Ordinary Time Well

When we live ordinary time well, we practice disciplines that increase our hunger for the right things—not the quick-fix chicken nuggets of the soul, but the nutritious meal. We pray. We read our Bibles. We give. We serve. We partake in the sacraments and dig our hands into the life of the church.

When we live ordinary time well, we choose to spend our time for God’s kingdom instead of building up the kingdom of self. When we do, we don’t have to force our days, plans, or even our memories to provide total satisfaction. In her book Simply Tuesday, Emily P. Freeman writes, “Part of living well in ordinary time is letting this day be good. Letting this day be a gift. Letting this day be filled with plenty. And if it all goes wrong and my work turns to dust? This is my kind reminder that outcomes are beyond the scope of my job description.”

When we stop moving, we realize time was never our own. Then, our days can be received as gifts.

If we slowed down and pruned our schedules, we’d begin to decenter ourselves. We’d practice sustained attention and even be bored. We could begin to imagine what finding holy in the suburbs would look like in our hearts, families, and neighborhoods. We’d give our children the tools to know how to be comfortable in their own skin without having to perform to feel loved. We’d give them (and us) a better way to live in a culture that says you have to stay busy to be seen. We’d show them a better way to belong than through joining a frenzied, success- and image-driven culture.

You Don't Have to Be Busy to Belong

The upside-down kingdom of God in the suburbs stakes this claim: you don’t have to be busy to belong. When we stop striving, we don’t have to hoard our time or treasure. God’s kingdom testifies that rest is possible, not just checking out from the rat race in your favorite version of suburban leisure, but more than that, we can experience a deep, restorative rest.

The gospel says that in Jesus we’re held, protected, loved, and valued simply because we are God’s children. But to imagine a vision larger than what our suburbs sell as success and productivity, we have to have the courage to slow down.

There we have the space to wrestle with all that our busyness hides and there, we pray, we will find God.

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Taken from Finding Holy in the Suburbs by Ashley Hales. Copyright (c) 2018 by Ashley Hales. Published by InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL. www.ivpress.com

Ashley Hales is a writer, speaker, pastor's wife, and mother to four. She holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, and after years away, she's back in the southern California suburbs helping her husband plant a church, Resurrection Orange County. She's the author of Finding Holy in the Suburbs and a contributor to Everbloom. Connect with Ashley at aahales.com.

Loving and Living in Kairos Time

One of the most significant inventions in human history is something you’ve probably never heard of. It hasn’t received much press, even though it helped fundamentally define the way we now live. It’s called the escapement. First used in the 13th century, the escapement is the piece in the machinery of a clock that allows it to measure time in equally divided increments. It regulates the descent of weights or the unwinding of a compressed spring in a measured fashion, creating the distinctive “tick-tock” of the clock that so infamously vexed Captain Hook.

Take a moment and seriously consider what life would be like without clocks. How would you measure time? How would you know when to show up for an appointment? Or when the football game will be on TV? How would you know what time to take a lunch break—or when you need to come back?

Precisely measured time is such an ingrained part of our experience it is nearly impossible to imagine life without it. Even as I write this, I’m aware of the current time, my next appointment, and the looming deadline to turn in this article.

Prior to the escapement, time was understood more like a flowing river than a ticking clock. The sun, moon, and stars—mysterious heavenly bodies that lay beyond human control—were the base tools for measuring time in large units such as days, months, and years. Even so, time was elastic, as changing seasons ushered in longer or shorter days.

The invention of the escapement marked a radical paradigm shift from an elastic, rhythmic, flowing concept of time to a precisely measured, evenly divided, universal understanding of time. As historian Daniel Boorstin writes, “There are few greater revolutions in human experience than this movement from the seasonal or ‘temporary’ hour to the equal hour” (from his book The Discoverers, published in 1983).

All that to say, we have a complex relationship with time. But it doesn't have to be so complicated.

TOO BUSY MARKING TIME

The Greek term for this kind of measured time is chronos, from which we get the word chronological. We function largely in chronos time—making and keeping appointments, celebrating birthdays and anniversaries, and trying to fit as much as possible into the limited time we have. Type-A personalities are known for taking control of their time, not allowing one second to be wasted. “Time is money,” we are told, because “time and tide wait for no man.”

As helpful as the escapement was, giving us a sense of dominance over an uncontrollable part of life, it came with its own requirements. As Boorstin writes, man “accomplished this mastery by putting himself under the dominion of a machine with imperious demand all its own.”

In the area of relationships, when we function primarily in chronos time, people either fit into our schedules or they don’t. Our relationships are controlled by a scarcity of minutes and hours. To give our attention, time, or energy to another person is to sacrifice a limited commodity.

So we must decide, with every interaction, if the person before us—the one vying for “a unit” of our day—is going to be a drain to an already limited asset or a worthy investment of our time. We play a game of give-and-take based on what we can get from them in the time allotted. People become objects, defined by space and time, and their fundamental nature as persons who bear the image of God is devalued.

WELCOMING DIVINE APPOINTMENTS

However, there is another way—one more ancient and biblical—to view time. The Greek term that defines this understanding of time is kairos. Though a complex word, kairos can be understood to mean “a specific and decisive point” in time.

The idea of kairos time, in the Bible, carries with it an idea of divine appointment: that God is in control of time itself, and he has appointed times, seasons, and dates to fulfill his own purposes. Each moment is, therefore, pregnant with purpose above and beyond our own understanding.

Kairos time is purposeful, yet outside of our control. Our lives, therefore, are filled with a multitude of divine appointments, rather than a long line of annoying interruptions.

Scripture is full of divine kairos appointments. Take Philip, for example, who was on the frontline of a revival in Samaria (Acts 8:4-25), which included crowds paying attention to and responding to the gospel, exorcisms, and miraculous healings. People were being baptized and receiving the Holy Spirit right and left.

In the middle of this, “an angel of the Lord said to Philip, ‘rise and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.’ This is a desert place” (Acts 8:26). This is a kairos moment for Philip: a divinely appointed time for him to obey and respond to God’s leading, which he did: “And he rose and went” (Acts 8:27a).

STAYING IN THE MOMENT

For an angel to send Philip to the Gaza road seems a bit like benching a player who’s batting a thousand. Or ending a career right at its apex. “God is doing some amazing work through you … therefore, leave right away, go out to the middle of the desert, and hang out in the wilderness.”

Do you feel like you’ve been taken out of your sweet spot in life, and relegated to the side of a desert road? Perhaps life has been interrupted with a cancer diagnosis, the death of a loved one, the loss of a job, or a family member struggling with addiction.

It’s easy to get distracted by the wilderness and miss God’s hand in the midst of it. We get overwhelmed with the geography (the desert) and miss the moment (the kairos). What God calls us all to do is be attentive to how he wants to use us right where he has us, even if it’s a place we never would choose. Sometimes the time is more important than the place.

Will you respond to the perfect moment—for every moment is his—like Philip did? For Philip, obedience to God landed him in a chariot with a foreigner and religious outcast. For this man, Philip’s response to this kairos moment was the necessary piece of the puzzle that connected him with Jesus (Acts 8:27-40).

God is at work in every situation. So many times I’ve spoken to friends who have recognized and obediently acted on the divine appointments which came while sitting in a chemotherapy chair, speaking gospel truth and comforting other patients. Could God use something as bad as cancer to put you in the place where he wants to use you?

LOVING AND LIVING IN KAIROS TIME

When we live in the freedom of kairos time, people are no longer seen as time-sucking drains. We are no longer forced to view others as assets or liabilities, worthy or unworthy investments. Because people are not things, they cannot be reduced with such a myopic view.

Loving people in kairos time means no longer seeing time as a scarce asset under our control, but a gift to be generously distributed. It means viewing every person as worthy of our time, because not only are they created in God’s image, they are placed before us by a God who loves them and wants to love them through us.

Because of this, there are no interruptions. Only divine appointments.

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Mike Phay serves as Lead Pastor at FBC Prineville (Oregon) and as a Staff Writer at Gospel-Centered Discipleship. He has been married to Keri for over 21 years, and they have five amazing kids. You can follow him on Twitter (@mikephay) or check out his blog.

Happiness in High Fidelity

Vanity of vanities. What’s the point? Nothing matters. How is this possible? How can things that initially seem so enjoyable and look so good end up being so unsatisfying in the end?

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus helps us understand what lies at the root of Solomon’s unhappiness—and our own. “Don’t store up for yourselves treasures on earth,” he says, “. . . but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven. . . . For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

In other words, the reason Solomon became dissatisfied with consumption, the reason we will also find it unsatisfying, is because it cannot offer the deeper, richer, sustainable goodness that our souls seek. When we invest our hearts in temporary things, things that John describes as “passing away,” we must constantly replace them to maintain our joy. And so we’re constantly looking for newer, better, faster, and flashier and will gladly pay for them even if we don’t need them.

Happiness: Made to Break

Understanding how our hearts relate to possessions helps explain cultures marked by consumerism and driven by the belief that new is always better. Giles Slade, the author of Made to Break: Technology and Obsolescence in America, writes that part of what motivates consumers to keep purchasing is that they are in “a state of anxiety based on the belief that whatever is old is undesirable, dysfunctional, and embarrassing, compared with what is new.”

So in order to be happy, we keep consuming, keep buying, keep indulging—but the whole time, the things we gain leave us empty even as we crave them all the more. We’re not victims of planned obsolescence as much as partners in it.

In order to find lasting happiness, we must invest in things that last, we must store up “treasures in heaven.” Because what ultimately makes something good is not whether it brings us momentary pleasure but whether it brings us eternal pleasure, whether it satisfies both our bodies and our souls.

Unlike modern gadgets that become outdated on release, the technology that allows me to play my Sidney Bechet album is the same basic technology that Thomas Edison patented in 1878. To look at it, a record is nothing more than a hard, flat disk with thin concentric circles, but the circles are actually grooves with microscopic variations that the record needle “reads.” The resulting vibrations are translated into electric signals, amplified, and as if by magic, make my living room sound like a 1940s nightspot.

Spiraling Toward God

Another surprising thing about records is that while the record itself is spinning in a circle, the needle is actually moving closer and closer to the center with each spin. The circles that appear concentric are really one continuous spiral that begins at the outer edge and slowly loops toward the center.

We often think of life on this earth in a linear fashion, a road that leads straight off into eternity. Because of this, when we think about investing in heavenly treasure or things that last, we could easily assume it means forgoing anything but necessities here on earth, that we should only invest in things of an obvious religious or spiritual nature. But Solomon presents a different vision of our time on this earth—one that simultaneously complicates and clarifies the search for good things.

Having realized that seeking pleasure itself is not good, Solomon, began to understand that his problem wasn’t so much what he was pursuing as how he was pursuing it. He had been pursuing good things apart from God, the Giver of good things. But “apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?” he asks.

This leads Solomon to an equally profound thought: “For everything there is a season,” he writes, “and a time for every matter under heaven. . . .”

He has put eternity into man’s heart. . . . there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man.

What Solomon realizes is that our life on earth, all the things we experience, all the work we do, all the good things we enjoy, aren’t simply a hurdle to the next life. They are designed by God to lead us to the next life. They are designed to lead us to him. Like the grooves on a record, God’s good gifts are designed to draw us closer and closer to the center, to draw us closer and closer to eternity and him.

A Broken Record

But sometimes the record is scratched. Sometimes debris gets lodged in a groove. And when this happens, a record can play on a loop, repeating the same musical phrase over and over and over again, never moving forward. This is what happens when we seek God’s good gifts as ends in themselves.

When we give ourselves to pleasure without acknowledging God as the source of it, we get locked in an earthly, worldly mindset. We begin to believe that this present moment is all that matters. And we run in circles trying to satisfy ourselves, never getting any closer to where we need to be. Never getting any closer to true goodness.

Instead of forgoing good things in this life, we need to let them do what they were designed to do: draw us toward God.

Keep Spinning

In 1 Timothy, Paul writes that “everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer” (1 Tim. 4:4). Paul is not suggesting that we can indulge in anything we want as long as we pray over it; he’s teaching how a posture of thanksgiving and submission to God’s Word puts us in a place to know God through his gifts.

From this posture, we acknowledge that all good things come down from him, that without him, we would have nothing. We submit ourselves to his plans and purposes for our lives, even if they run counter to what the world tells us will bring happiness. And we confess that he is our ultimate good.

So that by this turning, turning, turning, this always, only, ever turning toward him, we will come out right.

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Excerpted from All That’s Good: Recovering the Lost Art of Discernment by Hannah Anderson (©2018). Published by Moody Publishers. Used by permission.

Hannah Anderson lives in the haunting Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. She spends her days working beside her husband in rural ministry, caring for their three children, and scratching out odd moments to write. In those in-between moments, she contributes to a variety of Christian publications and is the author of Made for More (Moody, 2014) and Humble Roots (Moody, 2016). You can connect with her at her blog sometimesalight.com and on Twitter @sometimesalight.

An Ancient Solution to Digital Weariness

My college diet was deplorable. Many days, I saw Taco Bell’s “Fourth meal” less as marketing lingo and more as a privilege. I cherished ramen, fast-food, and freezer pizzas for their convenience and ease (and of course, their taste). Though the food tasted good, it left me feeling . . . not so good. My fat-saturated diet was served up with a side of regret and left me feeling bloated and weary.

These days it’s a tech-saturated diet that has me feeling weary. But instead of gaining weight, I’m losing meaning.

My eyes are dry and strained from endless scrolling on a brightly back-lit screen. My hand aches from forming the claw necessary to hold my phone all day. My brain is exhausted from trying to survive the information tidal wave it wakes up to each day. And my heart is discouraged at the frustration and the futility in it all.

Paul contends, “our outer selves are wasting away” (2 Cor. 4:16), and our devices used in excess certainly do not help. We are, as Neil Postman suggests, “amusing ourselves to death.” Half of our problems with digital devices would go away if we’d simply use them in moderation. But sometimes a hard reset is also appropriate. This is where fasting comes in.

FASTING: AN ANCIENT SOLUTION TO A MODERN PROBLEM

Fasting is an ancient practice designed to free us from what we hold most dear. Fasting provides an opportunity to routinely and starkly remind ourselves of who we are and what truly nourishes us.

Resolved to break free from my tech-saturated world, I considered my strategy. I felt like I was standing at the bottom of a long staircase holding several very heavy bags. I could see the top of the staircase, where I was master over my devices, and I knew it would take more than a few big steps to get there.

So I decided to take on two different forms of fasting; two small steps towards developing a normal rhythm of tech-fasting. These steps are small, but the tech-dependent baggage I carry is heavy. And there’s nothing wrong with taking the stairs one at a time.

A CLEANSING FAST

My first form of fasting was a cleanse. I decided to spend an entire day cleansing my palette of all devices and screens. No phone, no computer, no television. Only the baby monitor was allowed.

Before I started, I thought to myself, It’s only going to be about eighteen hours without devices. It’s not a big deal. Right?

But when you’ve been tech-saturated for years, the itch to sneak a look at your screen is much more tempting to scratch than you might think. While I didn’t feel quite like an addict having withdrawals, there were a couple of moments where I questioned my approach.

What if I miss something—something important? Is this responsible for me to do, as a pastor to people? What if someone depends on me to answer them and my phone is off?

I came to realize these were weak arguments for breaking my fast. But it’s an argument many pastors can relate to. We feel the impulse to be as available for our people as a fully-staffed 24/7 hotline.

Availability is not a bad thing, in and of itself, but if we aren’t careful, we will convince ourselves that ministry hangs on our shoulders. That God is not quite so sovereign apart from our ability, that we are somehow less in need of rest than our flock.

Shepherds watch over and sacrifice for their sheep, to be sure. But they sleep, too. In fact, a shepherd can’t effectively protect and guide his sheep without rest.

PUTTING CLEANSES ON THE CALENDAR

I’ve resolved to begin the practice of being device- and screen-free for three regular time periods: one hour a day, one day a week, and one week a year. This kind of regular detox will remind me that the world can and will continue to turn without me. It will remind me that there is something far more worth my time than an infinite scroll of information.

After all, fasting is not just about doing without but replacing the emptiness with something we need. How could I regret replacing screen time with prayer, Bible study, and other spiritual disciplines? What if I devoted all that former screen time to face-to-face time with family or friends?

I’ve also resolved, thanks to the wisdom of Andy Crouch, to begin putting my phone to bed at night and waking it up in the morning. Too often my phone demands my late-night attention until I’m too tired to go on, and it’s there crying out for me the moment my alarm rings in the morning. But my phone is my pet, not the other way around. I need to take the leash back.

Disconnecting for one hour a day, one day a week, and one week a year may seem unattainable for you. It will probably be uncomfortable the first time you do it. But it will be a routine reminder that this world and God’s plans are much bigger than you or anyone else. 

A SPEAKING FAST

My next fasting strategy had to do with talking less. Epictetus (and my mom) used to say we have two ears and one mouth, so we should listen twice as much as we speak. I decided to fast speaking, choosing to listen and observe instead. This kind of fasting doesn’t get nearly as much attention or exposure as the other, but it is arguably just as important for our souls.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve taken several-days-long periods away from saying anything on Facebook. Though still online, I have made it a point to stay silent. And silence is quite the teacher.

Every tweet, every blog post, every status update, every comment can be liked, shared, retweeted, affirmed, reacted to, analyzed, and engaged with. This means the whole of our online contribution is measured, evaluated, and scored by others. We know this. Yet we continue to justify the need to play the game.

Many of us in ministry see our online platform as a chance to share gospel truth with people in our sphere, but because of the inescapable metrics of social media, we also see it as a chance to be impressive. Do we wordsmith a theological statement and post it to the glory of God, or to the glory of self? Do we share a book quote because we want people to be sharpened by it, or because we want to be seen as the kind of person who reads that book?

If we’re not careful, we will mistake gospel proclamation for platform promotion. We will say with the migrants in Shinar, “let us make a name for ourselves” (Gen. 11:4).

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE’RE SILENT

What does it do to our soul when we log onto social media and find no notifications waiting on us…again? During my fasting from speaking, I found out.

First, it humbles us. It reminds us that the world doesn’t need our platform. We are dust (Gen. 3:19).  It also reminds us that listening first helps us to speak wisely later, instead of being reactionary or presumptuous. It allows us to press into the right discussions at the right time, and helps us avoid getting caught in the “vain discussions” Paul warns against in 1 Timothy 1:6-7. Finally, fasting from digital speaking allows us to choose empathy without anything to gain from it (Phil. 2:3).

We need to empty ourselves of thinking the world needs our words, and more so, that God needs us. He doesn’t. His Word is sufficient. The fact that he speaks through us at all is a cosmic miracle. He does not need to use us, but he wants to use us. That’s what makes being a part of his mission so humbling and so shocking.

FAST FORWARD

“All things are full of weariness,” the Preacher reminds us in Ecclesiastes. Spend some time on social media, and you will agree. Each day is a deluge of debates and statuses and breaking news and sales pitches and memes and noise.

But Christ has the answer for our digital weariness: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28). Fasting takes our gaze away from our blue-tinted screens and turns them toward the only Shepherd who never sleeps (Ps. 121:4).

We will never be fully in the know. We will never say everything. We will never satisfy our deepest longings. Fasting reminds us of all these truths. You may not start with an extended, long-term fast. But start somewhere—for the sake of your soul.

Don’t be afraid of the emptiness, for it is there that you will find the Way to be filled.

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Zach Barnhart currently serves as Student Pastor of Northlake Church in Lago Vista, TX. He holds a Bachelor of Science from Middle Tennessee State University and is currently studying at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, seeking a Master of Theological Studies degree. He is married to his wife, Hannah. You can follow Zach on Twitter @zachbarnhart or check out his personal blog, Cultivated.

Shaking Free from the 'Shoulds'

I don’t know exactly where they come from—these negative, dictating thoughts. The uniform they wear reads “Should,” and they consider themselves experts on any and every nuanced area of my life. Sometimes our relationship feels like an awkward dance, in which I dread being their partner but can’t drum up the courage to exit the dance floor. I twirl stiffly from one "Should" to another, barely touching but getting close enough to see the pursed-lip disapproval on each face.

There are some who dominate the room. "Should-Be-A-Better-Mother" is perhaps the most formidable, along with "Should-Be-A-Better-Christian" and "Should-Be-More-Healthy."

Like a finger pointing in my face, my own thoughts attack even the most mundane decisions, and no matter which way I go, it feels like a misstep:

“You let your baby cry too long last night.”

“You didn’t let her cry long enough to self-soothe.”

“You should have gotten up before the kids, to read the Bible and pray." 

“You better not be falling back into legalism with your ‘quiet time.’”

“That’s the sugary food you’re packing for your kids’ lunches?”

“Wow, they’re going to be disappointed when they see these boring vegetables.”

All these thoughts are swirling before I’ve even made my coffee in the morning.

STICKS AND STONES

Then I remember these words: Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.

Long ago, a woman was caught in adultery and brought before a crowd for judgment. I can imagine those pointing fingers, condemning voices, shaking fists, and murderous eyes. She faced the possibility of a gruesome, excruciating death for her transgression.

Stoning.

Being hit so forcefully and repeatedly with rocks that you experience internal bleeding, organ failure, and death. A word so archaic today that we miss the weight of it.

Right on the heels of a man using her body for his own pleasure, she was now being used by the religious leaders of the day as they sought to trap Jesus. They saw him as a threat to be neutralized.

The Pharisees wielded power over the people, the malignant mass of their manipulation being fed by twisting God’s word and greasing the palms of the politically elite. This man, who claimed to be the Word made flesh, and his message of repentance and faith in the Kingdom of God burned their evil pride like heavenly radiation. But they had him now!

How would he respond? He must either betray the Mosaic law, given by the God from whom he claimed to descend, or depart from his ministry of healing and loving to engage in violence, which they could report back to the Roman rulers.

But instead, the soon-to-be-striped back they thought they’d pushed against the wall stooped to touch the very dirt he created before time began. He stood up and the tension was palpable, as everyone awaited his words.

Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.

Shaking Free From The 'Shoulds'

I wonder how long the silence hung there, as every mind within earshot tried to process the cosmic shift they had just witnessed. Did they realize that this man writing in the dirt, so clearly not interested in throwing stones, was the only sinless one among them?

I wonder what it felt like for the woman to watch her accusers, her abusers, walk away one by one. Death was no longer imminent, but I wonder how long she was able to savor that reprieve before the shame and the "Shoulds" swooped in. But her pardon was before her in bodily form.

What it must have felt like to look into Jesus’s eyes! Perhaps for the first time in her life, a man’s gaze rested on her, free of selfish motives and quick assessments of what she could offer him.

She was face to face with her Creator and the lover of her soul, the same man who would soon die to remove her shame forever and offer her his pure, white robes of righteousness.

“Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you,” he said.

“No one, Lord.”

“Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more” (John 8:3-11).

Oh, that we’d be taught what to do when the words come from within when we look down and see the stone in our own hand! That we’d be taught to repeat this refrain over and over again: There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death (Rom. 8:1-2).

The same freedom offered to that woman thousands of years ago is offered to us today!

If we believe by faith that Jesus was God made flesh and that he accomplished what the Bible said he did—lived sinless, died in our place, absorbed the full wrath of God toward sin, defeated death by resurrecting after three days, and ascended to the right hand of the Father, reigning today as our faithful advocate—then we are free!

LEAD ON, LORD JESUS

Free from condemnation, free from stones hurled from the mouth of the liar. Free to face the stones in our own hand and speak the gospel truth to ourselves.

I am not who you say I am. I am who Jesus says I am.

I do not have to please you. I was created by Jesus, to glorify him and enjoy him forever.

I do not have to fear your judgment. Jesus faced the only truly fearful judgment, that of the Holy Father, and he passed the test.  

I do not have to perform to meet your arbitrary standards. I am judged by Christ’s perfect performance, and his righteousness covers me. 

His Spirit, by his abundant grace, shifts my perspective and removes the fear from my heart, like stones dropping from open hands. Those “Shoulds” thoughts lose their power. Their shaking heads and rolling eyes fade completely out of sight, as Jesus extends his nail-scarred hand to me.

Why do I contort my life to please such horrible partners, when the light of the world offers to lead me in the greatest, most joyful dance imaginable?

By his grace alone I turn my back on all those "Shoulds" and take his hand.

Lead on, Lord Jesus.

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Myra Dempsey and her husband, Andrew, live in Newark, Ohio, with their four children. Myra is a stay at home mom, loves to write, and ministers in their local church teaching women's Bible studies and leading groups on gospel-centered sexuality. She blogs at dependentongrace.com and can be found on Twitter @MyraJoy and Instagram @myrajoy1019.

The Big God Behind Your 'Small' Ministry

It was a big day in Jerusalem. The temple built by Solomon, but destroyed by the Babylonians, was being rebuilt. It was a day of great celebration for the Israelites. The Jews had suffered for decades because of their disobedience (see 1 Kings 9:6-9). They endured exile and captivity, besiegement and destruction. However, Ezra tells the story of a new day, when the people gathered together to celebrate the laying of the foundation on the second temple.

They celebrated the Lord’s mercy with trumpets and cymbals. They sang and thanked him. They shouted with great shouts to praise his name.

Though many shouted for joy, there were others who “wept with a loud voice” (Ezra 3:12). They wept because they were disappointed. These older saints wept because they remembered the former splendor of the first temple, and the meager foundation of the second was underwhelming.

WHEN YOUR DAYS SEEM SMALL

Haven’t we all been underwhelmed by the work of our own hands at some point? We have a vision of what our ministry or family or career should look like that is so much grander than the current view.

On this day when people were disappointed with the lack of splendor, the prophet, Zechariah said, “Whoever has despised the day of small things shall rejoice” (Zech. 4:10).

Most of us will spend our whole lives living in days of small things. How do we navigate this space between what we see and what we want to see? How can we cultivate hearts that don’t despise these days, but rejoice in them?

Consider the following ways to be encouraged when you’re unimpressed with what God has entrusted to you.

See the Tree In the Seed

We’re attracted to the spectacular. Our eyes are drawn to all things bigger, brighter, and better, so we limit our scope of success to these ideals.

When we do, we overlook the significance of small things. The thing is, small is valuable when God defines the terms.

When Jesus spoke to a crowd that needed food, he didn’t despise Andrew’s suggestion of a boy’s lunch of five loaves and two fish (John 6:9). He used something small to glorify himself in a big way.

God is not disappointed by small. He uses the small things to accomplish his purposes.

Do you feel what you have to work with is small? Listen to Jesus: “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches” (Matt. 13:31-32).

In God’s economy, the tiniest seed becomes a tree. The smallest of things becomes significant because of its role in the kingdom. The final product is not determined by its beginning.

Richard Sibbes writes in The Bruised Reed, “See a flame in a spark, a tree in a seed. See great things in little beginnings.” God’s grand plan for our redemption began with a fragile newborn in a manger.

Do we see great things in little beginnings?

Find the Glory in the Mundane

We have great expectations, especially when it comes to our place in the world. It’s no surprise, then, that changing diapers and mowing the lawn and paying the taxes all just seems so . . . boring.

But we must strive to see God’s work like he does. We must value what he values.

We want to be sensational; God wants us to be faithful. The desire to have maximum impact in our culture is not a bad one. But devaluing ministry that has a smaller reach contradicts God’s values.

Consider Eunice and Lois (2 Timothy 1:5), the mother and grandmother of Timothy, apprentice to Paul and early church leader. These two women are not known for wowing crowds and signing books. We know them because they poured into a young Timothy. By worldly standards, their ministry was small. But we have the benefit of seeing the great value of their investment in one person.

We value productivity but are often underwhelmed with progress; God values productivity and progress. God’s salvific work in our lives is a miracle, and we should praise him for it. God’s sanctifying work of transforming us into his perfect image happens by degrees (see 2 Cor. 3:18) but is no less miraculous. Sanctification is often small, mundane, and untweetable. Nevertheless, it is a miracle, and we should praise the Lord for it.

What about you? Are you disappointed at the footprint of your kingdom work? Are you envious of someone else who seems to have more influence than you do? Remember, any impact you have on the advancement of his kingdom is a work of grace. Praise him for his work in big and small things.

Trust God in the Tension

The celebrity culture we’ve created adds to the pressure not only to succeed, but to succeed publicly and grandly. We have no tolerance for the unimpressive. We’ve given others the power to validate our success, but that validation was never ours to give away.

In the tension between our vision and our reality, we must trust God to accomplish all that he desires for his glory. We trust him to make his name great in our smallness.

The gap between our vision and our reality is not to be despised. God doesn’t look at small things disapprovingly. On a day when the rich were making it rain in the temple offering box, a poor widow gave two copper coins. Jesus told his disciples that she gave more than all the rich people gave that day, because she gave all she had to live on (Luke 21:1-3).

What seems humbling, meager, and unimpressive to us may look glorious to God. Oh, to see what he sees! We can’t judge his work by our standards. When the people were unimpressed with the splendor of the temple, Haggai encouraged them by telling them to be strong and to work, for God was with them (Hag. 2:4).

Underwhelmed saint, heed Haggai’s words and keep striving in your kingdom labors, for God is with you. Desire to be faithful, not sensational.

WHEN GOD HAS HIS SAY

“Perhaps you are frustrated by the gap that still remains between your vision and your accomplishment,” Os Guinness writes in The Call. “You have had your say. Others may have had their say. But make no judgments and draw no conclusions until the scaffolding of history is stripped away and you see what it means for God to have had his say.”

God will have the final say. And it will sound like this: “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.”

As we long for this day, let’s rejoice in the day of small things.

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Christy Britton is a wife and homeschool mom of four biological sons. She is an orphan advocate for 127 Worldwide. She and her husband are covenant members at Imago Dei Church in Raleigh, NC. She loves reading, discipleship, Cajun food, spending time in Africa, hospitality, and LSU football. She writes for several blogs, including her own, www.beneedywell.com.

How to Put Out a Dumpster Fire

A dumpster fire is like porn: it’s hard to define but you know it when you see it. Fortunately, Merriam-Webster is here to help. Its lexicographers added the term to the dictionary this year, calling it “an utterly calamitous or mismanaged situation or occurrence,” or simply a “disaster.” Depending on who you follow on Twitter, you may not have needed a definition.

Dumpster fires spread like wildfire through social networks. Whether it’s your beloved sports team’s abysmal season, another campaign nightmare, or a public official’s latest gaffe, you’ve surely witnessed a dumpster fire burning across your social media feeds. This is true even of “Christian Twitter,” where it’s not uncommon to see prominent figures sparring over a blog post or deleted tweet.

If Christians want to present a winsome gospel in this cultural moment (and I hope we do), we can’t get bogged down in the dumpster fires of the day. We have to find another way to engage the public square and bring the love of Christ to our neighbors. Fortunately, the book of Proverbs is full of countercultural wisdom for putting out dumpster fires.

Stop Heaping Trash

Fires need fuel to burn, and all too often, we’re happy to provide the fuel. Everyone’s first reaction to hearing about a dumpster fire is to add their take. Our negative reactions and hot-takes might seem clever, but all they’re doing is heaping trash on an already flaming dumpster.

The only way out of a world of dumpster fires is to stop fueling them. Proverbs 26:20 says, “For lack of wood the fire goes out, and where there is no whisperer, quarreling ceases.” No wood, no fire. No whispers, no quarrels. Sounds easy enough. But is it?

John Stonestreet, when asked about the negative tone of public discourse in a recent Q&A, said, “Our ability to not escalate our emotions even when our opponents are is going to be the only way we can really obey Jesus in a cultural moment where our views have gone from being considered wrong or outdated to being considered wrong and evil” (emphasis mine).

Our ability not to engage in the day's outrage even when others are is crucial to following Jesus in our moment. If Christians choose not to add opinions and retweets to arguments that are clearly going nowhere, the quarreling would cease, at least in our spheres of influence. But as it is now, we are too often drawn into dumpster fires and come out looking just as foolish as everyone else.

Proverbs 26:4 tells us, “Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself.” The more we answer a fool (especially online), the more foolish we become, and the more foolish we make the church look.

The best way to extinguish a dumpster fire is to stop feeding it. After all, “If a wise man has an argument with a fool, the fool only rages and laughs, and there is no quiet” (Prov. 29:9). It’s only in the quiet that we can learn to read the signs of the times. It might feel good at the moment to vent your anger, but as millions of deleted tweets can testify, you’ll regret broadcasting those unguarded thoughts soon enough.

The reality is, the more we talk or type, the more we sin. There’s wisdom in keeping quiet at the right times. “A fool gives full vent to his spirit, but a wise man quietly holds it back” (Prov. 29:11). Stop heaping trash on dumpster fires. Quietly hold back whatever you feel compelled to say. Wait 24 hours and ask yourself if it’s still worth it.

Be Slow to Anger

It would be great if we learned to stop stoking dumpster fires, but the real issue is in our quick-to-anger hearts. James writes, “Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God” (Jas. 1:19-20). The calamity of a situation dubbed a dumpster fire beckons us to be quick to anger, quick to speak, and slow to listen—the opposite of James’ command.

Our refusal to heed the Holy Spirit’s instruction in James puts our folly on display. Proverbs 14:29 says, “Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who has a hasty temper exalts folly.” Only a fool jumps into a heap of burning refuse.

But when we control our emotions and exercise self-control, we demonstrate good sense. “Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense” (Prov. 19:11). Those who are slow to anger guard themselves from saying something they’ll regret, and, for Christians, they guard the witness and integrity of the church they represent.

Believer, be slow to anger. Not only does this reflect the character of God (see Ex. 34:6), but it makes good sense. What a witness it would be to have churches filled with men and women who gave measured responses and weren’t driven and tossed by the cultural winds.

But there are times when an answer is called for.

Give a Soft Answer

There are times when a response to a dumpster fire is necessary, times where conscience or faith compels a reply. In these times, believers can dampen dumpster fires with a gracious word. Proverbs 15:1 counsels, “A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.”

Our words can bring peace or pain. This was highlighted by a recent Washington Post article on Kristen Waggoner, the public face of Alliance Defending Freedom, the nonprofit behind high-profile religious liberty cases like Masterpiece Cakeshop. The author doesn’t appear to share Waggoner’s views, but she can’t help but be taken by Waggoner’s joy:

“Waggoner answers all questions about her work, even on the most contentious of issues, with a smile. Her colleagues say she is always, always smiling. Her incessant pleasantness can come off as strategic, a way of dismantling those trying to paint her as cruel or intolerant. She says joy is just the mark of a person of faith.”

Wouldn’t it be great if more Christians—if you—were marked by “incessant pleasantness” instead of backbiting and infighting?

Standing Out in a World Gone Mad

In a world gone mad, Christians have an opportunity to stand out in a good way. Instead of adding fuel to the dumpster fires around us, we can douse the flames with the wisdom of Christ.

There will never be a shortage of calamities and mismanaged situations. But if we stop heaping trash on dumpster fires, start being slow to anger, and learn to give a soft answer, we can put the grace of Jesus on display and show the world that there’s a better way to have a conversation.

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Grayson Pope (M.A., Christian Studies) is a husband and father of four, and the Managing Web Editor at GCD. He serves as a writer and editor with Prison Fellowship. For more of Grayson’s writing, check out his website or follow him on Twitter.

10 Ways Phones Can be Used for Our Good and God's Glory

Am I the only who feels this way? I wondered for the umpteenth time. I was in the midst of a conversation with friends lamenting their iPhones. The complaints were familiar: our smartphones make us more self-focused, short-tempered, less able to interact with real people, eager for the approval of others, unable to read and communicate in-depth. The woes are limitless.

And I don’t disagree. I too have given over too much power to my phone. It has shaped me in a number of ways I’m not proud of.

But my secret thought in that conversation and others like it is this: I like my phone. I think it’s more helpful than hurtful—even (maybe especially) in my spiritual disciplines. Am I a fool to say I think it has actually aided gospel growth in my life?

In our effort to distance ourselves from the pitfalls of these devices, are we missing what a blessing they can be?

BRAND NEW TECHNOLOGY, SAME OLD PROBLEM

Throughout history, people have sounded the alarm every time some new technology hits the scene:

• Socrates worried writing would cause our minds to grow lazy;

• There were cries of information overload and chaos when the printing press was invented;

• The distribution of newspapers caused concern that people would no longer get their news directly from the pulpit;

• Worried parents thought that teaching reading in schools would certainly wreak havoc on the minds of their children;

• Later generations worried the advent of radio and television would wreak havoc on their children’s ability to read.[1]

Today, you can’t go on the Internet without seeing headlines bemoaning the connectivity and technology of this age, too. Those concerns are valid. Certainly, we should not consume new technology without carefully examining the ramifications.

Paul’s warning to the Ephesians is useful for us: “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil” (Eph. 5:15-16).

THE CAPACITY FOR GOOD AND EVIL

Just as the printing press can print the Word of God or pornography, our phones can deliver good or evil. With the Holy Spirit’s help and the accountability of a Christian community (and perhaps the implementation of some digital boundaries), we can choose to use our phones for our edification and sanctification, rather than for our destruction.

Our phones can be put to work to help us to obey this command in our current age: “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (Phil. 4:8).

They can help us find wisdom and gain understanding, which is a blessing (Prov. 3:13). They can help us “do good to one another and to everyone” (1 Thess. 5:15).

10 WAYS PHONES CAN BE USED FOR OUR GOOD AND GOD’S GLORY

The following are ten ways smartphones can be tools for our good and even God’s glory.

1. Hearing the Bible. Perhaps the most important way our phones can help sanctify us is by providing the Word of God through various Bible apps. While paper Bibles should not be replaced, Bible apps can provide customized daily reading plans, nourishment in a pinch, and add oomph to our quiet times. As I make my way through my Bible-in-a-Year plan, my app audibly reads along with me. In this way, not only am I reading the Word of God in my physical Bible, but I’m also hearing it as I go. This is especially helpful to me in the early morning when my mind is prone to wander.

2. Memorizing Scripture with voice memos. Storing God’s Word in our hearts (Ps. 119:11) is a sweet tool for sanctification. Using a voice memo app can greatly enhance Scripture memory. Reciting memorized portions into our phones allows us to immediately check our work against the written Word. The immediate feedback is excellent for catching mistakes and ensuring we rightly memorize Scripture.

3. Reading more books. Various apps allow us broad access to more books than in any other age. It’s normal today to travel frequently and commute long distances. That potentially wasted time can be redeemed as we listen to or read books we could not access prior to our smartphones. I am deeply indebted to Christian authors whose words have shaped me and library apps that have made wide reading affordable.

4. Growing through Christian blogs and websites. Smartphones allow us to access Christian blogs (like this one) and websites every day. Having the Internet in the palm of our hands allows us to wrestle with even deep theological issues at a moment’s notice. Whereas we would have needed to make a trip to a seminary library in the past, we can now immediately peruse a variety of sites and articles to help us gain commentary on a given Bible passage, theme, or difficulty.

5. Listening to a wide range of teachers and preachers. Many disciples find podcasts and sermons invaluable for growth and learning. Podcast topics vary widely from hearing news from a Biblical worldview to theological discussions, encouragement for moms to the history of racial issues in the church, and wisdom for Christian living. Access to a wide range of preachers and teachers from multiple theological backgrounds helps us keep growing both inside and outside our typical doctrinal bubbles.

6. Connecting with friends and family. Depending on one’s life stage or calling, texting can be a lifeline for Christian fellowship. Missionaries serving overseas, pastors or their wives reaching out to friends in their shoes in another city, or even new moms who need encouragement but don’t have time to meet or call a friend, can all benefit from receiving and sending encouraging texts. In our global, busy lifestyles, texting allows us to type out our prayers for one another. It can be a sweet and intimate way to keep in touch and build one another up.

7. Remembering names, prayer needs, and important dates. Phones can be a practical assistant, helping us practice hospitality on Sundays when we gather for corporate worship. We can immediately record the name of a newcomer to church right after we shake their hands. We can refresh our memories the following Sunday and greet them by name, making a warm and inviting impact. We can have our phones handy to record someone’s prayer request so we don’t forget it as soon as they walk away. Additionally, alarms can be set on our calendar apps to help us remember to pray for a surgery, an important test, or other need in our community.

8. Accessing special groups. While it’s no substitute for face-to-face friendship, Facebook can provide access to specific groups and ministries around the world. I’ve been able to connect with other adoptive parents, missionaries, ex-pats, and Christian women wherever I have lived around the world. These special niche relationships haven’t been available near me at certain times, and the online alternatives have been a source of strength and encouragement. Additionally, we can keep up with missionaries in various contexts through their secret online groups, which provide updates and prayer needs.

9. Understanding your community. Social media apps allow us to know what others in our communities are drawn to or hoping for. Based on others’ posts and what they’re chatting about, we can keep a finger on the pulse of what matters to those who attend our church, Bible study, or neighborhood fellowship. In this way, we can be better prepared for false teaching or false gospels when they arise, or fads that aren’t biblical. Social media allows us to be prepared in advance and contribute a gospel-centered voice to a conversation that might otherwise lack it.

10. Building one another up. Group texts are the way young adults communicate. Rarely do people call one another or use email. Texts are the best way to stay abreast of what is happening in the lives of our community members. Texts can be an excellent way to share joys and sorrows and prayer needs. They’re also a great way to coordinate group meetings, meals for people in need, and more. It’s nearly impossible to stay involved in relationships today without texting.

There is indeed a way to use our phones that will help us “walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God” (Col. 1:10).

Smartphones can be a powerful tool for our growth. Let’s consider how we might put them to work for our good and God’s glory.

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[1] I am indebted to this article for this historical information. http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2010/02/dont_touch_that_dial.html

Jen Oshman is a wife and mom to four daughters, and has served as a missionary for nearly two decades. She and her husband serve with Pioneers International and planted Redemption Parker, an Acts 29 church. Her passion is leading women into a deeper faith and fostering a biblical worldview. Her book, Enough About Me: Find Lasting Joy in the Age of Self, is forthcoming with Crossway in 2020. Read more of Jen’s writing on her website or follow her on Twitter.

Fighting for Silence in a World that Never Stops Shouting

I’m never alone. Every minute of every day, I carry a device that tethers me to the world. It’s a silent loudspeaker, buzzing its notifications. With a touch, I’m in the conversation. Even in my solitude, there is no silence. Even in my silence, there is no solitude. I’m not sure I agreed to this arrangement. But I have indeed bought into it. The bill is connected to my bank account. It couldn’t be easier to be united. Now, like so many, I’m wondering how to unplug.

God didn’t create me to be alone, but that doesn’t mean I don’t need solitude from time to time. The digital age creates space for everything except the spiritual disciplines of silence and solitude. But my soul depends on it.

Is there an app for that?

Getting Away

A need for connection comes pre-installed in our soul’s software. So although something as simple as getting away doesn’t sound hard, our very nature pushes against it. We need scheduled maintenance, and it takes an override code to get inside. What’s the code? Silence and solitude.

Jesus was the most whole human ever to walk the earth. If he needed something, how can I say I don’t need the same? On multiple occasions, the scriptures show us that Jesus slipped away. He intentionally withdrew from his work. He went away from the crowds. He left his friends. He needed time to be alone with his Father.

The connection between Jesus and the Father wasn't breaking up, but mine often does. I go through dead zones, and when I look down, it’s not God’s end of the line that broke up. It’s mine. My hardware fails. The battery dies. I need a recharge.

My instinct is to head to social media for a recharge. Maybe I need a gospel pick-me-up from Twitter. Maybe I need an inspirational image-quote from Instagram. Maybe I need to catch up with friends on Facebook. Maybe. But maybe I need the maker of my soul first. I need his sustaining presence.

I need to get away with my Father.

Solitude

It starts with solitude. It can happen at home, but it probably won’t. For many of us, we must be pushed out. Thankfully, we have biblical precedent. It was the Spirit who led Jesus into the wilderness to begin his ministry (Matt. 4:1). And though I don’t necessarily desire him to take me through a time of testing, I want him to lead me to solitude regardless of the reason.

But it’s only solitude if we discount the omnipresence of God. I may be alone physically, but when the Spirit takes me away, my solitude becomes communion. The online world offers the same deal, but what I find there often leaves me hungrier than before. Shouldn’t a meal so large make me full? Why then does it leave me starving for more? The phantom presence the screen offers is no match for the personal presence of God.

And that’s where the problem arises. The digital world follows me into my alone time with God. It bursts in like an unwelcome but eager guest. And I invite it in. I pull up a chair. I ask for its thoughts. I draw out disruption. Really, I’m no different than the leaders Ezekiel witnessed in the temple's inner court—surrounded by the presence of God with my back toward the mercy seat and my face toward the east, worshiping the wrong thing (Ezek. 8:16).

Satan doesn’t need to use stones as bread substitutes. When I carry the digital world into my alone time, I carry all the ammunition he needs for every temptation. Man cannot live by bread alone. Nor can he live by pixels alone.

Silence

Solitude should lead to silence. But in the age of hot takes, silence is frowned upon. When silence is presumed as apathy, we’re quick to speak out of the shallow end of our wisdom pool. Deep, sustained thought occurs best in silent meditation, but we often don’t have time for that. Our voice must join the cacophony of the masses now. How else will we be validated? Justification by claim is the doctrine of our day.

But God’s ways are not man’s ways. God does not look upon our silence as a problem. In our hustle, we often don’t give him the space to speak deeply to our soul. We see silence as weakness. God sees silence as openness. He fills it with his voice. In the beginning, God called life from the void. He spoke over formless mass and spun the world into action (Gen. 1). Since our creation, it's not a lack of speaking that strains our connection. It's a lack of listening, which often results from constant talking. Pride always talks. But humility knows when to shut up. The elevation of ourselves, as always, comes home to roost.

Today, I’m too busy for silence. People need my voice. But it’s not my voice that upholds the universe. Jesus’ does that (Heb. 1:3). Have I stopped to listen?

Israel discovered what happens when speaking overtakes listening. It left them speechless, wandering prophet-less for four hundred years. Their incessant talking led to the cessations of God’s. Am I in danger of the same?

Thankfully, Israel heard from God again, because his steadfast love brought a new word. Out of the silence grew the heavenly hosts singing “Glory to God in the highest.” The silent night was filled with the newborn Christ.

That's just like God to break the silence with his grace. When we, like the Psalmist, quiet our souls (Ps. 131:2), God's voice grows loud. When the world feels overwhelming, we can be silent. God fights for us (Exod. 14:14). No wonder Jeremiah, in a moment of clarity, broke his lament to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord (Lam. 3:26). As the Lord fills his temple, silent awe fills his people. (Hab. 2:20). The Lamb broke the seventh seal, and heaven was silent for half an hour (Rev. 8:1). It’s a hard truth to believe in a world that never stops talking, but when we fall silent before God, God breaks our silence into worship.

The Nearness of God

God came to Moses on Mount Horeb (Exod. 3). He came to David in the wilderness (1 Sam. 23). He spoke to Elijah in a whisper (1 Kgs. 19:11-13). He took Paul to vacant Arabia (Gal. 1:17). He revealed the heavens to John on the Island of Patmos. Silence and solitude are God’s ways of speaking to his people. When he draws us away from the crowds, he draws us to himself. God speaks loudest when we get to where we can’t hear anyone else.

These men didn’t necessarily choose their silence or their solitude. God chose it for them. They had much to say to the watching world, but first they needed to be alone with God. That’s not the road I want. It’s too uncomfortable for me. But out of the silence and solitude of his people, God changed the course of history. What might he do with mine? What might he do with yours?

The world will still be turning when we come back from our solitude. But maybe we won’t turn the same. Maybe we’ll radiate like Moses. Maybe we’ll have confidence like David. Maybe we’ll trust God like Elijah. Maybe we’ll know Jesus like Paul. Maybe we’ll see heaven like John.

Life is not about being informed, but about being eternally transformed. The gospel is not a call to doing before it’s a call to being. God justifies us in Christ. It’s in silence and solitude where that is often confirmed the deepest. Our technological age puts the pressure on us to produce, but God took that pressure off at the cross. Our digital age pushes us to the question, “What shall I do to be saved?” When my action feels like the only way, I need the reminder of Gerhard O. Forde.

“We are justified freely, for Christ’s sake, by faith, without the exertion of our own strength, gaining of merit, or doing of works. To the age-old question, ‘What shall I do to be saved?’ the confessional answer is shocking: ‘Nothing! Just be still; shut up and listen for once in your life to what God the Almighty, creator and redeemer, is saying to his world and to you in the death and resurrection of his Son! Listen and believe!’”

There’s not an app for that. There’s only a call. “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28). “For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength” (Isa. 30:15).

Israel was unwilling to wait when such swift horses were at hand. When cyber-speed offers so much more, are we willing to stick to the ancient roads?

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David McLemore is an elder at Refuge Church in Franklin, Tennessee. He also works for a large healthcare corporation where he manages an application development department. He is married to Sarah, and they have three sons. Read more of David’s writing on his blog, Things of the Sort.

The Barrier of Endless Distraction

The person I’m most uncomfortable being alone with is myself. And that’s okay, because I’ve become very good at avoiding myself. For example, if I get stuck alone on an elevator, and I start to feel that anxiety, the dread of having to examine my life—even for a minute—I just take out my phone, and poof! it’s gone. Or if I sense that I need to have a heart-to-heart talk with myself about sin or doubt or fear, all of a sudden I remember that it’s my night to do the dishes—and I can’t do the dishes without listening to a podcast. Self-avoidance is probably my most advanced skill set. I’ve developed it over the years in response to the burden of being alone, which can bring up so many unsettling truths. Of course, I have plenty of help from the rest of society. I’m always being encouraged to read something, to do something, to watch something, or to buy something new. It’s an unspoken but mutually agreed upon truth for modern people that being alone with our thoughts is disturbing.

A friend once described a similar feeling of existential dread to me. He said it would hit him only when he woke up in the morning. Sometimes he’d feel like killing himself. It wasn’t something he shared with friends. But he’d get this sick feeling—like there’s no point to any of it—every morning. He said he needed something more to get him up in the morning. My friend could stave off this sense of hopelessness all day, except for those few moments right after he woke up. Lying in bed, he could feel the pressure of being alive constrict his breath. But once he got moving, drank his coffee, watched the news, and went to work, he was okay. He got swept up into the movement of the day, as most of us do.

The beauty of using my iPhone as my alarm clock is that when I reach over to turn it off I’m only a few more taps away from the rest of the world. Before I’m even fully awake I’ve checked my Twitter and Facebook notifications and my email and returned to Twitter to check my feed for breaking news. Before I’ve said “good morning” to my wife and children, I’ve entered a contentious argument on Twitter about Islamic terrorism and shared a video of Russell Westbrook dunking in the previous night’s NBA game.

While making my coffee and breakfast I begin working through social media conversations that require more detailed responses so that by the time I sit down to eat, I can set down my phone too. Years ago I would use my early morning grouchiness as an excuse to play on my computer rather than talk with my wife and kids, but now our family tries to stay faithful to a strict no-phones-at-the-table policy. We have drawn important boundaries for the encroachment of technology into our lives to preserve our family and attention spans, but that does not mean we’ve managed to save time for reflection. Instead, I tend to use this time to go over what I have to teach in my first class, or my wife and I make a list of goals for the day. It is a time of rest from screens and technology, but not from preoccupation.

As I drive the kids to school, we listen and sing along to “Reflektor” by Arcade Fire. On my walk back to the car after dropping them off, I check my email and make a few more comments in the Twitter debate I began before breakfast. In the car again, I listen to an NBA fan podcast; it relaxes me a bit as the anxiety of the coming work day continues to creep up on me. Sufficient to the workday are the anxieties and frustrations thereof. And so, when I need a coffee or bathroom break, I’ll use my phone to skim an article or like a few posts. The distraction is a much-needed relief from the stress of work, but it also is a distraction. I still can’t hear myself think. And most of the time I really don’t want to. When I feel some guilt about spending so much time being unfocused, I tell myself it’s for my own good. I deserve this break. I need this break. But there’s no break from distraction.

While at work, I try not to think about social media and the news, but I really don’t need additional distractions to keep my mind busy. The modern work environment is just as frenetic and unfocused as our leisure time. A constant stream of emails breaks my focus and shifts my train of thought between multiple projects. To do any seriously challenging task, I often have to get up and take a walk to absorb myself in the problem without the immediacy of technology to throw me off.

Back at home, I’m tasked with watching the kids. They are old enough to play on their own, so I find myself standing around, waiting for one of them to tattle or get hurt or need water for the fifth time. If I planned ahead, I might read a book, but usually I use the time to check Twitter and Facebook or read a short online article. But it’s not always technology that distracts me; sometimes, while the kids are briefly playing well together, I’ll do some housecleaning or pay bills. Whatever the method, I’m always leaning forward to the next job, the next comment, the next goal.

I watch Netflix while I wash dishes. I follow NBA scores while I grade. I panic for a moment when I begin to go upstairs to get something. I turn around and find my phone to keep me company during the two-minute trip. When it’s late enough, I collapse, reading a book or playing an iOS game. I’m never alone and it’s never quiet.

As a Christian, the spiritual disciplines of reading the Bible and praying offer me a chance to reflect, but it’s too easy to turn these times into to-do list chores as well. Using my Bible app, I get caught up in the Greek meaning of a word and the contextual notes and never really meditate on the Word itself. It is an exercise, not an encounter with the sacred, divine Word of God. A moleskin prayer journal might help me remember God’s faithfulness, but it also might mediate my prayer time through a self-conscious pride in being devout. There’s no space in our modern lives that can’t be filled up with entertainment, socializing, recording, or commentary.

This has always been the human condition. The world has always moved without us and before us and after us, and we quickly learn how to swim with the current. We make sense of our swimming by observing our fellow swimmers and hearing their stories. We conceive of these narratives based on the stories we’ve heard elsewhere: from our communities, the media, advertisements, or traditions.

But for the twenty-first-century person in an affluent country like the United States, the momentum of life that so often discourages us from stopping to take our bearings is magnified dramatically by the constant hum of portable electronic entertainment, personalized for our interests and desires and delivered over high-speed wireless internet. It’s not just that this technology allows us to stay “plugged in” all the time, it’s that it gives us the sense that we are tapped into something greater than ourselves. The narratives of meaning that have always filled our lives with justification and wonder are multiplied endlessly and immediately for us in songs, TV shows, online communities, games, and the news.

This is the electronic buzz of the twenty-first century. And it is suffocating.

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Taken from Disruptive Witness by Alan Noble. Copyright (c) 2018 by Alan Noble. Published by InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL. www.ivpress.com

Alan Noble (Ph.D., Baylor University) is assistant professor of English at Oklahoma Baptist University and cofounder and editor in chief of Christ and Pop Culture. He has written for The Atlantic, Vox, BuzzFeed, The Gospel Coalition, Christianity Today, and First Things. He is also an advisor for the AND Campaign.

Good News for Parents Feeling Guilty About Technology

My three-year-old sat in her kid-sized chair, feverishly swiping and tapping on the phone while her siblings ran laps around the house and shouted their favorite tunes. Only it wasn’t a phone she was playing with—it was a Hot Wheels car. We had long since decided against handing phones over to toddlers. In the absence of the real thing, our daughter did what all kids do and used her imagination. She flipped the car over and was pretending the flat bottom was a screen.

After realizing what was going on, I asked her why she would rather sit on the chair pretending to scroll through a phone than run and play with her siblings. Without looking up, she answered, “It’s what all the big girls do.”

My heart broke in that moment. It broke because she was right.

WHAT THE BIG GIRLS DO

My little girl had noticed a pattern, the same one you see when you look around the mall. What are all the big girls doing? When you go to the park, what are all the parents doing?

The average U.S. adult spends five hours per day on their mobile devices. As parents, our hands and schedules are probably full enough that we’re not spending five hours on our phones, but how much time do we spend double-tapping and scrolling? Not long ago, the answer for me was far too much.

A couple of years ago, my husband and I were convicted of our use of technology. We took a hard look at how we used our devices and read about what happens when we’re always connected. We started making changes. It wasn’t easy. We struggled to put our convictions into words and explain to family members why we didn’t want them showing our kids how to play games on their phones.

TECH-WISE COMMITMENTS

Then Andy Crouch wrote The Tech-Wise Family, which helped us articulate our thoughts and hearts. Crouch’s book features ten tech-wise commitments, many of which we’ve adopted and made our own. In our home today (with four children six and under), we’re committed to:

• Leaving our phones out of sight and out of reach so we can focus on who God has in front of us
• Minimizing the number of toys with buttons available throughout the house so our children develop the capacity of imaginative play
• Reading aloud and talking during car rides (even hours-long road trips), so we can learn how to be around each other and engage more of our senses
• Allowing kids to watch TV only rarely (about once a month), and only with the whole family so the screen becomes a novel, shared experience

I still use Instagram to stay in touch with my friends (and see pics of their kiddos!). I’m grateful for podcasts to listen to while I’m cleaning or exercising. But I can say that, by the grace of God, I’m not dependent on my devices. That’s less because of behavioral modifications, though, and more because of what the Lord has shown us through our tech woes.

OUR REFUGE IN THIS DIGITAL WORLD

My daughter’s comment—"It’s what all the big girls do”—revealed that while we can seek to create a tech-wise home, we can’t fully shield our children from a tech-saturated world; a world with screens on our wrists, in our pockets, and in our living rooms and bedrooms.

Throughout Scripture, God calls his people to stay faithful regardless of what the world worships. Jesus did just that when he came to Earth. He was in the world, but not of it. He dined with sinners, yet remained free of sin. And he calls us to do the same.

But it’s so easy to get lost in questions like What boundaries do we set? How much screen time should my kids have? How old should kids be before they play video games?

When I get lost in these questions, I forget that sin and distraction entered the world thousands of years ago in a garden—not with the invention of the iPhone. Sin separated us from our Creator and sin will condemn us when we stand before him on the day of judgment.

But God loves us too much to let that be the end of the story. God longs to see our relationship with him redeemed. Psalm 34:22 tells us, “The Lord redeems the life of his servants, none of those who take refuge in him will be condemned” (emphasis mine).

When we take refuge in God, he promises redemption, not condemnation. But taking refuge in the Lord requires trust. And from day one, that’s just what God has been after.

Christian parents can do many really good things without ever trusting God. In the early years, we can make kids eat their carrots before their chocolate. We can put boundaries around technology (as my family has).

But if we fail to daily submit our children, and our role as parents, to the Lord, then we miss the point. Our parental efforts at behavior modification are good, but they aren’t primarily what God’s after.

He’s after our heart. And our hearts reveal what our motives truly are, and those determine our actions. If we want to address technology in our homes, we have to start with our hearts.

THE HEART OF THE MATTER

The next time you’re evaluating tech use in your home, ask why you’re really checking your phone or turning the TV on. Get to the heart of the matter. Are you justifying handing your phone to your child because you simply long for a break? Or the next time you go to check Instagram, ask what you’re hoping to find—affirmation, satisfaction, relief?

Then consider getting your kids involved in the heart check too! Or at least begin the conversation. You may find what we did, that our child was mimicking what she saw around her because she longs to be “big.” Or you may ask a thirteen-year-old and realize his or her worth and identity is wrongly wrapped up in their online presence.

Together your family can reflect on if the heart of your tech use is in line with the world or the Lord.

And if you’re like me and my family, you’ll probably be overwhelmed with the need to repent—of placing hope in getting something accomplished and using technology to “babysit” because it's easy (and free.) Or repent of placing trust in what others think of me and Instagram likes give me instant “love”. When God reveals the true desires of my heart, and how out of line they are with his heart, my sin feels overwhelming.

But that’s why the gospel is such good news! Because in Christ, I am redeemed by his work, not my family's tech habits. He doesn’t love me more when I stand strong in our tech-wise commitments, and he doesn’t love me less when I hand a screaming child a phone because I don’t know what else to do.

Regardless of what “all the big girls are doing,” I will continue to pray for my heart and my children’s hearts. I will continue to beg God for the grace to trust him more. That might mean our family is more up-to-date with board book stories than Instagram stories, but we’re learning to be okay with that.

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Maggie Pope is the CEO of a small nonprofit that invests heavily in the lives of a handful of young children. Since the staff is small, she also serves part-time as the janitor, teacher, bread-baker, and driver. Okay, she’s a mom. She lives in North Carolina with her husband and four children.

From Abandoned Resolutions to Spirit-Empowered Goals

We are nearly halfway through 2018. How are you doing with the goals you set in January? Unfortunately, many of the resolutions made during the New Year are abandoned within just a few months. The gyms that were bursting at the seams in January are now nearly vacant. Fast food chains saw a dip in sales in mid-Winter, only to be back with a vengeance in early Spring. Why does this happen? Why do people continue to make resolutions only to drop them completely months or even days later?

Perhaps part of the problem lies in our microwave mentality that expects change to happen overnight or our desire to “pull ourselves up by our bootstraps” and meet our goals through our own strength.

We often see the goals we have as mountains we must traverse through sheer will-power and determination, but what if we have it all wrong?

What if practically keeping our goals is not like scaling a mountain, which requires large steps and allows us to see immediate progress?

What if reaching our goals is a much slower, deliberate process, requiring many small actions over time, like the slow accumulation of the tiny grains of sand that comprise a large sand dune?

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SMALL

We can easily become intimidated and discouraged by trying to tackle a large goal all at once.

The truth we often miss is that in order to accomplish anything, we must take small daily steps towards our goals. These small daily habits, even if they only take up fifteen minutes of our day, build upon previous actions, until our goal is finally realized.

We see this principle throughout scripture, where we see how seemingly infinitesimal things can grow into something magnificently large.

Jesus often pointed the disciples' attention to the mustard seed and how modestly small it was. He spoke of how our faith, though as small as a mustard seed, could move mountains.

He explained the exponential growth of the kingdom of God by comparing it to the tiniest seed that grows into a colossal tree.

He spoke of yeast and how the smallest bit could spread throughout an entire piece of dough, leavening it completely.

So it is with anything we try to accomplish to the glory of God. The small steps we take each day, by the power and grace of God, can grow into something bigger than we could ever fathom.

RIGHT MOTIVATION IS KEY

Many times, we fail to accomplish our goals because the motivations behind those goals are wrong. If your motivations for reaching a goal are weak or superficial, then the entire thing will collapse or blow away in the wind.

For example, you may have a goal to work out more, but do you want to do this for vanity's sake or for the purpose of being healthy and strong? You may desire to serve in your church, but do you desire to do this so that you will be perceived a certain way or because you are seeking to bring glory to God?

Failure is imminent if we base our life goals on worldly ambitions, rather than what is important in light of eternity.

Jesus in Matthew 6:33 shows us where our priorities should lie, "But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you."

We need to ask ourselves, “Are our goals self-centered or are they Christ-centered? At the end of the day are they glorifying to God? In reaching these goals, are we loving others better?”

If not, we must ask God to shape our goals and to give us right desires. Self-centered goals are short-lived goals. They are superficial and empty. The motivations behind our biggest goals must be Christ-centered, otherwise, they will ultimately fade away

PERSISTENCE IS ESSENTIAL

Sand dunes are formed in a harsh and ever-changing environment, with shifting sands and fearsome winds. Our lives can sometimes seem to mirror the chaos of a dune being formed in the desert. As soon as we lay down a base of sand, some of it blows away, and it can feel like every step we take forward takes us ten steps back.

Horrendous storms can come into our lives in the form of the loss of a job, the breakdown of a relationship, or a chronic illness. These storms can seem to blow away all we have worked for.

The truth is everyone faces setbacks. It is those who persist despite the discouragement who will see the fruit of their labor, even if it is years down the road.

We can often reason that if only we were in another season of life, reaching our goals would be easier. The truth is that every season of life is challenging in its own way and conditions will never be perfect for our goals to take shape.

When we make it a goal to make disciples, do we give up when the person we are meeting with flakes out on us, or do we persist? Do we pursue that person as Christ has pursued us?

When we want to make it a goal of being in the Word daily, do we give up when we take on a career that requires a lot of our time? Or do we carve out the time we need with our Savior, even if it means sacrificing sleep?

When loving our spouse well becomes difficult or inconvenient, do we persevere in love, or do we retreat to what is comfortable?

We must learn to persist even in the midst of discouragement and inconvenience if we want to see the fruit of our labor.

THE STRENGTH THAT GOD SUPPLIES

With all of the storms and difficulties of life, it can seem impossible to find the strength to persist. How do we do this?

Ultimately, the ability and strength to work towards our goals come from God.

Peter writes in 1 Peter 4:10-11, "as each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen."

Our ultimate goal should be to glorify God. We are merely stewards of the gifts, talents, relationships, and resources God has given us and we must use them with the wisdom and strength he alone can supply.

We must depend on God's strength as ours will ultimately fail.

The prophet Isaiah echoes this truth, "Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint," (Is. 40:28-31).

We can be sure that whatever we attempt for the glory of God, he will supply the strength we need. He is a never-ending well of power to those who realize their weakness to do anything in their own power (John 15:5).

Let us lean on the strength he gives as we steward the time and gifts he has given us. The world will tell us that we need more will-power, more self-control, more determination.

The truth is we need more Jesus.

He will be our strength in weakness. He will give us the right desires and dreams that we couldn't have dreamt ourselves. His ways are not our ways, and his thoughts are higher than our thoughts (Is. 55:8-9).

Here are some questions to ask yourself as you finish out the second half of 2018:

• What are your goals?
• Are your motivations behind your goals self-centered or Christ-centered?
• Are there some goals you have given up on that you need to pick back up again?
• Are you persisting in these goals in your own strength or by the strength that God liberally supplies?

No matter where you are in this journey, may you be encouraged to run this race well, to throw off anything that is hindering you, and to fix your eyes on Jesus, who is the author and finisher of your faith (Heb. 12:1-3).

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Delilah Pugsley is a wife, friend, sister, daughter and a Christ-follower serving in a church plant in Mid-Missouri. She writes on her blog https://www.graceinreallife.com, and you can reach her at delilahpugsley@gmail.com.

Why Counter-Formation is at the Heart of Discipleship

“My job is to understand how people behave. Once I understand that, I can change how they behave.” This is what my friend told me over dinner recently. He works high up at one of the most prestigious ad agencies in the U.S. You watch the commercials they make, you buy the products they advertise—it’s your behavior that he changes.

This conversation with my friend reveals one of the most important, and most forgotten, truths of modern American life: everyone is trying to form you. Nothing is neutral.

It’s easy to be discipled by America. All you have to do is nothing.

THE POWER OF NORMAL

One of the fundamental lessons of discipleship is that the important things in life are caught, not taught.

I remember very few of the things my dad said to me, but I have become like him anyway. By being present in my life, my dad became normal to me, and that is the most powerful thing he did. Fortunately for me, he was a great dad, and I’m glad I became like him.

If you want to know what or who is discipling you, look at your life and ask what’s normal. The normal things are the most powerful things. The problem is, the normal things are also the hardest things to notice.

Take, for example, your habit of looking at screens. You’re skimming this article right now, trying to decide if you want to read the rest of it or click on something else.

If you’re like me, the habit of spending large parts of the day constantly scanning screens for something to peak our attention is totally normal. That’s probably not surprising. What is surprising is how we’re unknowingly being formed by our screens.

How is it that Facebook, FOX News, Google, and Twitter are all free, and yet they make so much money? It’s because we are the product, and our attention is sold to people like my friend. On the other side of the screen, there’s an army of people spending exorbitant amounts of money studying how to capture your attention and sell it to advertisers, who in turn make loads of money because of their expert ability to change the way you think and behave. We wonder why we can’t stop checking headlines or looking at social media—it’s helpful to realize that it’s not exactly a fair fight.

The real problem is not the calculated campaign for our attention, but that it is so normal we don’t see it. We are discipled by our screens simply by doing nothing. The results are well documented. The fruits of the spirit are peace, patience, goodness, and self-control. The fruits of the screen are loneliness, anxiousness, group-think, and consumerism.

The invisible power of screens and marketing is a great modern example of the power of invisible formation, but it is only the tip of the iceberg.

The point is to realize that if we care about discipleship, we need to think very carefully about the water we swim in and ask whether those currents are making us more like Jesus or not.

I would argue that we cannot make that assessment without a set of carefully chosen, counter-formational habits; the kind of habits that help us see the water and create a new normal.

The Common Rule is just such a set of habits.

HABITS OF DISCIPLESHIP

The Common Rule is a set of four daily and weekly habits designed to form us in the love of God and neighbor. There are all kinds of habits, but many of them focus on screens.

Take, for example, The Common Rule habit of Scripture before phone. I love my smartphone. (In fact, I wrote this article on my phone in the back of a car on a trip home.) Phones enable amazing things. But ever since I got my phone, it started invading my mornings.

I’m a corporate lawyer, and for a long season of life the first thing I did every morning was check my work email in bed. My eyes would peel open and I would scan through what people wanted me to do today.

The formational consequences were powerful. My phone became a liturgy of legalism. The gospel tells me I’m loved in spite of what I can or can’t accomplish. But in starting my day in work emails, I wasn’t simply asking my phone what I needed to do that day. I was asking my phone what I needed to do to justify my existence that day.

In the end, I needed the counter-formational habit of Scripture before phone.

Sometimes people think that cultivating such a habit is legalistic, as if you have to do such a thing to be holy. For me, however, cultivating this habit and others like it was what I needed to fight my natural bent towards letting the world disciple me in legalism. Whether it’s social media or news headlines, much of what we read first thing in the morning is designed to stoke anger or envy—to make us think the world is about us.

In order to pursue being formed in gospel freedom, I needed a new habit. By doing nothing, I began the day in legalism.

It took some practice to form the habit of Scripture before phone, but I found that beginning my day in the story of God’s love calmed my anxiety and prepared me to work out of love for clients and coworkers, instead of working to earn myself love. Soon I found it also cleared a blank space in my mornings, where now—by habit—I leave the phone upstairs and read, sit quietly, or drink coffee slowly.

CULTIVATING GOSPEL HABITS

Some of The Common Rule habits focus on friendship, some focus on rest, others focus on work or screens. In different ways, all of these habits are meant to help develop a new normal, so that our habits make us more like Jesus instead of less.

The reason my marketing friend was telling me about his work was that he was trying out a habit from The Common Rule of pausing for kneeling prayer in the middle of his workday.

In a brief midday prayer on the floor of an empty conference room, he was reflecting on the significance of his industry and how he could work to make it a better—not a worse—place. He was inviting God to shape his work instead of inviting his work to shape his view of God.

He was creating a new normal, a powerful new habit of mind. He was cultivating a gospel habit.

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Justin Whitmel Earley lives in Richmond, VA with his wife, Lauren, and his three (soon to be four!) sons Whit, Asher, and Coulter. He is a corporate lawyer and a writer of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction, The Common Rule - Habits of Purpose for an Age of Distraction is his first book-length project and is coming out with InterVarsity Press in early 2019. Read more at www.thecommonrule.org.

Boaz and the Power of Power

According to traditional interpretations, when Boaz sets foot in the story, readers breathe a sigh of relief and exchange knowing glances. We have met the hero. Let the romance begin! His arrival awakens hope that Ruth’s fortunes are about to change for the better. It isn’t uncommon to hear contemporary single women say, “I’m waiting for my Boaz.” But relegating Boaz to a romantic figure not only downsizes him and cheats him of the enormous credit he actually deserves; it also distracts us from the truly powerful role he takes and the deep gospel wisdom his story contains. For far too long, we’ve been cheating Boaz by caricaturing him as “the guy who gets the girl.”

Furthermore, that portrayal raises grave questions about his character. What kind of egregious abuse of power is involved when the owner of the field eyes a female gleaner with romantic motives? How will he dishonor his family by bringing home a bride who lacks social or economic advantages and, worse, is barren? Besides, if Boaz had marriage in mind, what was the hold-up? Why didn’t he at least send her home with his assurance that neither she nor Naomi would ever have to worry about hunger again? Instead, Ruth continues slaving in the hot sun for the entire harvest season.

In fairness to Boaz, the dissonance between the romantic version and the narrator’s portrayal of a man surely means Boaz deserves a closer look. We learn he is an older man of Naomi’s generation when he addresses Ruth as “my daughter” (2:8; 3:10, 11), just as Naomi addresses her (1:11, 12, 13; 2:2, 8, 22; 3:1, 16, 18). The genealogy at the end of the story reveals Boaz is Israel’s native son, born to a prominent family in the leading tribe of Judah. His grandfather Nahshon was the commanding general of the tribe of Judah and the third man in rank after Moses and Aaron. Through Obed, the son Boaz fathers by Ruth, Boaz becomes the great-grandfather of King David, the royal line that ultimately leads to Jesus. Talk about pedigree!

At their first meeting, Ruth knows nothing about the landowner in whose field she comes to glean. So her proposals to this daunting older landowner included a high degree of apprehension. International Justice Mission engages countless legal battles globally to counteract the abuse of widows when tribal strong- men seize their property, depriving widows of their only means of sustaining their families.5 That scenario plays over repeatedly in today’s world. It was the kind of danger Ruth faced.

THE PIVOTAL MOMENT

Much is made about the initial encounter between Ruth and Boaz in Boaz’s barley field. Without question, this meeting is the pivotal moment in the story. But no one could know ahead of time that things would turn out well. Good stories have tension. One of the key questions posed by the presence of Boaz is, how will this impressive man use his power and privilege? For starters, the enormous social and cultural disparity between them could not be more pronounced. They are polar opposites. He holds all the advantages.

The disadvantages belong to Ruth. Throughout human history and right up to the present, the differences between them are the makings of some of the most horrific violations of human rights. Only consider the explosive combinations: male and female, rich and poor, young and old, Jew and gentile, native-born and immigrant, powerful and powerless, valued and discarded. Anyone watching this nitroglycerin mixture would be expecting something terrible to happen, especially when her request implies criticism of how he’s managing his field.

But Boaz’s response to her request to glean in territory that was off-limits to gleaners is a show-stopper. He was not offended, although obviously taken aback. Her perspective on Mosaic law was eye-opening to him. Not only does he listen and grant her request, but he exceeds it with evident determination that nothing must prevent her from succeeding. He even serves her a meal. How countercultural is that?!

A MAN AHEAD OF HIS TIME

We must not miss the earth-shaking implications of his response. Boaz has just been introduced as a man who needs no improvement. In the eyes of the culture (and also of the narrator) he is golden. And yet, his exchanges with Ruth are eye-opening to him. He realizes what she is trying to do. Her perspective sheds new light on a business he has been running for years.

It is one thing for notable theologians such as John Calvin or Jerome to engage in conversation with noble women who are wealthy patrons. It is quite another for a man of Boaz’s stature to engage in conversation with a woman who culturally speaking is beneath him. He is bridging a cavernous gap. Yet, as the story demonstrates, and as he acknowledges, she is in every sense his match. The way he honors her bears that out and goes against the way life typically works in this world.

What if Boaz had dismissed, ignored, rebuked, or even abused her for violating social boundaries? How would the rest of the story have played out? Ruth and Naomi would have lived a hand-to-mouth existence. Naomi would not have revived. It never would have entered her mind to send Ruth to Boaz in hopes of finding shelter. Ruth wouldn’t have attempted to rescue the legacy of Elimelech. His land would have remained fallow until later—perhaps after Naomi’s death. The elders and villagers wouldn’t have witnessed this stellar man becoming even greater by making unrequired, extraordinary sacrifices for Elimelech’s sake. There would be no marriage and no Obed.

Boaz’s response raises a huge issue for Christians. One of the biggest obstacles to a deepening walk with God is resistance to rethinking our beliefs, listening to others, learning, and changing. All through the Bible, God is repeatedly asking some of the people who walked with him the longest to be willing to be wrong and to learn and grow. Sometimes walking with God means learning truth requires means rethinking your entire life. Abraham’s journey with God began in earnest when he was seventy-five—an age when people have a right to be settled in their ways. Abraham had to change, and with each change he grew deeper in his faith. More recently, after decades of ministry, a pastor began to realize he had gotten some things wrong. When one of his parishioners questioned what was happening, the pastor replied, “You gotta give me room to grow.” Room to grow and the courage to change— that reflects what happened to Boaz.

Boaz openly violates cultural expectations in his interactions with Ruth. Instead of showcasing patriarchal standards of masculinity, Boaz subverts them. He bucks the system. He is not held captive to dominant definitions of masculinity. He is free of such expectations and big enough to do the right thing, even when it costs him. In his interactions with this foreign newcomer, Boaz accepts her influence and in doing so discovers room to grow.

Boaz was a man ahead of his time. In the workplace today, equal pay for women remains an unmet goal. Boaz went beyond equality. So Ruth’s take-home pay was as much as fifteen to thirty times what a male harvester would pocket for a day of labor. Boaz pursued the spirit of God’s law—to seek justice for the poor and to feed them.

BOAZ AND THE POWER OF POWER

When it came to the obligations of the kinsman-redeemer and levirate laws, Boaz enjoys loopholes that would make a defense attorney salivate. He isn’t Elimelech’s nearest relative, nor is he Elimelech’s blood brother. Legally, he is beyond the demands of the law. Furthermore, Ruth’s combination of the two laws is highly irregular, especially in Naomi’s case, where the statute of limitations had expired. So when Boaz goes to Bethlehem to press the nearer kinsman-redeemer to purchase land he is likely to inherit anyway and to marry Ruth to produce a male heir for Elimelech, he’s pressing his case beyond the requirements of the law. It raises the question, how did Boaz get away with this?

Boaz’s self-appointed advocacy for Naomi on Ruth’s behalf demonstrates how radically out of step he is with his culture. At the male-dominated seat of government, Boaz gives women a legal voice. He assumes Naomi has property rights and insists that purchasing her land is an urgent matter. If that wasn't surprising enough, he bends the law to require the kinsman-redeemer to fulfill the levirate law too in lieu of a blood brother.

He also bends the law emphatically toward women’s rights—a concept unheard of in ancient times but a pressing contemporary global issue today. And Boaz, a heavyweight among Bethlehem leaders, proves unstoppable. Not only does he push through everything Ruth requested, he depletes his own estate to rescue Elimelech, just as he vowed he would. The fact that not one man attempts to oppose him signifies just how powerful Boaz was.

Boaz shows how male power and privilege can become a powerful force for good. He voluntarily makes extraordinary sacrifices beyond what the law requires. His story also refutes the misguided adage that the rise of women comes at a cost for men. The rise of Ruth influenced Boaz to become a better man—one of the best men in all of Scripture.

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Content taken from Finding God in the Margins: The Book of Ruth by Carolyn Custis James , ©2018. Used by permission of Lexham Press, Bellingham, Washington, LexhamPress.com.

Carolyn Custis James is an award-winning author and international speaker. She blogs at www.carolyncustisjames.com, as a Leading Voice at MissioAlliance, and at Huffington Post, is an adjunct faculty member at Biblical Theological Seminary, and a consulting editor for Zondervan's Exegetical Commentary Series on the New Testament. Her books include Malestrom―Manhood Swept into the Currents of a Changing World, Half the Church―Recapturing God’s Global Vision for Women, and The Gospel of Ruth―Loving God Enough to Break the Rules. She speaks regularly at church conferences, colleges, and other Christian organizations and is a visiting lecturer at theological seminaries. 

Sermons Aren't Popcorn: Tips for Being a Good Listener to God's Word

We do it every week. We grab our coffee, greet some friends, sing some songs, and then sit down to listen to a sermon. Some of us Bible nerds even do it more than once a week through podcasts. We know sermon listening is good for us and part of the Christian life. We have been inspired, challenged, bored, distracted, convicted, and entertained by sermons. So we keep coming back for more.

But we don’t often stop to think about how to listen to a sermon.

There is a way to glorify God most in how we go about listening to a sermon, whether in person or online. Here are five tips to help us be sermon listeners and not just sermon consumers.

1. PREPARE YOUR HEART

Let’s face it. Between checking one more text, Instagramming our coffee, or scrambling to get the kids checked-in, much of the time we’re not even remotely prepared to take in a half hour or hour-long sermon.

Before giving into the Sunday morning frenzy, we must remember that we’re not at church for the sake of routine, but because we really believe the Creator of the universe loves us and wants to speak to us. As you find your seat or pew, take a deep breath, exhale everything on your mind, and ask the Lord to speak to you. A simple prayer, “Jesus you are here, I love you, I want to hear from you, speak to me,” can go miles in preparing your heart.

Leave your phone in the car if at all possible. Use a physical Bible and paper journal to keep you from digital distractions. Spend some time praying before the gathering if you can. Pray for the preacher, the church, potential visitors, and for yourself.

Come prepared to hear the sermon as a member of the church, not just a consumer of its services.

2. ASK BETTER QUESTIONS

How many of us come away from a gathering and we judge the whole experience like we would the latest Marvel installment? "How did you like the sermon?" "What did you think of the music?” “Was the pastor’s Iron Man or Ant-Man example funnier?”

The point of gathering with the saints and sitting under biblical preaching is not for us to judge the Word, but for the Word to judge us. Responding to God’s Word the same way we respond to movies will train us to treat it like cheap entertainment. We are called to be disciples, not consumers. Consumers come, take, and leave; disciples come, see, and go and tell.

Let me suggest three questions to ask after listening to a sermon, either to yourself or someone else.

What did God say to you? Sometimes God speaks through the sermon, prayer, communion, music, benediction, or a moment of silence. He loves to speak to his people. Let’s listen and ask one another how we’re hearing God through sermons. This makes it less about the jokes, antics of the preacher, personality or style, and more about hearing from God—which is the point! And God is faithful to speak through his Word even in the less “entertaining” or poorly articulated sermons because his Word does not come back void (Is. 55:10-11)!

How is God calling you to respond? In Hebrew, the word “hear,” or shema, means “listen & obey” (cf. Deut. 6:3, 4). The American version of listening is fine with just listening, even listening and responding enthusiastically to what has been said, but with no real change, obedience, repentance or transformation. We love to say, “Oh man, that was such a convicting message!” and then go on with our day as if we never heard it at all.

I’m afraid too many of us are content with just listening—listening that doesn’t result in heart change or genuine response. Jesus rebuked this kind of listening, calling it having “ears but never hearing” (Matt. 13:13). And in one of the most terrifying passages of the Bible, Jesus says, “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?” (Luke 6:46).

Biblical hearing leads to biblical action. After listening to a sermon, we should ask ourselves how God is calling us to respond. Is he telling me to stop doing something? To start doing something? To think something different? To give something away? Questions like these bring sermon listening to life.

Who could you share this truth with? Sermon listening shouldn’t end with us. God invites us into a life of community and mission; a life of loving him and loving others. After all, faith comes by hearing the gospel, and hearing the gospel comes through the word of Christ (Rom. 10:17). Others need to hear the Word we have heard!

Whether you are building someone else up or you have someone else help you in responding to the sermon, sharing what God speaks to us and how we will respond is one of the great joys of being the church! As you reflect on the preaching you’ve sat under, ask yourself who you could share with.

3. FIGHT ENEMIES OF LEARNING

Pride, stubbornness, and a lack of teachability are enemies of listening and responding to a sermon. That’s why Hebrews 3:15 says, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.” We can nitpick a sermons’ delivery, critique the personality of the preacher, pridefully boast that we already have heard this text before, or use the time to think through all the ways we would teach Scripture differently. These are all walls in front of our hearts that will block the Word of God.

This hurts us and hurts the church. Pride and stubbornness are not badges of honor in the Kingdom of God; they are not biblical virtues and we ought to fear them. Pray for humility and teachability. Ask the Lord to keep you from stubbornness. Assume the sermon application does actually apply to you.

I’m not saying to mindlessly embrace everything taught, but I am saying to prayerfully join a gospel-centered church, one that preaches the full-counsel of Scripture, and then submit to that teaching. There will be times where the application does not apply directly to you, or when your pastor was off on the text. But if applying the Word you heard is the rule—and not the exception—the more likely you will wrestle with your sin rather than scapegoating the preaching (Heb. 4:12). Pursue humility and default to submitting to the preached Word.

4. PRAYERFULLY PARTICIPATE WHEN TRUTH IS REPEATED

If you have been part of a church for a long time, you will inevitably begin to hear stories, illustrations, and applications repeated over and over. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Scripture repeats personal testimonies, commands, and evidence of God’s work and calls us to remember what God has done in the past.

As consumers, we want every sermon or gathering to seem new, fresh, or different. But the point is not to be entertained by something new, it’s to be transformed by something eternal. The next time you begin to think, I’ve heard this before, or I know where they are going with this, lean into prayer instead. Ask the Lord, “Why are you having me hear this again? What do I need to remember?” And pray for those in the room that may have never heard that particular point.

5. PODCAST SERMONS OCCASIONALLY AND RE-LISTEN REGULARLY 

The number and accessibility of podcasts, with godly men rightly exegeting the Word of God, is a gift of grace. But like any good thing, too much of it can be a bad thing. For the sermon-podcast junkies out there: be careful. You can listen to so many podcasts that you train your mind to hear a sermon with no response. Sermons can become means of entertainment instead of transformation.

We can also begin to build an imaginary or ideal preacher that doesn’t exist, making us unable to enjoy our local preacher because he’s not as funny as Matt Chandler, as astute as Tim Keller, or as passionate as Francis Chan. But that’s good! Your local church pastor is the one God gave you to hear from most regularly, and God intends you to hear his truth through their personality.

Be wary of listening to sermons so much that they become mere entertainment. Sermons are not popcorn. God has sovereignly placed you in a local congregation, so enjoy and appreciate your local preacher instead of binging sermon podcasts. Consider re-listening to a sermon that has spoken to you deeply. Reflect on it. Sermons are to be savored.

LET’S BE GOOD LISTENERS

Hearing God’s Word preached is a privilege. “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns’” (Is. 52:7).

Let’s be good listeners of God’s Word, reveling in the beauty of the gospel and giving thanks for those who teach it.

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Jake Chambers is the husband to his beautiful bride Lindsey, and a daddy to Ezra, Roseanna, Jaya and Gwen. He is passionate about Jesus and his church and has spent the last decade both leading a church plant in San Diego, CA and helping others plant churches. He is currently helping create a church planting strategy for Resurrection Church in Tacoma, WA and hopes to plant a church in his hometown of Gig Harbor, WA in the future. Preach, pray, lead, listen, write and recreate are the 6 ways that God has specifically called Jake to enjoy his presence and serve his church locally and globally.

Immigration: What's a Christian to Think?

Nearly everyone seems to agree that we have an immigration problem in the United States. The exact nature of the problem, though, is heatedly disputed.

DIFFERING PERSPECTIVES

From one perspective, our nation is facing an unprecedented invasion of  “illegal aliens,” who violate our laws upon entry and then become a drain on social services and public education systems, depress wages and displace native-born American workers, and then contribute to increases in poverty, crime rates, and even terrorism.

A campaign flier for candidates for the Carpentersville, Illinois, city council some years ago expresses the frustrations of many Americans:

• Are you tired of waiting to pay for your groceries while Illegal Aliens pay with food stamps and then go outside and get in a $40,000 car?
• Are you tired of paying taxes when Illegal Aliens pay NONE!
• Are you tired of reading that another Illegal Alien was arrested for drug dealing?
• Are you tired of having to punch 1 for English?
• Are you tired of seeing multiple families in our homes?
• Are you tired of not being able to use Carpenter Park on the weekend, because it is overrun by Illegal Aliens?
• Are you tired of seeing the Mexican Flag flown above our Flag?

Others see the current state of immigration as a problem for very different reasons. They see millions of people who have, usually for economic reasons, accepted displacement from their home countries to pursue a better life for themselves and their families in the United States, just as generations of immigrants have done before them.

Tragically, from this perspective, these people are not welcomed into our society but are scapegoated and forced into a shadowy existence by broken immigration laws, even though they contribute to our nation’s economy by performing a host of jobs, most of which few native-born Americans would be willing to do. Undocumented immigrant Elvira Arellano spent a year living inside a Methodist church in Chicago in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to avoid deportation that would separate her from her eight-year-old, US-citizen son. She became something of a spokesperson for this perspective:

Out of fear and hatred of an enemy you cannot find you have set out to destroy our lives and our families. As you knocked on my door, you are knocking on thousands of doors, ripping mothers and fathers away from their terrified children. You have a list of . . . Social Security no-match numbers, and you are following that list as if we were terrorists and criminals instead of workers with families. You are denying us work and the seniority and benefits we have earned, and you are taking the property we have saved for and bought.

From either of these perspectives, the immigration dilemma seems frustratingly simple. As both sides rail against the other, and against the government, where Congress has proposed competing bills but has yet to pass into law any substantial changes in immigration policy, we are left with the status quo—essentially the same status quo we faced a decade ago when we wrote the first edition of this book: an estimated eleven million people with no valid immigration status living and, usually, working in the United States. After the presidential campaign of 2016, in which immigration became a central issue, the debate over how to respond to immigrants in the country illegally seems more polarized than ever.

IMMIGRATION: SIMPLY COMPLEX

Since the first edition of Welcoming the Stranger, another category of “stranger” has become particularly controversial: refugees, who have long come to the United States with legal status at the invitation of our federal government, have joined immigrants without legal status as a uniquely suspect category of “foreigner” in the minds of many Americans.

As with the debate over illegal immigration, the refugee debate seems frustratingly simple to those on either side: to some, it is foolhardy to admit anyone into our country from nations plagued by terrorism, lest we welcome terrorists themselves. To others, welcoming the persecuted and oppressed is an unqualified good, integral to our national character. The two sides have a hard time understanding the other, as evidenced by harsh words shared over social media and even over family dinners and church potlucks.

Less vocal in these immigration debates are the many who suspect that immigration is actually a complicated, nuanced issue. Partisans of a particular policy position are apt to view the issue as very simple—right versus wrong, us versus them.

Yet, as political scientist Amy Black notes, it is these “easy” issues that often prove the most complex and the hardest to resolve since our presumptions keep us from hearing the other side. Within this debate, a growing middle recognizes this is not a simple issue. They want a more thoughtful, informed understanding of the issues than offered by the two-minute screaming matches by advocates of differing perspectives on cable news channels and talk radio.

WHAT'S A CHRISTIAN TO THINK?

Those of us who seek to follow Christ, in particular, face a challenge in sorting through the rhetoric to understand how we can reflect God’s justice as well as his love and compassion in designing a national immigration policy, and in the ways we relate individually to the immigrants in our communities. On first glance at the issue, we recognize that immigrants are people made in God’s image who should be treated with respect; at the same time, we believe God has instituted the government and the laws that it puts into place for a reason, and that as Christians we are generally bound to submit to the rule of law. Many are left conflicted, unsure of what our faith requires of us on this pressing issue.

Through the work of World Relief, the Christian ministry where we both work that serves refugees and other immigrants throughout the United States, we might find ourselves on a regular basis in a church, speaking with people about issues of immigration and citizenship, or in a congressperson’s office, talking with staffers about the need to fix the immigration system. Sometimes we speak in Spanish or with translation in Lithuanian, Arabic, or Cantonese to an audience of immigrants eager to naturalize or fearful of what a newly announced immigration-enforcement policy will mean for them and their families. Other times we are speaking in front of a predominantly nonimmigrant church group, answering questions about immigration policy. When we are in front of an audience of nonimmigrant evangelicals or before congressional staffers who are helping our political leaders form immigration policy, we find that many are asking the same questions we have often asked ourselves. This book seeks to address some of the most common questions and misconceptions that we and other Christians have wrestled with as we consider the immigration “problem.”

This book is written out of our own personal experiences with this dilemma, tracing through much of the investigation our own questions have led us to in seeking to understand immigration policy—and, more important, immigrants themselves—through the lens of our faith. While it would be disingenuous to pretend that we do not have strong opinions about how we (as individuals, as the church, and as a society) should approach this issue, our foremost interest is not to convince you of the virtue of any particular piece of legislation. Rather, we hope this book will encourage our sisters and brothers to take a step back from the rhetoric and combine a basic understanding of how immigration works, and has worked in the United States, we do not believe there is one Christian prescription to solve the immigration issue (though there may be decidedly un-Christian ways to view the issue), and there is plenty of space within the church for charitable disagreement on issues such as this.

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Taken from Welcoming the Stranger by Matthew Soerens, Jenny Yang, and Leith Anderson. Copyright (c) 2018 by Matthew Soerens, Jenny Yang, and Leith Anderson. Published by InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL. www.ivpress.com

Matthew Soerens serves as the US church training specialist for World Relief, the humanitarian arm of the National Association of Evangelicals. In that role, he helps local churches and denominations to address issues of immigration from a distinctly biblical perspective.

Jenny Yang is vice president of advocacy and policy for the refugee and immigration program of World Relief in Baltimore, Maryland.

You Don't Need a Passport to Reach the Nations

I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else's foundation, but as it is written, “Those who have never been told of him will see, and those who have never heard will understand.” – Rom. 15:20-21

I was twelve when I first read these lines from Romans. The unstoppable advance of the gospel immediately captivated me.

Stories of missionary heroes like David Livingstone, Hudson Taylor, and John Paton flooded my mind as I considered what gospel-pioneering work would look like.

With a Bible in one hand and a machete in the other, I envisioned myself blazing a trail through the dense African bush, fighting off snakes and lions to reach remote tribes with the gospel. I was convinced this was the life God was calling me to live.

Twenty-five years later, I’m still just as excited about reaching the unreached. But my role in this work has looked entirely different from my childhood dreams.

DASHED DREAMS OF REACHING THE NATIONS

Initially, passion for the gospel’s advance led my wife and me to leave the comforts of family, friends, and homeland to church-plant in a Muslim village in West Africa. But our baby daughter’s struggles with malaria led us back to the States.

I was crushed.

My childhood dreams of reaching the unreached had been dashed.

Or had they?

These days, I’m not sweating bullets under the scorching African sun. Instead, you can usually find me shoveling snow on yet another frosty day in western New York. I’m not halfway across the continent, but a few miles up the road at the local university, studying the gospel with young men and women who’ve never heard the good news. Instead of cutting my way through a jungle with a machete, I’m digging my way through conversations with chopsticks.

Through this season of ministry, I’ve discovered something that never occurred to me when I first read Romans 15. I had always thought of the unreached peoples as only being “out there.” But the truth is, they’re very much here, too.

We don’t have to cross the ocean or cut down a trail to get to the nations. The nations have come to us.

THE UNREACHED IN OUR BACKYARD

One of the most dynamic mission fields of our time might easily be one of the most overlooked. This past year, more than one million international students from all over the world attended colleges and universities in the U.S. Many of these bright, ambitious men and women came to us from countries closed to traditional missionary endeavors.

Some will be only here for a year. Others, for quite some time. After completing their studies, many will go on to become influential leaders.

An article from the Washington Times stated that nearly 300 current and former world leaders once occupied American classrooms before ascending to prominence in their home countries.

The potential to see the gospel advanced globally through international student ministry is truly staggering!

AN EXCITING—BUT CHALLENGING—OPPORTUNITY

Almost anyone involved in international student ministry will tell you that most of these students are curious about religion. Unlike their American counterparts, international students are open to discussions about Christianity.

And they’re eager to make American friends. Being far from home, many long for a sense of community. They are an ideal mission field that is ripe for harvest!

Making disciples of the nations within our nation, however, is not for the faint of heart. The challenges can be overwhelming.

Since English isn’t their first language, communication can be complicated. Most of these students have cultures and worldview perspectives that are drastically different from ours. Some come from countries completely closed to the gospel and therefore lack basic categories for basic biblical concepts. Even those from “Christianized” countries often have a seriously distorted understanding of the gospel.

Patience, love, and a long-haul mindset are essential if we’re going to reach these men and women for Christ.

HOW YOU CAN REACH THE NATIONS AT HOME

If you’ve read this far, you might be thinking, “Micah, I get what you’re saying. Reaching these people sounds awesome, but kind of scary.” Maybe you’ve never interacted with someone from another country. Perhaps you’re worried that you won’t know what to say or how to act. How would you even begin?

If you’re near a local campus with international students, let me encourage you to consider the following:

Partner with local campus ministries

Partnering with a student ministry on campus is probably the best place to start. There are a number of campus ministries effectively reaching international students. Our church has been able to establish a healthy, working relationship with one such ministry.

Through our partnership, we’ve had numerous opportunities to make connections and develop meaningful relationships with students. Some of them have come to know the Lord and are now radiant followers of Christ. Others are attending gospel studies led by some of the men and women of our church.

Working together, I’m thankful that my church body can multiply our time, efforts, and resources to advance the gospel.

Meet the international student advisors at your local college

I recently talked with a young man who is involved in a thriving international student ministry at his local church. When I asked him how his church started their outreach, I was struck by the simplicity of his response:

“We met with the international student advisors and asked them how we could help students adjust to college life. They were happy to have us help with things like picking up students from the airport, showing hospitality, and helping students learn about the city.”

Through simple acts of service, members of this church established relationships with both students and faculty that have opened doors for disciple-making ministry.

Organize an ESL conversation club

Opportunities to meet Americans, make friends, and practice English are usually big hits with international students, especially those with families. With a little planning and training, nearly anyone can organize an effective ESL (English as a second language) conversation club. Select a few conversational topics that might be of interest to students. Open your gathering with a few ice-breaker activities to help everyone feel comfortable with one another. Divide the students up into smaller groups where they can receive more personalized attention and opportunities for discussion.

As relationships are established, encourage volunteers to follow up with students in their groups to set up one-on-one gospel studies.

REACH THE NATIONS RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE

God may not be calling you to cross the ocean to reach the unreached. Instead, he might be asking you to drive a few miles up the road.

Through international student ministry, you can labor so that “those who have never been told of him will see, and those who have never heard will understand”—and you won’t even need a passport.

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Micah Colbert and his wife, Debbie, live in Buffalo, NY with their three children. In addition to planting and pastoring Gospel Life Church, Micah also works part-time as an ESL instructor in the city. Currently, Micah is working on developing disciple-making materials to help churches effectively engage in international student ministry and ESL outreach. You can visit his website at www.internationalbiblestudy.com.