I’ve been wanting to read this book called “Flickering Pixels” How Technology Shapes Your Faith, but haven’t been able to get a copy.  Here’s an interesting interview:

Virtually everywhere we turn today, technology is reshaping the ways we relate and communicate. We go online. We download. We chat and Twitter and hang out on Facebook until our eyes hurt and our brains burst. And more than ever before, the options regarding which movies, music, TV shows and video games we might consume are virtually unlimited.

But how do these media actually influence us? I recently talked with author and Mennonite pastor Shane Hipps, someone who’s thought deeply about that question. His new book, Flickering Pixels: How Technology Shapes Your Faith, describes the profound ways our electronic culture molds the way we see the world … and each other.

More found at the interview here.

Today has been one of the best days in a long time.  Mentally, spiritually, experientially.  Allow me to explain.

In this post I explained an analogy I learned from Bible school called “the music of the gospel”.  Succinctly, if the music is the gospel, we as Christians should respond naturally to the gospel instead of awkwardly (and unnaturally) just doing the actions that we know are right.  Just like one might sing or dance or move their body to music, we are to read the Bible, pray, share the Gospel, among many other things.  I’ve always grown up knowing the Gospel and knowing the right response, but not actually (or entirely) allowing the Gospel to drive the responses.

For the past few months, I’ve been mentally and spiritually confused and frustrated because I wasn’t sure whether to read or pray regularly since I didn’t always “feel” like doing those things.  And I wanted my response to the Gospel to be pure and correctly motivated.  So at some points I withheld myself from reading my Bible, and prayer became dreary.  I felt like if the Gospel had power in my life, it would change me and motivate me to respond.

At some point in the past couple weeks I just resigned myself to reading my Bible each morning before opening my laptop, a bit sullen that it had to come to that (ie. just doing it because I knew it was good for me).

Today as I was talking to Chris about the balance between God’s sovereignty and His love, I realized something about the role we have in responding the Gospel.  Despite flaky emotions that sometimes desire God and sometimes do not desire God, I can desire BY FAITH as an ACT OF THE WILL to read his Word and pray and respond.  This is actually both a mental and emotional decision because deep down, I actually have a conviction and desire to love God and his Word.

According to the analogy, by choosing to read God’s Word and praying daily, we are “putting on the headphones” in order to listen to the music of the Gospel.  Without listening to the music, I am not able to respond naturally even if I wanted to.  I could imagine or think through what I remembered about the music, but there is no substitute for the music itself.  I must keep myself regularly reading the Word and praying in anticipation of the work God will do in my life through the power of His Word.

Furthermore, when we listen to the music, we will all respond in varied yet proper ways.  Some will dance, some will sing, some will sing differently.  However, together the responses are to complement and harmonize each other.  There are some things that are common responses, but there are also unique personal responses.  Hearing and responding to the music of the Gospel is to be done in community, so that when I lose track of the music, I have the harmonies and melodies of my fellow believers to help me back in.  Perhaps, you could say we become intertwined in the music of the Gospel.

This new personal understanding today has now freed me from the frustration and confusion I had before.  It doesn’t matter if in the morning I don’t feel like reading the Word: I have a desire and conviction that knows by faith it is good for my soul and it needs to be done.  I am not relegating the emotions to the wayside; but instead I am recognizing them, addressing whether the emotions are in line with my faith, and being obedient to what God has called me to nonetheless.

I do find it intriguing that this was clarified for me after I decided to just get back into the Word consistently even without knowing all the answers.  God does reward the faithful.

I believe I have reached a certain point where I’m realizing that I can no longer do this on my own strength. Being on campus for about 3 months has allowed me to understand, I can’t really change the campus, or even a specific faculty or residence. I can’t do it. No matter how much I try, peoples’ lives will not change because of anything I do, or how hard I go.

Coming from Guelph, I think I had a very sheltered experience in ministry because the movement there was already growing and gaining momentum. People joined because it was fun, it was cool. Each year, as a student leader, I was handed a list of guys who would be in my discipleship group. Each year, there wouldn’t be too many dropping out from that list, so we were able to have a decent sized group even from the get-go. The people who I discipled were suggested for me. People came out to weekly meetings, to prayer meetings, to socials even when you didn’t really try to push it too hard.

I didn’t learn how to find a bunch of committed guys, how to search them out and really surface them. I didn’t learn how to properly do selection for discipleship. In fact, I have to admit I didn’t even do that much evangelism on a regular basis. It was usually done upon suggestion from my discipler. Essentially, I didn’t learn how to become a spiritual multiplier (emphasis on the word “become”).

Now, I am informed that my job is to figure out how to form a movement development area at a business school, at a faculty of industrial design. I am to form a spiritually multiplying movement where there is no current apparent interest in such a thing.

This is hard. This will require lots of hard work, continued stretching of faith, and many tough days of slogging it out. Moreover, it will require world-changing vision (which I need), a God-shaped burden for the lost (which I need), sincere and full-out dependence on prayer (which I’ve never cultivated yet), and daily dying to myself so that I allow for the Spirit’s filling. And well, I guess it’s supposed to be obvious (it never seems so) that God needs to be orchestrating and pursuing the hearts of students.

Oh, how much I would give to be sitting in Mac Hall at Guelph getting ready to go play another set of music with a fantastic band after a rousing, challenging, random-image-filled-Powerpoint Jolliffe message, knowing that I would be sitting at East Side Mario’s with 60 other friends eating garlic bread, awaiting another highly competitive game of road hockey the next day. Things were pretty comfortable then, pretty in-control, so routine after a few years.

Now it’s time to step up, let go of my fear, stretch my faith, and observe the marvellous work that our Creator God will do through me and others. He’ll totally blossom something beautiful out of the small seed for which we’re breaking new ground.

This is the real deal, how it’s going to look like whenever someone steps into a workplace or new culture.