The | Status | Tweet | Wall Post | Disconnected World
Published November 3, 2011 | 
I am having difficulty explaining this in a short way, but will give it a shot. Forgive me if it is longer than the 140 character limit of a “Twitter Tweet.”
Since the 1980s, there has been an onslaught of technological advances that have affected our connection with the world in which we live; our connection to our immediate real-world
neighborhood and community. We have moved away from direct, face-to-face contact with people and have allowed technology to become the go-between. The front porch conversation that we see on the Andy Griffith Show is totally foreign to our culture. It is not unusual to see two people in a restaurant “dining together” and each person is staring at their cell phones while ignoring one another. We don’t shop at the marketplace and meet real people anymore, but do so by pointing and clicking and having the package arrive on our doorstop.
We find it much more convenient to text or email rather than call, or easier to call rather than to visit. We have even found ourselves satisfied at clicking “like” rather than saying to someone, “Hey, I love that picture you just posted. When did you go there?” Unfortunately, I can spend my whole day “liking” people’s status update, wall-posts, pictures, or comments on Facebook and pretend or feel like I just had a day of meaningful interaction with all of my friends.
The convenience has evolved and the form factor has become smaller. Handheld mobile devices have made it even more convenient.
I have allowed myself to become seduced by convenience and have put my comfort above people.
Due to the nature of the technologies, e.g., text messaging, Facebook status posts, email, wall posts, etc., we have lost the ability to dialogue sensibly. Millions of Twitter posts are made each day, all within the 140 character limit. This means that people are communicating entire thoughts in just a few characters. No longer do we endeavor to be thorough and explain in a comprehensive manner. Our world is challenging us to be as brief as possible.
Think about the use of the word “okay.” Okay which has historically been accepted as just two letters, “ok,” now has been shortened to just one letter, just “k.” Incredible! In a text to my wife, I found myself being too lazy to type the extra “O” in “OK.”
We have become people that are desensitized and have lost touch with our neighbors and we suffer from meaningful dialogue. The cell phone text/email/chat has invaded our lives and is here to stay. Because of media, we have come to know celebrities or YouTube strangers better than our neighbor, or as Brian recently shared, we know how to get around Jerry Seinfeld’s apartment better than the guy next door.
Having painted this picture, we can’t help but wonder how this effects the Gospel. How can we share the Gospel narrative when the world expects message brevity? Also, as we become more and more disconnected, the places for sharing the Gospel become more difficult to find. Somehow, we have got to find ways of becoming more connected with people. There are no easy answers to this growing disconnect. We at least need to reflect upon the effects it is having in our body and find ways to engage people in non-technological ways, face-to-face.
May the Lord grant us wisdom to navigate in this new world.
Think about it, as I am typing you this message, I realize that my trying to communicate this to you has taken the way of what is most convenient, a blog post. ”Hope that’s k with u”
- Allen
Posted in Cultural Issues, Gospel, Ministry, Witnessing | 
communication, facebook, gospel, tweeting, twitter, witnessing | 
Leave a commentReality Check
Published July 7, 2011 | Reality Check – Have you noticed lately …
Perhaps this is why people hate Christians ...
The world we live in is becomingly increasingly antagonistic toward Christianity. (Maybe the actions of Westboro Baptist, the people pictured on the right, have something to do with it.) People speak badly about the church, Christians, the Bible, Jesus Christ, and God. Hostility is growing briskly. Outright disdain for all things good and righteous is escalating. I would post some comments that I read online, of which there were literally thousands, but I’d rather not give a platform for those the Bible would call fools. The advent of social media, the posting of on-line news articles with the ability to comment, Twitter feeds, self-publishing, and personal blogs have given everyone the ability to speak their mind in a very public way. As you can imagine, it is not a pretty sight. For believers, it can be downright discouraging.
God has appointed us as ambassadors for Christ. We are ministers and stewards of the Gospel. Scripture is very clear that this is our primary purpose as individuals and as a church body. The primacy of the Gospel mission is one of our core values here at CCC. This means that we are to engage with the world around us and preach the Gospel to the lost and dying. We are to remain unspotted from the world, yes. At the same time, we need to connect to people and unashamedly communicate the Gospel. Jesus was unspotted from the world and He spent time around the more shady characters of society.
As we desire to share the Gospel and start sharing Biblical truth, our audience is becoming more and more resistant to the message and toward us as messengers. This does not diminish our responsibility as ambassadors for Christ. But, it does make it more difficult.
Let’s pause and reflect on just why people might be resistant to the Gospel and why people are becoming more and more hostile. I have not done any empirical research to back up what I am about to “reflect” on my own, but I think you will mostly agree with my thoughts.
- Instead of focusing on bringing people to the cross of Christ, where sin meets grace, we often allow side issues to distort and drive the conversation. What are side issues? Politics, abortion, gay-marriage, the environment, and so forth. Yes, these are important issues, and yes, these issues do need to be discussed. However, if we allow these issues to dominate and steer the conversation, and we don’t use these topics as a spring-board to the Gospel, then we will never be ambassadors of hope but only emissaries of condemnation. Without the Gospel, none of these issues have relevance to eternity. In other words, the Gospel is the only bridge and connector between these issues and any discussion about God and His goodness, mercy, and glorious purpose for our lives.
- We have not allowed ourselves to be educated and grow in knowledge of the truth. How well can you share the Gospel? Has your ability to articulate the Gospel gotten better this month over last? How do you know? What have you done to understand and relate the issues of our day to spiritual matters? For example, regarding homosexuality. Are you able to intelligently explain why homosexuality is harmful to society? What does the Bible say about homosexuality? How is gay marriage an attack on the Gospel? And, does God actually create people as gay?
- “Becoming all things to all people in order to win some” may have become a foreign concept to Christians. This is an area that I really have to work, especially since I spend the majority of my time around church-folk. I have to ask myself, “What have I done to become friends with sinners and tax-collectors as my Savior has done?” I look at the example of Paul and how he was able to connect with people wherever he went. He understood how to talk to a jailor or a king. He knew about the philosophy and poetry of the day and would quote it when sharing the Gospel. He went to the marketplace and spent time getting to know people. He used the altar to the unknown God as a launching pad for a sermon.
- What have we done to grow in love? Do we truly love one another? Jesus said that our love toward one another will be a telling mark that will demonstrate to all men that we are His disciples. It is a command of Christ. In his pastoral epistles, Paul frequently mentions that we are to love one another. Let’s face it; it is difficult to criticize a people that are incredibly loving. At the same time, it is easy to criticize people that speak the truth, but don’t do so in love.
- Realize this important truth: Jesus was the most loving and perfect being on the planet, and they hated Him. No matter how well we turn every conversation into a Gospel presentation, no matter how learned we are in the truth, no matter how much we engage in the culture, and no matter how loving we are, the fact remains, Jesus said if they hate us, they hated Him first. As the world ticks closer and closer to the second coming, we should expect that there will be an increase in tribulation, not a decrease.
What are some applications? How should we respond? What should we do?
Hopefully, most of the applications should be obvious as you read and contemplate the above points. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions with those and offer up one key application that may not be so obvious. We need to pray. I need to pray, and you need to pray. The fact that our culture is so quickly and violently skidding down the slippery slope into an abyss should drive us to our knees. Being on our knees is a demonstration of our dependence and trust in the faithfulness of God. It shows that without Him, we know we can do nothing. It is a humble demonstration of recognizing our total helplessness and ineptness to face this challenge and do the task He has graciously given for us to do. God is mighty to save!
May this be an encouragement as you endeavor to lift up the cross of Christ – for His glory and your joy.
Allen
The Million Dollar Question!
Published February 8, 2011 | 
The Million Dollar Question
Recently, Pastor Tim Frisch, of Calvary Baptist Church in Claremont, and I took to the streets to share about the Good News of Jesus Christ. We were armed with million dollar bills and a simple survey question, “in your opinion, who is Jesus Christ?” Our approach was simple. We would wave a million dollar bill in front of people and ask, “Would you take part in our survey for a million dollars? We want to ask one question.” If they said yes, which the vast majority did, we would then proceed to ask them “who is Jesus Christ.”
A surprising number of answers were Biblical. A few people said that Jesus is God. One person said that He died on the cross as Lord and Savior, and He is someone we should listen to. A few others simply called Him Savior. There were many that had a nebulous view and said things such as, “Jesus is cool because he helped people,” and “Jesus is a good person,” “He spread a message of peace” and that Jesus is “someone to look to for help.” And then, there were some that admitted that they have, “doubts on believing about Jesus” and question whether Jesus existed in the first place. One person went as far to say “There is a Jesus in everyone. He gives people a positive idea or goal to have.”
Here are a few observations that we were able to make during our time talking with people.
- The million dollar bill tract is an excellent way to get a Gospel tract into the hands of people (and they only cost 30 cents each). It is something they wanted to have and I suspect it will be something they will want to keep or even show their friends. Try it yourself.
- People loved to share their opinion. It was amazing how eager people were to share their thoughts about the person of Jesus. Asking about Jesus was a great opening line. It definitely helped us to understand immediately the background of the person. I highly recommend this technique.
- Not once in our time of witnessing did we feel like an unwelcome intrusion. The vast majority of people were very receptive. If you have a fear to share the Gospel because you think people don’t want to talk about Jesus, based on experience, that fear is unfounded. Try for yourself; don’t take our word for it.
- Having just the million dollar tract was not enough (you might think having a million bucks is enough, but it is not. Such are the economic times of today). We also carried other tracts. One was “Do you consider yourself to be a good person” and the other was “Why Christianity.” These were used in situations when we were able to dig deeper than just the
initial survey question. We used these only if the situation deemed feasible. In other words, we didn’t hand these out to everyone but we led the conversation in directions where these tracts were helpful. - Prayer was very helpful and necessary. Before going, we prayed that God would help bring people to us and to prepare our hearts and the hearts of the people that we would be sharing with. We prayed for wisdom and that we would have a love and compassion for the lost. We prayed when we were finished as well. We thanked God for the wonderful opportunities we were given to share Christ and we prayed for the people we talked with, some by name, others by description, asking God to have mercy on their souls and to allow more opportunity for the Gospel to be spoken in their lives.
Evangelism is easier than you think. You need not have a special gift. (as this article will attest http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2011/02/01/what-if-im-not-a-gifted-evangelist/). You do, however, need to be willing. Every second and fourth Thursday we venture onto the street to share the Good News of Jesus Christ with anyone that is willing to listen. Please join us.
blessings,
Allen