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Joel Brooks speaks on the role and influence of technology in our faith. How does Twitter, Facebook, blogging, smartphones, etc. effect the way we relate to God and one another? Would Jesus have used Facebook? Would he have broadcast on television to communicate his message? How can technology help and hurt our purpose in life?
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
Alright. We're gonna go ahead and get started. Hello. Hello. We're gonna go ahead and get started.
Jeffrey Heine:I know a number of you in line.
Joel Brooks:Y'all can stay in line. Listen in line. That's that's the singing helps. The singing helps.
Jeffrey Heine:But it worked.
Joel Brooks:It really did. Thank you. We're gonna go ahead and get started. Once again, if you still wanna get stuff to eat, something to drink, you're welcome to stay on line. I know it could be a little bit loud in here at times.
Joel Brooks:Them grinding the coffee and stuff like that. Just you'll have to listen a little more carefully.
Jeffrey Heine:But I
Joel Brooks:want us to go and get started because I I want us to be sure we have plenty of time for the q and a afterwards, because I bet there's gonna be a lot of questions. Let me kind of tell you the format for tonight. I'm gonna speak for about 50 minutes. Probably go just a little bit after 8 o'clock. We're gonna take a break.
Joel Brooks:And then, coming back from the break, we'll spend the rest of the time doing question and answer. The the topic we're gonna look at tonight is faith in the digital age. We'll address, you know, those crucial questions like, would Jesus have used Facebook? If so, would you be his friend? Would he have to ask you?
Joel Brooks:You know, only the chosen are his friends, or could you have asked him? Questions like if, if TV was around, would Jesus have gone live, broadcasted his message to the masses? Was that what he was about? How has technology affected the way that we relate to God? How has it affected the way we relate to one another?
Joel Brooks:Is technology or social media a neutral thing? Is it evil? Is it good? We want to look at all the facets of that. How does it help our spiritual lives?
Joel Brooks:How can it hurt our spiritual lives? Now some of these questions, obviously, are not gonna have a chapter and a verse in your Bible or your Bible app, but you can look at the trajectory of scripture, I think, to get a good feel for things as to what, what God has to say about, the things we make and how we relate to him in general. I'm gonna leave a lot of the application process of this to the question and answer time. So what I'm gonna kind of do here is paint some theological pictures here, paint some big stuff. And then afterwards, if you want to know how the rubber meets the road and things like that, be sure to write down the questions and, ask.
Joel Brooks:Everybody hear me okay?
Jeffrey Heine:Yes.
Joel Brooks:Alright. Is that a yes? Yes. Can we turn on the music a little bit in there? That'd be fantastic.
Joel Brooks:Alright. Well, why did I decide to teach on this topic? And I guess I should answer what qualifies me to teach on this topic. I'm what you would describe as a digital immigrant. I'm gonna use that term.
Joel Brooks:I'm a digital immigrant. I'm 39 years old. And so I was not born in the digital age. I have had to immigrate into the digital age. My grandmother is what I would call a digital foreigner, in which, you know, she has no knowledge whatsoever of the digital age.
Joel Brooks:She was born in 1911. I bet a number of you are what I would call digital natives, which means you've just grown up with social media. You've you've grown up with Facebook. Many of you have. And so this is your world.
Joel Brooks:You feel very comfortable in it. And so I'm gonna use that kind of language throughout, a digital foreigner, a digital immigrant, which I am, and a digital native. Now when a foreigner comes to our country, they're confused by a lot of things. Picture some money from Uganda coming over and maybe spending Thanksgiving day with you. Alright?
Joel Brooks:And so Thanksgiving day, you gorge yourself silly. You just eat tons and tons of food. You know, you've gotta have your, your cranberry, you know, salad or whatever it is. And, you've got to have your turkey. You've got to have all this stuff you just eat and eat and eat.
Joel Brooks:And then after you have to loosen your the belt, you go into the living room, you sit on the couch, you turn on the TV and you watch people wearing helmets just, you know, hit the crud out of one another for hours. And so just imagine this foreigner, this guy from Uganda, he's watching this scene and he asked, so what what is Thanksgiving Day? He said, well, I mean obviously Thanksgiving Day is the day, you know, when the pilgrims came and they survived the winter. And because they survived the winter and God gave them a good harvest, they, they had a special feast in which they gave thanks to God. And the foreigner would look at you and be like, and so so why do you celebrate it like this?
Joel Brooks:Well, why do you just have a feast until you're committing gluttony and and watch a bunch of people on TV, you know, hitting each other? And if I was asked that, my response would be, well, because that's just what we do. This is what I grew up doing. But I need to hear his question. Because I just grew up doing this, and yet, the reasons I'm doing it, I don't know why.
Joel Brooks:And it really is so far removed from its original purpose. And I need to have that foreigner voice in my life. Now an immigrant would come in, and they might ask the very same questions, see some of the same kind of problems, but they're not gonna go home. Their their interest is, I wanna understand this holiday and see how I can make it better. Maybe incorporate some of the things from my land into this culture as well, and maybe we could form something together beautiful, something really good.
Joel Brooks:I say that because I I think a lot of us are digital natives. You've grown up with technologies. You've grown up with social medias. You've just grown up with things, and you've never really had to ask the question why. And then, you know, you get some old fogie who comes along, some foreigner is like, why do you do this?
Joel Brooks:And they're like, well, just because. And I'm that immigrant. I'm I'm a foot in, and I'm a foot out. I went through college without the Internet. Kinda hard to believe, but there was no Internet when I went through college.
Joel Brooks:When I was getting my master's, the Internet was around, and I finally got an email account. So I was doing college ministry actually without social media for a while, then with social media. And so one of the reasons I think that people my age are are somewhat have a unique perspective on this is because we've been in both worlds. I've done ministry to college students before this kind of digital social media explosion, and I've done it after. And so I've seen the good and I've seen the bad that comes with that.
Joel Brooks:And so we're gonna talk about that. I'm gonna give you a brief history of technology. And when I mean brief, this is gonna be brief, but we're gonna go back over the last 200 years, so we could kind of see the trajectory of this stuff. In 18/67, Laura Ingalls Wilder was born. Who knows who Laura Ingalls Wilder is?
Joel Brooks:Alright. Good. Alright. I'm not that old. Alright.
Joel Brooks:Little House on the Prairie Girl. Alright. That's 18/67. I want you to picture the world in which she was born into. Alright?
Joel Brooks:You know, there's there's the little shack, there's the little barn, there's she gets around a horse and wagon. There's no electricity. Very simple farming life. Alright. When she died 90 years later, Russia had just sent a dog to orbit around the earth.
Joel Brooks:So the world into which she was born and the world in which she died were 2 completely different worlds because of technology. So much changed in that 90 year period. And let me tell you, the 90 year period from 1957, which is when she died, to 2,047, we're gonna see even greater changes than she saw in her lifetime. In 1801, and in all of history before 1801, information never traveled faster than a horse could carry it, which is pretty astonishing to think about. You know, the great pharaohs of old, great kingdoms, Roman Empire, all that stuff.
Joel Brooks:They used the same speed, they had the same speed in which they could convey information as as people did, as Paul Revere did, as people did in 1801. It could only travel as fast as a horse. Even by 18/61, and that's kind of the height of the Pony Express, It took 10 days to move a letter from Missouri to California at at at top speed that information could travel. 10 days from Missouri to California. And I just kinda like to think of, you know, the messages that we would send.
Joel Brooks:You know, you you you kind of hand a guy a message in 10 days, they're traveling as fast as they can, they get to California. And, like one of the last messages I got on Facebook, I just looked at it and it said, boy, I love coffee. And, you know, can you imagine like traveling 10 days? Hey, Joel loves coffee. You know, and they write down a little message, and they give it back, and they're coming back 10 days, and they go, he likes it.
Joel Brooks:You know, and it's it's a 20 day tran, you know, transaction there, and and what we do all the time, just in a blink of the eye. Things radically changed in 1844 with a telegram, Morse code. This is this is when we really start seeing a huge change. The telegram grew so fast that by 18/70, we were connected to India, we were connected to Australia. So what used to take months months of travel by boat, now seconds.
Joel Brooks:And it not only changed the way we communicated, it changed information itself. Now with the telegram, it changed the way we viewed information. Because before the telegram, almost all the information we would receive, we would read about in the newspaper, or people would tell one another, almost all of it was local. And almost all of it was useful. And so if you were to pick up a paper from that time, it would tell you about local crops.
Joel Brooks:It would tell you about the local soils, it would tell you about the local government, maybe some of the local businesses. But it was all going to be information local and things that you could use, then the telegram completely changed that. Because now we could get information from great distances just like that. And so newspapers began reporting on events that were no longer local, and no longer had any useful information whatsoever. It quickly became entertainment.
Joel Brooks:The more entertaining the story, the more the newspapers could sell. It never it no longer served as a resource in which to solve a problem. I was reading something that described it as this. It was news from nowhere addressed to no one in particular. Giving people much to talk about, but little to act on.
Joel Brooks:Which of course, I think is what we see today, on steroids with the Internet. There's much to talk about. I hate the fact that I know that the cast of Modern Family is asking for more money. I I don't really care. They're, you know, they live where?
Joel Brooks:In California. I I don't have any connection with them. It has no relevance whatsoever in my life, yet I know for some reason that they're asking for more It's not useful to me, but it's there. And so this is what is happening now. There's a lot for us to talk about, but there's little for us to act on.
Joel Brooks:Matter of fact, a few days ago, I tried not to to hear the outcome of the women's gymnastics. I tried so hard. It's like, I wanna watch it tonight on TV. I'm going to try not to, And that lasted about 3 hours before finally I found out. So we we live in a age now that a sporting event can happen across the ocean that I actually care little about, and I can't avoid hearing about it.
Joel Brooks:Alright. I can't avoid it. The news will find me. This technology is advancing at a exponential rate, not a linear rate. You know, linear is a it's kind of a straight line here.
Joel Brooks:Technology is not advancing in a straight line. It's advancing in a exponential line. How many of y'all have an iPhone? Anybody here? IPhone?
Joel Brooks:Okay. Just so you know, I the Lord was trying to humble me. My phone died yesterday, and I I still carry it around for some reason. You can't really call me on it. And I'm gonna have to probably get, you know, some kind of smartphone.
Joel Brooks:And this is part of my pride is just gonna die. And I just wanna go ahead and put that out there that I will probably be purchasing a smartphone tomorrow or so. But your iPhone, even if you have the first edition of the iPhone, has a 128,000 times more memory than any of the Apollo spaceships that went to the moon. I mean, can you believe that? What you hold in your hand has a 128,000 times more memory than what sent people to the moon.
Joel Brooks:And when you look at processor speed, it's it's off the charts, what you have in your hand. Technology is just exploding at an exponential rate. And so if this exponential curve continues as it has continued for the last 200 years, then by the year 2,045, you'll reach what, you know, some of you probably know and have heard about the point of singularity. And that's when the, you know, the curve is almost straight up. And that's when technology can begin creating technology.
Joel Brooks:That's when in one day, you can have the inventions that took a 100 years. And so many scientists have marked, you know, the year 2,045 is a year that history completely changes. If we keep the same exponential curve that we have for the last 200 years. So that's a brief history of what's happened and where we're going. Alright?
Joel Brooks:Now the question is, as Christians, how do we live in this world? Do we embrace it? Do we, do we just try to ignore it like it doesn't exist? Use it sparingly? What role is technology supposed to have in our spiritual lives?
Joel Brooks:In particular, I want us to look at what role does social media have in our spiritual lives. And to answer this question, I want us to look at the big picture. So I want to
Jeffrey Heine:go back to the beginning. If any
Joel Brooks:of you have your Bibles, you could turn to Genesis, Bible apps, click to Genesis. And when I look at chapters 1 and 2 to see when man was created and why they were created, what we were created to do, and what changed with the fall. Look at Genesis 1. We'll begin reading, I'll read a few verses beginning in verse 26. Then god said, let us make man in our image after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.
Joel Brooks:So God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created them him. Male and female, he created them. So we see here that man created on this last day of creation there is the pinnacle of creation. Man, woman are the only only ones of God creation that are created in his image.
Joel Brooks:When we come to Genesis 3, we see that God has put Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. He's given them work to do. He's, he's making them gardeners. Now all gardening is, and we looked at this when we went through Genesis a couple years ago at Redeemer, all gardening is is taking the raw resources of the world, taking, you know, the rocks, the the soil, the sunlight, the seed, we're taking all of those things and we're structuring them and we're organizing them into something that becomes life giving, something that becomes beautiful. So we're taking disorder and we're making order, and we're taking things that aren't beautiful and we're making them beautiful, we're making them life giving, that's gardening.
Joel Brooks:And that's what Adam and Eve were to do. And and, of course, they did this with unbroken fellowship with one another and with God. I love it. God is actually described in Genesis 3 as walking with them in the cool of the evening. I mean, how how amazing is that that Adam and Eve walked with God just in the cool of the evening?
Joel Brooks:But it gives you this little glimpse into what you were created to do, and whom you were created to enjoy. You were made to be in the physical presence of God, and you were made to joyfully make beautiful and life giving things all to the glory of God. Alright. That's your purpose. We know Adam and Eve sinned, and I want us to read an account of what happened after they sinned.
Joel Brooks:Go to Genesis 3 verse 7. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. And they heard the sound of the Lord walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, where are you?
Joel Brooks:And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked and hid myself. Alright. So after man sinned, the very first thing they did was they created something. Okay? The moment they send, the very first thing they did is now we're going to create something that we can use, a technology, if you will.
Joel Brooks:They created something, and this is what they created. They invented something called clothes. Alright. So the results of their sin, they sinned, and now all of a sudden they felt ashamed, and they felt that they needed to hide themselves from one another. They could no longer look at each other fully, and they no longer could bear God looking at them fully, and so they needed to partially hide themselves, and so they invented this thing called clothes.
Joel Brooks:Now let's look at God's reaction to their sin. Well, the first thing he does is he curses the whole earth. Work instantly becomes a lot harder. Now gardening is gonna be harder. Creating things that will become beautiful, creating things that will become life giving just became a lot harder.
Joel Brooks:Then God does something unusual. Go to verse 21. And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins, and clothe them. So the very first thing that Adam and Eve made after they sinned was clothes. The very first thing that god made after Adam and Eve sinned was clothes.
Joel Brooks:But they did them 2 different ways and for 2 different reasons. Alright? Notice that god made them out of animal skins. And what you see here is the very first redemptive act of God after creation, after sin. So Adam and Eve, they made clothes in order to hide from one another, in order to hide from God.
Joel Brooks:God made clothes to protect them from a hostile world. Leather is a lot more durable, leather is a lot more warm, and also another purpose. These clothes, the only way they could be made is if an animal died. Blood had to be shed for Adam and Eve to be clothed. And so what you're seeing here being implied is the first sacrifice.
Joel Brooks:So God's first creative act after the fall is redemptive. Man's first was to hide himself from one another, to hide himself from God. God's first was to protect and to restore. Same thing, they made clothes to very different purposes. Okay?
Joel Brooks:And I want us to keep these two things in mind when we think of technologies, how we use them. That our first instinct as fallen man is going to be to use technology to hide from one another and to distance ourselves from God. Yet technology can be used redemptively. But please hear me, you don't just fall into it. Alright?
Joel Brooks:You don't just pick up, you know, an iPhone. You don't just start using your computer or whatever, and it you naturally use it redemptively. You you naturally go the other way. You naturally start using technologies to hide from one another, to hide from God.
Jeffrey Heine:And I
Joel Brooks:want us to always keep the garden in mind as we look at technology because we were made to enjoy unhindered relationships with one another. That's what we were made for. We were made to be face to face with one another. We were made to be face to face with God. Alright?
Joel Brooks:Everything else is a result of the fall. Everything else that's not the face to face, not being in the presence, is a result of the fall. Paul, he talks about this. You know, you hear it at every wedding when you get to the the love chapter, 1st Corinthians 12. When he says, for now, we see in a mirror dimly, but then we see face to face when Christ comes.
Joel Brooks:Now I know in part, but then I shall know fully even as I have been fully known. He's saying right now, we don't get to see him face to face, and that's not as good. We were made to see him face to face, and man, we long for that day. Alright. So that's what we were made for.
Joel Brooks:Alright. There's no kids here, are there? Little kids Not here? Alright. You can see this evening how God created procreation for humans.
Joel Brooks:We're the only species that procreates has sex looking face to face, heart to heart. The only species that does this. He created us for face to face interaction. Alright? But since the fall, our instinct is to hide.
Joel Brooks:So realize, you know, whenever you're using Facebook or you're using Twitter, you're using whatever, you're not really putting your real full self out there naturally. Naturally, you're trying to cover up. Alright? If I could press anything into this evening, it would be that you need to ask questions when it comes to different technologies. Questions you just need to ask.
Joel Brooks:1st, you need to ask a question, why? Why to every technology I you are using. Ask, what real need does this help me meet? What is this redeeming? Is it redeeming anything?
Joel Brooks:What problem, what was the problem to which this technology provides the solution? Sometimes the technologies we use are so far removed from the solutions they were originally invented for. An example. My grandmother, she died a few years ago, at 98. But when she was in her upper nineties, I showed her an iPad.
Joel Brooks:Blew her mind. I mean, just blew her mind. And she's like, so what is this? It's like a record player. It's like, yeah, it's like a 1,000 something record players here.
Joel Brooks:And so you get you get thousands of songs are on here. And she's like, really? And I'm I'm showing her this. It's just, you know, blowing her mind. But she got it.
Joel Brooks:She thought, that's amazing. You mean, you can walk around in your hand and play any song, thousands of songs. I was like, I can't. And then, I was showing her phone, you know, about texting. I was like, and so you could text.
Joel Brooks:And she goes, so
Jeffrey Heine:why would you wanna do
Joel Brooks:that? I was like, well, she goes, I mean, you could just talk to people, can't you? I was like, yeah, you're right. I mean, and so it was great hearing her perspective like, so what need does texting fix? And is that why you use it?
Joel Brooks:Is that the original intent for you to be using it? You know, is there some need? Or is it just, you know, to, well, I'm not gonna go there. Let me shift gears for a bit and discuss some of the benefits and some of the pitfalls or dangers of technology. I'm not gonna say the evils of technology, but just some things you need to be aware of, and then we'll have our q and a time.
Joel Brooks:Before I talk about the benefit of technology, I need to define benefit. When I say a benefit of technology, I'm not saying what makes you feel good, what makes you happy, what you enjoy. That's not what I mean by benefit. Alright? What I mean by benefit is something that better enables you to do what you were created to do.
Joel Brooks:Alright? A benefit is gonna help you to glorify god and to enjoy him forever for those Presbyterians out there. You know, Westminster confession question 1. That that's a benefit. If you're not Presbyterian, you just wanna be a Christian, you know, you're Jesus.
Joel Brooks:It's to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself. So whatever helps you to do those things better is what I would call a benefit. Well, the biggest benefit that I see to technology is its ability to distribute information. The Internet has made it incredibly easy to access information. I can, you know, get on Skype, which I've done before, and I have taught 2 missionaries, taught a little seminary class to, some teachers in Peru on the other side of the world from my desk.
Joel Brooks:I can convey information there. I mean, that's just that's incredible that I could do that. So the gospel can be preached to other sides of the world from your living room. If you're sick, you can't make it to church, you can listen to a podcast and not miss the message. I can go to, you know, I go to The Gospel The Gospel Coalition's website.
Joel Brooks:I go to Desiring God's website. I can find helpful articles that I can read that's gonna shape the way I minister, shape the way I, I'm a husband or I'm a father. I can I can access very good information? And so being able to access this quickly and at an unprecedented scale greatly affects my worship, my ministry. It can even help me do things like, you know, fight injustices on the other side of the world.
Joel Brooks:Alright? So technology is wonderful at information. Pitfalls. I'm gonna go through a number of these, not because I think there's more pitfalls than benefits, but because I think these are the things we need to be aware of because, like I said before, our natural tendency is to go this way with with technology. And I I feel like I need to just say this out there.
Joel Brooks:I'm not saying this from a from a guy who's mastered this. I'm not saying these are pitfalls that y'all need to be aware of. I'm saying these are pitfalls we need to be aware of. Okay? Number 1, losing the ability to meditate on the Word of God.
Joel Brooks:Losing the ability to meditate on the word of God. God chose to communicate to us through a book. Don't forget that. Parts of the Bible, the Ten Commandments, he wrote himself on the mountain in stone. So this is huge for us.
Joel Brooks:No no matter what technologies are available to us, we can never forget that God speaks to us. He has spoken and he speaks to us still through the meditation of his word. I mean, this is gonna sound a little dramatic, but I mean this. One of the goals for Lauren and I as a parent, and we have 3 little girls, one of our goals in education for our children is to one day get them to understand the book of Romans. That's a goal of ours.
Joel Brooks:I would almost say that is the goal. Alright? I will say it's the goal. Because Romans is like the it's the pinnacle of of the Bible there. It's it's what unpacks the gospel.
Joel Brooks:It's it's how we get to know God there. The problem is you can't understand Romans through light reading. You can never understand it by, by reading a few minutes here, reading a few minutes there. You can never understand it if you treat it like
Jeffrey Heine:you would read the newspaper, like you would read a blog,
Joel Brooks:like you would read anything on Facebook. You'll never understand Romans if you treat it like that, ever. You won't understand it if you if you treat it like a blog in which you skim an article. Does anybody actually read articles anymore? I mean, honest honestly, I don't.
Joel Brooks:I mean, I'll say, yeah, I read that. Well, if I read that, my I'm saying my eyes ran across the first page. I never went to the next or the next or the next. You know, I I got the feel for it. Romans doesn't work that way.
Joel Brooks:You don't just, like, run your eyes by and get the feel for Romans. It doesn't work that way. With scripture, you have to give it your full undivided attention. And it's so easy today to get a lot of knowledge about a little thing, so we get this shallow knowledge from all around the world. Like I, you know, I know the modern family cast, you know, who's asking for more money.
Joel Brooks:I know the scores of all the gymnastics things. I know all of this. So we have all of this little shallow information, but it's a lot harder to get deep, narrow information, which is Romans. And I taught on Romans last summer for our coffee house. And some of you might remember me saying this.
Joel Brooks:But Romans was written to uneducated, gentile slaves, and it was understood. Alright? And many of my friends have got their masters in theology. I'm I'm one of them, and it is hard for me to understand. Some of it's because I'm losing the ability to focus.
Joel Brooks:But we have to because this is how god speaks to us. Here here's the difficulty we face when trying to meditate. By the time a digital native reaches the age of 20, they will have spent 20,000 hours on the Internet. 20000 hours on the internet, 10000 hours playing video games. And so, our brains are being shaped.
Joel Brooks:These are the developmental years of a child. They're being shaped by the Internet, being shaped by games. 30 1000 hours there. Okay? And this isn't me.
Joel Brooks:This is just about any study you are going to read saying that this leads to a permanent let me I'll quote, a permanent state of partial attention. Permanent state of partial attention. Our ability to devote ourselves to long periods of thoughtful reflection are in serious jeopardy. Alright. Now I'm gonna see if I could demonstrate this.
Joel Brooks:Alright. I wanted to get a fishbowl. This is gonna have to do. This is my brain right here. This, animal crackers thing.
Joel Brooks:What what I did this morning please say it's here. It is here somewhere. It is here. Did somebody take all my stuff, my notes? I cut up.
Joel Brooks:It fell out. My illustration is completely gone. My scattered brain. Well, it's gone. Sorry.
Joel Brooks:I'll just tell you the point, which will be so less effective. I went and I printed off every Facebook message I received this morning. And I cut them up into individual snippets. Alright? It was a total of 28 pages printed.
Joel Brooks:I don't have that many friends. I've, no offense, but I have most of y'all on, like, mute or unsubscribe. I I I don't I don't get all of them. And and you know, you're you're gonna get things like, oh, boy, sure do sure do enjoy my coffee. Cute kid, you know, cute kid, cute puppy, cute kitten, You know, article about Chick Fil A, 20,000 responses to the article about Chick Fil A.
Joel Brooks:And it's just you're you're constantly processing. I mean, it is off the charts. Everywhere, all of this stuff, you're just filling it and filling it and filling it. And to where if you were to try to fill this, it's just it's overflowing. Then I also read James 1 today.
Joel Brooks:And if you just try to put that little sheet and, you know, kind of like stuff it in there I also read John 4 today. Take that little sheet and just kind of stuff it in there. It just gets lost. All right? You get so much information.
Joel Brooks:And that's not counting the newspaper, the the billboards, the things that you have to filter through. The last study I read said that 1 hour of your day is spent reading just advertisements. 1 hour of your day. That's TV commercials. That's billboards.
Joel Brooks:That's magazine articles. So really, if I were to say, do you wanna spend 1 hour of your day just reading through advertisements, you'd be like, heck no. But we do. Alright? And and that's that's the world we live in.
Joel Brooks:Alright? But because we're always having to process this all the time, we're living in the state of partial attentiveness. We're losing our ability to actually sit and focus and meditate. Alright. 2nd, I'll hurry through these, we lose, we're in danger of losing our ability to worship.
Joel Brooks:A key aspect of worship is the ability to forget yourself and to be caught up in the beauty and the glory of God. The best worship is when there's not a thought about yourself. You're completely caught up in him. Alright? Now there's a pitfall in technology that makes us really hard for us to do that.
Joel Brooks:Alright. I I love you too. And so I last concert I went to, their whatever gigantic claw thing on stage, I'm right up there. Alright? Bono at one point is running towards me.
Joel Brooks:I mean, I could reach out and we touch him. Everybody around me has cell phones up. Every one of them, videoing it. Videoing the experience. And so Bono comes.
Joel Brooks:He's he's singing, you know, as far away from me into James here. And, and everybody's videoing it and videoing themselves going, he's right here. There he is. He's right here. And and so this could be one of the greatest moments of their life, and they're missing it.
Joel Brooks:They're not being caught up in the moment. They're too busy trying to share the moment, trying to, you know, capture the moment that they're actually not experiencing the moment. And so, for many of us, some of the greatest events in our life, we never actually saw with our eyes, we saw through a screen. Our little girl, she's 4. She did a ballet recital at the Alabama Theater.
Joel Brooks:I was in charge of the video video camera. I'm the video dad there. And so, you know, I got the little video camera out there, and here comes little Georgia Jane and as she's a little butterfly or something, you know, going across the stage. And so I'm trying to like video this thing, then I'm like, what am I doing? I want to see this.
Joel Brooks:I don't I don't want to look at it through a screen so I can somehow make a memory that I can somehow watch later through a screen. I want to get caught up in this moment and not miss it. And so I would rather have a bad video, and I just kind of caught the moment and held it to the side.
Jeffrey Heine:But but I feel that conflict. I feel it.
Joel Brooks:Some of our worshipful moments are being lost. And I can say that for for a fact because I'll I'll look on Facebook, and I will get tweets that will appear on Facebook like this. Somebody's at a desiring God conference or something, and they'll tweet, John Piper is just killing it, man. He is killing it. Actual tweet there.
Joel Brooks:Or maybe John Piper says something profound. And so, they have to tweet the very profound thing that John Piper just said. Now, here here's the deal. Instead of hearing that profound truth and having it lead them into prayer, having it lead them into worship, having it lead them into meditation, the very first thing it leads them to is to tweet. They're losing the moment.
Joel Brooks:And so what should be, you've heard this truth and what should be directed to God and prayer is now being directed in a tweet to anyone. And then the moment passes. So instead of taking a moment and meditating on the truth spoken, having this transformative worship with the Lord, we instead are thinking, how can I immediately broadcast it to everyone? Alright? It's hurting our worship.
Joel Brooks:3rd, pulls us away from face to face contact. There's a danger or a pitfall of technology pulling us away from face to face contact. What many people now consider community was once previously just considered communication. Alright. Let me repeat that.
Joel Brooks:What many people now consider community was previously considered just communication, in which communities are being formed by a shared interest, not by shared space. It's a radical shift in how community is being perceived. Now, it used to be you share a space together, your community. Not anymore. Now we talk about, no, if we share the same interest, the same likes on Facebook, if we go into the same chat rooms about the same thing, there's now a digital space in which we enter and we find community.
Joel Brooks:And a digital face, you know, has disembodied people, basically. You're not face to face with them. But face to face is what we were created for. Remember, man's first creation after he sinned was something to where he could hide. Many of us in here prefer texting to emailing.
Joel Brooks:We prefer emailing to phone calling. We prefer phone calling to face to face. Many of us, face to face is the last thing we pursue, not the first. So in a way, we're we're we're hiding. Sometimes even when we're in the same room with people, we would rather we feel more comfortable opening our heart and sharing via text than we do face to face.
Joel Brooks:Yet that's inferior. It's not what you were created for. Technology can do, a lot of wonderful things. You can call a friend on the other side of the world. Pretty amazing.
Joel Brooks:But what I want you to do is anytime you use a technology like that and you say yes to that, ask yourself what you're saying no to every time you say yes to this. It's another important question you can ask. When I'm saying yes to this, what am I saying no to? By continuing to build a relationship in which it cannot be face to face, am I saying no to establishing the relationships that I can have face to face? Did you get that?
Joel Brooks:Are you spending more time communicating to saying yes to establishing relationships that you cannot spend face to face at the neglect of building up relationships you can have face to face. Many times, we give attention to a text rather than a friend that's in front of us. Alright? Jesus would not do this. Jesus did not do this.
Joel Brooks:Read through the gospels. And one thing that is gonna hit you is Jesus gave people his full attention. I mean, there'll be crowds pressing all around him. A little woman would touch him. He'd turn around like, who touched me?
Joel Brooks:People are like, Jesus, we're in a hurry, we're in a hurry, we're in a hurry. He's like, no. You. He's in no rush. It's like he looks right at the woman.
Joel Brooks:He converses with her. And and the reason that Jesus would give people his full attention is because he would give God his full attention, and people are created in the image of God. Therefore, they deserve his full attention. And so, give priority to face to face because that is what you were created for. 4th, make these last two points really quick.
Joel Brooks:Technology, a pitfall of it, is that it can be really easy to set the world on fire. Chick Fil A, that's all you really have to say. Wow. I mean, boom, instant, world controversy right there. I'm I'm starting a series on James this Sunday at church, you know, and James has the famous verse in chapter 3.
Joel Brooks:It says, how great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire, and he's talking about the tongue. Technology can amplify that. It can be used redemptively, set the world ablaze for the gospel, but it's not our natural inclination. Our inclination is towards destruction. For those of you who blog, for those of you who tweet, for me who stands up here and speaks, let me just remind you of a few verses from scripture.
Joel Brooks:Proverbs 18. A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion. Proverbs 29. Do you see a man who's hasty in his words? There's more more hope for a fool than for him.
Joel Brooks:And please hear these words from Jesus from Matthew 12. This terrifies me. I tell you on the day of judgment, people will give account for every careless word they speak. For by your words, you will be judged. By your words, you will be condemned.
Joel Brooks:I know a number of you have talked to me about you're like, oh, I wish I didn't send that email. Oh, I wish I didn't send that tweet. Oh, I didn't. Because we're hasty and we don't think. Final pitfall.
Joel Brooks:Technology can quickly become an idol. I bet a number of you panic if you leave your phone someplace. You you leave your phone at home, and you you find yourself out and you're like,
Jeffrey Heine:oh my gosh. I left my phone at home. What am I gonna do?
Joel Brooks:What am I gonna do? Like you lost an arm, you know, or that might be less traumatic. Because it's it's every much is part of your identity. It can be. What you have to realize is you want to make things an idol.
Joel Brooks:And by that, I mean you want to have something that you can put your identity in, your hope in, your trust in, if you forgot your Bible someplace, are you gonna have this panic attack? Oh, my gosh, I left my Bible at church. I gotta go 24 hours without it. You're like, no. It doesn't faze you.
Joel Brooks:You forget your phone. Oh, no, I'm not in constant communication with everybody in the world. You just die. It's an idol. When it reaches that point in your life, call it for what it is.
Joel Brooks:Say, God, you need to save me from this. Alright? When Facebook is the first thing you have to turn to when you wake up, it's the last thing you look at when you go to bed, which is true for about 40% of the people on Facebook, Americans on Facebook, that's an idol. Scripture says, meditate on him when you wake up and when you lie down. So you need to ask yourself, what am I going to early?
Joel Brooks:What am I going to often? What are the things that I crave? Alright. I'm gonna end right there. Sorry, I went 5 minutes long.
Joel Brooks:Y'all take a break. Take a we'll take a 8, 10 minute break. Think of some good questions, and then, we'll resume. For q and a time, I say this every time. It's not stump the teacher.
Joel Brooks:Pretty easy to do. And I'm also not speaking as an expert on this. I'm speaking as one who's, who's researched it some, thought a lot about it, coming as a digital immigrant in this. Hopefully, we can learn from one another. Hopefully, I can share some experiences that have helped.
Joel Brooks:So what questions do you guys have?
Jeffrey Heine:Would Jesus have a Facebook account?
Joel Brooks:Alright. First question was, would Jesus have had a Facebook account? I don't know. My my, I would suspect no. He actually does.
Jeffrey Heine:Oh, he I
Joel Brooks:mean, he actually does. Yes. Trick question there. Now, we'll say this about g Jesus had 2 social mediums available for him, public speaking, which he did. The other was writing.
Joel Brooks:Jesus did not. Jesus did not write anything to have his message distributed, which which is really unique if if you think about it. You know, even when he was at court, people were like, Jesus, you said this. You said this. You know, today, he'd be like, hey, check the past emails.
Joel Brooks:I didn't. You know, but he he couldn't do that. He didn't write anything. He was always face to face contact. His followers now wrote a lot.
Joel Brooks:His followers wrote a lot. So maybe they would have used Facebook, but I don't know if if Jesus would have. I don't know. Great question. Anybody else?
Joel Brooks:Myspace, certainly not. Go ahead.
Jeffrey Heine:Could you talk more about the changes you saw in college students?
Joel Brooks:Okay. The the question is, would I talk about the changes I saw in college students? Okay. We'll talk about the invention of podcast. When when I did UCF, when we began podcasting our messages, attendance went down.
Joel Brooks:And one of the things we heard from students is, well, I could just listen to it in my car. I can have church in my car now. And it really, to them, devalued the need to do as Hebrews says, don't neglect to assemble together. Alright? And so I saw saw that for sure at UCF, as podcasts would rise, that, attendance goes down.
Joel Brooks:And you you hear that at churches all over the place. And we've debated about whether taking podcast off our website or not. And we've kinda weighed the pros and cons, and we're like, well, alright. We're gonna keep it up there, because it is a good way to communicate some information. The problem is, you know, podcasts I think Piper might have even recently written about this.
Joel Brooks:A pie a podcast isn't gonna visit you in the hospital. A podcast isn't gonna come to pray for you when you're in need. Podcast doesn't do those things. And, so people remove themselves from that. They're gonna hurt.
Joel Brooks:So I saw that change for sure. And I guess things exploded a lot more quickly with with social media. You know, certain things will become, hot a lot quicker. I mean, Facebook, instantly, something like a a little bible study, this is a good thing, could explode in growth. You know, where before it was word-of-mouth, when word-of-mouth meant you actually had to go to somebody and talk to them, now word-of-mouth became you just post it, and, like, you get everybody's response.
Joel Brooks:And so, you actually see a greater turnover in college ministries now because so many flare up real quickly then die down. Flare up real quickly, then die down. But that's just the nature of the beast with social media. Things can grow really, really fast until something else also grows as well. 2 of the the others, you know, would be the things I've seen out there in worship, obviously, falling down and the way we relate to one another.
Joel Brooks:And in the year 2007, I helped design and build a student center that many of y'all went to, the UCF house, University Christian gonna be able to spend time with one another. And I remember I went there one time and every chair and couch was filled by the by a fireplace. We actually had, you know, fire going in there. It was wintertime. Every one of them had their earbuds in.
Joel Brooks:Every one of them totally isolated in their own world. And I was like, they might be in the same space, but it's not their community. Their community is elsewhere. And, so that would be a difference that I saw. Good question.
Joel Brooks:Marty. Okay. I'll try to phrase the question so everybody can hear it. For certain social media, you mentioned Twitter. Basically, how can we use that in a productive way if we have addictive tendencies that it's I mean, we can is that pretty much what you're saying?
Joel Brooks:Okay. That's very hard. I I I'll confess something. This happened yesterday. I'm feast or famine.
Joel Brooks:Lauren and all the girls made chocolate chip cookies yesterday. If I didn't see any, fine. I'm not hungry. Okay? At all.
Joel Brooks:If I even see them before me, I might want to eat them, but I can restrain myself. If I have one, I'm having them all. And that's just that is the way I'm wired, and I hate myself after I do it. It's like I can't stop. I just I ate, like, all the cookies.
Joel Brooks:You know, the kids are like, what happened to the cookies? Like, I ate them all. And then I blame others for making the cookies. I'm like, and it's y'all's fault. You know, you're supposed to make cookies and hide them.
Joel Brooks:Right? That's the word. That's right. So so for me, I realize the danger, and I've gotta just quit. I can't have the first one.
Joel Brooks:Some people, I think, need to be react away if, like, let's say Facebook is your addiction. For some, if Facebook is such an addiction and you know it's that, I would suggest going cold turkey. Because it's really hard just to put those parameters and restraints. I think most people can, but if you have a very addictive personality, cold turkey. Problem is a lot of people with work, they're like, this is this is part for work.
Joel Brooks:And I would say you would need to talk to your boss and say, can I lay out parameters for when I have to have a phone, when I have to be doing this, and when I when I don't, and just stick to that? It's hard now because, I mean, people used to say when technology with all the advances in it, that the work day was going to shrink, we were going to become a paperless society, You know, that we were gonna now have the 25 hour work week, and it was all the opposite, because of the curse. Remember, it's harder. It's harder to be productive and life giving. And technology is not gonna save us, but the Lord will.
Joel Brooks:And so, if anything, it's amplified our problems because technology amplifies what's in your heart. Go ahead. What what do you think the addiction to technology is for them? Like, what what types of Santa cause us to Alright. The the question is what is the, the sin or the addiction rooted in that causes us to the need for Facebook?
Joel Brooks:Narcissism. Yeah. Yeah. I think narcissism will be something about it that the world needs to hear my thoughts. And we con ourselves into thinking well, let me phrase it this way.
Joel Brooks:We used to write down in private in a journal what we would later reflect on. Now we post it for public things we will never reflect on. And so it's changed. We instantly get something we think we're going to post it, but we never even think about it. Where before, we used to write it in private, and we revisit it and and and meditate over it.
Joel Brooks:And and so we've that's narcissistic. It really is. That's what Proverbs was talking about, the the need to express your opinion quickly and put it out there. Second, I would say it's really an identity issue in which we value our worth by how many likes we get, how many responses we get, just how many friends we have. And basically, the affirmation of God is not enough.
Joel Brooks:We don't find our worth in him. It's worth in what everybody else thinks is enough. I think that's a that's a huge issue there. When you feel like you have to be hearing from other people and you panic, if you're like, you're not posted that, and not one person liked it. You know?
Joel Brooks:Well, what about you and the father? You know? So I I think those are the 2 things right there. I mean, I've I've I've also noticed, like, wanting to see
Jeffrey Heine:what other people are doing. Like, is is
Joel Brooks:there anything like, Okay. The question is, like, what about, like, always wanting to see what others are doing? And alright. I'm probably gonna use the wrong lingo here because I'm not fluent in this, you know, with Pinterest or or whatever's the other thing. Somebody opened an account for me, that they were saying, I didn't know you opened it.
Joel Brooks:I didn't. I think one of my girls did. Caroline did. Yeah. With your help.
Joel Brooks:Everybody's like, Joel, are you on Pinterest? Or and like blame Nikki. Alright. You did it. I I think some of that is I mean, it's a sin where, you know, women, particular, let me just jump on that, are always comparing themselves.
Joel Brooks:Always. For instance, I was at the J the other day, our Jewish community center, working out, and every woman that went by, the guys weren't checking them out, all the girls were. Every girl who went by, I would see the girls who are on their eyes go up, down, up, down. Look at every girl who walked by. The guys weren't doing it.
Joel Brooks:Girls were checking out other girls because they're comparing themselves. The guys didn't care, you know, but girls, they they they have, they constantly in which, you'll put the perfect photo. You'll put up the perfect kitchen. You're You're gonna put up the perfect everything out there. And what it does is other people are drawn to it, and then they're killed by it because they can never live up to it.
Joel Brooks:And and women are doing that more than men. Men do that some, but women are out there just killing themselves by comparison because everybody's projecting a false image of themselves. Once again, it's hiding. This isn't who they are. And Lauren can testify about this that, you know, one of the odium sanctums when the women come over to her house and they're like, your life is perfect.
Joel Brooks:She goes, go to my laundry room. And they go to our laundry room, and they see it's an absolute total disaster. It's where we're through everything. And all the the women were like, yay, you know. It's like, there's not the standard of perfection.
Joel Brooks:It's like, yes, there's not. We're all fallen. Okay? So there you go. Any other questions?
Jeffrey Heine:Yeah. Say someone kind of finds himself with, like, a short attention span due to, becoming accustomed to that kind of mode of thinking, what would you say as a way would be a good way to cultivate kind of that meditative prayerful thought again?
Joel Brooks:Okay. If you find yourself with a very short attention span, what are ways to start cultivating, more long attention thoughts? There's some things you're just gonna have to cut out because they don't lend themselves to it. And whether it's TV, limiting yourself to TV, screen time, the average American adult spends 9 hours a day in front of a screen. 9 hours a day.
Joel Brooks:Now if I were to just tell you, hey, would you like to spend 9 hours of your day in front of a screen? You'd be like, heck no. But but it happens. 25% of that time is before multiple screens. All right?
Joel Brooks:And so now you're at, you know, 2 and a half to 3 hours basically looking at multiple screens during the day. Alright? That leads to ADD, spiritual ADD, relationship ADD. How do you overcome that? One of the things I would say is first fruits.
Joel Brooks:Let your first fruits of the day be quiet moments before the Lord, because it's the easiest time. And so if that's getting up early, which means going to bed early, and just getting up early and say, these are the first fruits. And let me tell you, it's gonna be hard because I've begun developing ADD as social media progressed. When I was doing college ministry, never had it before, and all of a sudden I started getting to where I noticed it took me longer to get into the word, to where my first 15 minutes of bible study were an absolute waste. I was like, I would get there, I would read the same paragraph over, over, over, over.
Joel Brooks:And if you could have asked me after 10 minutes of reading the same paragraph over, tell me what you read, I would have been like, I have no idea. You know, and I don't know if any of you can relate to that. And what it do does, you just have to take time to say, I'm gonna keep doing this until I can start hearing your voice. And and I'll say something that Lauren and I have done. It's been a source of frustration and fulfillment in our marriage.
Joel Brooks:We we think of our priorities. Alright, in which, you know, Bible study, you know, time of prayer, face to face are our priorities. We've structured our house to reflect those priorities. So if you go into our house, you know, many of y'all have, in our living room, there's not a TV. There's not a computer.
Joel Brooks:What you're gonna find is a bible by by 2 of our chairs. And that's the room we spend most of our time on. And so our house is structured to reflect that. We're not against email. We're not against the Internet.
Joel Brooks:We're not any of those things. But now if we want to use the Internet, we have to go upstairs. We have to go to a study. We have to pull down our computer because we keep it up on a shelf. You know, put it down there and open it.
Joel Brooks:It just takes more to do to get to it. And what that does is it prevents some of the ADD of, like, every time you're walking by, like, oh, I could I just I just need to check this. Oh, I just need to check this. It's no longer that. It's now harder to get to.
Joel Brooks:And so we've tried to structure it to where that happens. And even little things like our upstairs, we try to keep a sanctuary. We leave our cell phones downstairs. We leave our home phone downstairs. So when we go upstairs, it's off.
Joel Brooks:You know? This hasn't worked that well. This is a goal of ours. We do okay. We try to do something called Vespers, and which we put to bed today the day.
Joel Brooks:So after dinner, we can have a final check if we need to of email or whatever. But then we put the day to bed. And so around 7 o'clock after that, we're not allowed to check email, you know, to Facebook. We're not allowed to open up the computer. Lauren broke that last night.
Joel Brooks:I I I remember I was it was 10:30. You know, I'm laying in bed, and I hear Lauren brush her teeth, which means she should be coming right to bed. She brushed her teeth, and it's like, she's not coming to bed. And I knew, and Lauren knew. I walked in the other room, and I hear that little laptop close out.
Joel Brooks:And I said, I'm talking about the technology tomorrow night. No, we laughed about it. But, it's hard for us to do that. We still wrestle with that because we still find our identity in some of those things. But we try to just say we've got to put a limit to that, And then that enables us to unwind and to focus on our children, on each other.
Joel Brooks:And I'll just say as a parent, for you parents out there, your children notice you looking at a screen instead of them. Alright? Your children are watching. And how many times for you those of you who have had kids, have they said, mommy, daddy, would you put put your computer down? Alright?
Joel Brooks:Don't let that happen. You know? And some of that is by keeping your computer in a certain place where it's not in the main area where you guys are gonna be with your kids. Alright. Good.
Joel Brooks:Alright. The question is, you know, how do you communicate to people who expect instant response? And we were actually talking about this before with with some people. Like, some people text me, and they expect instant an instant response. Sorry.
Joel Brooks:It it just it's not gonna happen. I mean, sometimes if if I'm available or whatever, but I'm not throwing law down here. I'm just I'm I'm falling in this. But for me, if I'm ever talking with somebody and my phone rings or if I get a text, I'm not looking at it. Alright?
Joel Brooks:I'm not gonna look at it. Priority's face to face. Alright? And so I'm gonna keep that, because I'm not gonna have give the partial attention. And so I set email typically I check my email in the morning, typically, right before I go home.
Joel Brooks:And sometimes I do it right around lunch. I usually about 3 times, I'm gonna check my email. I don't know the answer to that because people get ticked off at me. And and I've talked to the elders of the church about it. I said, should I put on there a thing that, you know, basically says, Joel, it's not that I'm on vacation, but only responds to his emails in these hours.
Joel Brooks:Puts limits to it. That way you're not the beck and call of everyone. It feels like
Jeffrey Heine:there's so many
Joel Brooks:avenues to feel guilty about, like, hurting people's feelings. Yeah. Yeah. Still being public. I mean, I tell people, you know, in a loving way, I'm not at your beck and call.
Joel Brooks:You know? I'm not. So anybody else? Yeah. Yeah.
Joel Brooks:Yeah. Well, this that should be what points to Jesus. We have no shared interest other than Christ, and we're a community. Alright. That's that's the disciples.
Joel Brooks:You know, and we looked at that at church. When you have a zealot and then you have a tax collector, 2 people hated and wanted to kill one another, They're Jesus' disciples loving one another. That points to community and so or it points to Christ. So our community should reflect that to where they look and, like, they're not together because of any other shared interest. They're they're together because of Jesus.
Joel Brooks:As for I'm trying to think. What was the the rest of your question about how do we foster that? Was that or Yeah. What? You have to foster it intentionally.
Joel Brooks:Community does not happen, especially now. Alright. 1st century Judaism, apart from Jesus, apart from the Holy Spirit, had a community most of us would die for. Alright? Because they just lived right next to it.
Joel Brooks:It's like a college dorm. Alright? Their their their houses are so close to one another. They went to the same stores. They're they're always with one another.
Joel Brooks:Yet somehow in that environment, when Christ came, when they were filled with the spirit, even those peoples now looked at the disciples and like, that's community. It was even so radically different than a community we would look at in envy. So we have to realize, we're so far off the charts in being individualistic and being away from that community, it's hard for us to even relate. So there is a lot of redemption that has to start. And so don't think for a moment you fall into it.
Joel Brooks:Community has to be something you fight for, just to even to get it what it was at Judaism before Christ, and before the Holy Spirit. I mean, you have to fight for those things. And so, you know, one of the ways we're structured is, you know, we have a community group, which is just the touchstone. It's not the community in all and be all, but it's a touch this is gonna be an intentional time that believers gather together. And sometimes it's awkward.
Joel Brooks:Sometimes they're great, but it's gonna be intentional, and we're gonna keep doing it. Anybody else? I'd say it's harder because living in a digital age has made it harder to focus. That's just a reality. You deal with more distractions now than ever.
Joel Brooks:One of the things that ticks me off about a lot of churches is they bring those distractions into the church as well. Another story, though. So, yes, I think it is harder for people now. You know? And it's just how do you just shut it all off?
Joel Brooks:And the only way is to try to get in a regular habit. Just try. Force yourself to get in the habit realizing a lot of your time is gonna be wasted, But just say, well, that's gonna be like a wasted sacrifice before the Lord, and I'm gonna keep doing it and keep doing it. It's like when people say they're struggling with prayer life, I'm struggling praying, and they say what should I do? I'm like, pray.
Joel Brooks:That's what you should do. Just keep praying and keep praying and keep praying. You know? And and then you'll begin to break through. The question is why do I think Jesus came 2000 years ago instead of now when it could have been, shoot, one tweet, everybody in the world?
Joel Brooks:I don't know. I mean, I could just speculate. You know? You you look through Mark, and when he got a huge crowd, he told people, shh, be quiet. Did not want what tended to be the popularity that came with that.
Joel Brooks:Some of y'all might have heard of Malcolm Muggeridge. He worked for the BBC. He was a famous reporter, journalist. He wrote a book called Christ in the Media, which explores a question. He he paints a scenario of the 4th temptation.
Joel Brooks:So the 4th temptation was Lucifer Enterprise paper, came or TV, whatever, broadcast, came and offered Jesus the temptation of broadcasting his message live to the masses, and he he writes just about why Jesus would reject that, and, and stick with the personal face to face. And but all I can do is just speculate. There's no I'm not gonna point to a Bible, a scripture, a verse, or whatever. So I don't know. It's not like people would believe them anymore, you know, now or not.
Joel Brooks:No. Anybody else? Now I wanna talk about angry birds. Anybody? Yeah.
Joel Brooks:Alright. The question was, how can we shepherd children kind of in this digital age? It's a very important question because I said, like, my goal is for my kids to be able to understand Romans, which means they have to understand logic. They have to be able to reason. They have to be able to have long times of concentration.
Joel Brooks:And, sometimes it means that we're the jerk parents, and that we greatly limit TV to them. We're just not gonna bombard them with those images. They have to ask if they're ever gonna use a computer, you know, and we're gonna sit and even limit that time as well. But more importantly than the don'ts, don'ts, don'ts, which can usually come back to bite you, you need to tell them the do's, do's, do's. And for us, it's teaching our kids a love for reading, and which is exhausting as a parent.
Joel Brooks:I mean, I'll just tell you, it is exhausting because you're like, wanna read another book? And you're like, alright. You know, you're just gonna read. You know, little Natalie, she's 6 years old, and she read, what was it, a 111 books this summer. You know, she went through and just you know, with with me, with her for most of those.
Joel Brooks:You know what I mean? It's tiring as a parent. But if you give them a love for reading and the ability to to go through that, that's gonna translate into the Bible. Don't forget, God decided to communicate through a book, not through art, not through a visual. He gave us a book and words.
Joel Brooks:And so you have to have the ability to read and to process and understand. That's what we do. And and try to Gordon, Bowles, who spoke a couple of coffee houses ago, he gave us advice one time about trying to teach our kids about Jesus. He said, remember, you are Jesus to your kids, you know, until, like, the age of what was the age? 10, 11.
Joel Brooks:It's like more than anything, you teach them. It's it's how you relate to them. And so show them they're important, not a screen. And so they're gonna feel that, and that's how they're gonna feel like god relates to them. Good question.
Joel Brooks:Once again, we don't do this perfectly. We are like every family that struggles with this and wants to pull our hair out. You know? Anybody else? Did he say older?
Joel Brooks:Illiterate. An illiterate person can have a if they hear the word. You know, if if they can hear the word of god preached, yes. But they cannot know god apart from the word of god. Cannot.
Joel Brooks:I mean, Paul makes that explicit. It's like, how will they know unless they hear and unless we go and we preach to them? And so whether it's spoken to them or whether it's read. So but they need that, what we would call, special revelation. Anybody else?
Joel Brooks:Angry birds? Anybody? Wanna talk about angry birds? That's what now. Has no redemptive quality whatsoever.
Joel Brooks:Alright. Has no what? Redemptive quality.
Jeffrey Heine:Now I
Joel Brooks:think you should always ask of a technology, what was it made for? You know, what was the problem it was created to fix? And anyway, just kinda think about why why Angry Birds was created or what problems it fixes or I'm not gonna go there. But if you wanna go there, go ahead. Some things are just fun.
Joel Brooks:What? Some things are just fun. No. Some things are just fun. It's great.
Joel Brooks:No. We're talking about this. I mean, as a staff, like, entertainment's not bad. Entertainment's not bad. Entertainment can become an idol.
Joel Brooks:It can become a god. And when you look at Deuteronomy, what we're supposed to do to when we sit down, when we stand up, when we, you know, go to bed, when we're walking, you know, all these things, we're supposed to have the word of god before us. Most people, if they're standing in line, must say getting coffee, and they have to wait for a minute, one minute, they feel the need to entertain themselves. They've gotta get out something and entertain. And I think that tells a lot about us.
Joel Brooks:We are so scared to death to be silent with our own thoughts and with the Lord, and so we have to have something to always occupy us. Why not, if you're gonna have your phone, get some Bible app that at least just pops up a Bible verse? Every time you're in line, you could kinda meditate on this. Just something to where you have the word of God before you.
Jeffrey Heine:Have We're not going back to Yeah.
Joel Brooks:Yeah. Some Yes. Alright. The question is, have we lost some of our ability to communicate even books because we're not going face to face? Yes.
Joel Brooks:Because even Paul writes about that. He says, I write to you these things. He goes, but how I long to be with you face to face and talk about these things in person. Mean, Paul says that. So he's writing scripture, and I wish my just left me where it's at.
Joel Brooks:Is it 1st Corinthians, 2nd Corinthians? Any pastor wanna anybody? I hate it when I quote something and I can't register it in my head. Yeah. Yeah.
Joel Brooks:Check check my dead phone. Anyways, like, I'm writing these things to you, but how I long to communicate these things to you face to face? And actually, like, the letters, when they were written, you know, Paul would dictate a letter, and let's say he would send it with Timothy or Titus or somebody to go read to a church. And so Titus would go and read the letter, and then he would respond to the questions. Alright.
Joel Brooks:You've you've heard this. Do you have any questions about this letter? So, like, he had, with the letter, the power to explain the letter in a face to face context. And so that's, you know, one of the things, hopefully, preaching does as well. Yeah.
Joel Brooks:Y'all. Yeah. It should be translated y'all. Yeah. I would deal so much with college students in college ministry to say, hey.
Joel Brooks:All I need is me and the Holy Spirit. I'd be like, well, that's great. But you know, like, in 1st Corinthians when it says you are a temple of the Holy Spirit, it's y'all are a temple of the Holy Spirit. It's when you collectively gather together, the Spirit of God blows through your mitts. It's not you in your car becoming the temple of the Holy Spirit.
Joel Brooks:One more. Anybody? Alright. Well, I I hope this was helpful to you. Let me reiterate once again.
Joel Brooks:I'm not speaking to you. I'm speaking to us learning through this, especially as a parent struggling to raise kids in this age. As the staff at Redeemer could tell you, struggling to not be the grumpy old man who just wants to throw out all technology, and bury my head in the sand. I I'm trying to be the digital immigrant of asking the right questions while using this, hopefully, redemptively. At least, that's the voice I'm trying to come from.
Joel Brooks:Let me pray for us, and, then we'll go. Our father, we thank you that we get to call you father, that you sent your son who broke his body in order to create this body and, to create this community, that is not based on any shared interest, but is based on his blood. And we give you thanks for that. And we ask for your Holy Spirit, that he would be our guide, and that he would give us wisdom as to how we could deal with this digital age, how we could deal with all the distractions, all the technologies, how we can use them in a redemptive way. We pray this in the name of Jesus.
Joel Brooks:Amen.