I don’t know where I picked up this quote, but I had it sitting in my todo list, and it sparks something inside of my heart. I think first of my kids, but I think it’s also true of most (maybe all) things in my life.
As G. K. Chesterton once wrote, “When you love a thing, its gladness is a reason for loving it, and its sadness a reason for loving it more.”
I recently gave a talk to our men at Mosaic Church on having a Christian worldview of technology in the 21st century. How do we view it? How should we view it? I jotted down some notes here with two primary points: Technology can (and should) be used for good, and the way we use technology can be worship. Here they are.
• One of the primary conversations culturally as well as in the life of Mosaic — based on our recent survey data — is on distraction. We are distracted from everything and self-admittedly not as present as we should be. That reality forms the impetus for this discussion around how to have a better Christian worldview of technology.
• Point No. 1 — Do we primarily view our devices and the platforms we are on as a way to, as Galatians 6:10 says, “do good to everyone”? Or do we primarily view them as ways to consume more for ourselves? If technology is neutral, then what an important tool it is to do good in the world!
• We underrate how powerful technology is and how much good can be leveraged from it. The answer to some of the questions that are being asked about technology in Christian circles is not, “It’s evil, never use it” but rather that we must shift our fundamental understanding of its primary purpose. If the Christian mandate is to love God and love others, then everything we have should be leveraged to those ends, including (especially!) the devices and technology that massive companies say are actually specifically for us to consume.
• Point No. 2 — When it comes to our technology diets (what we consume), we are often consuming too much and also a lot of the wrong stuff. When it comes to food, we have a governor on how much we eat and what we put in our bodies, the same is not always true of technology.
• Romans 8:6 says “To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.” In this instance, setting our minds on the flesh means “to think just the way the unbelieving world thinks, emphasizing what it thinks important, pursuing what it pursues.” Are we doing that when it comes to content consumption on our devices and on social media?
• Good rules of life as it relates to technology …
> Leave your devices in a different room when you sleep.
> Leave your devices in a different room when you read and pray.
> Leave your devices in a different room at dinners and lunches.
> Use a timer on your watch when you get online.
• None of us has enough willpower to stave off the allure of our phones, tablets and computers so we must implement these rules of life to help us obtain a freedom that only our presence can provide.
• The last question is whether we are digital wanderers or whether we have a plan. There are so many ways to worship the Lord through our hobbies and our free time, and certainly recreational media and devices can be a part of that. You can worship through poetry on YouTube or by writing code or through a website that teaches you how to roast coffee at home. These are reflective of a creative God. But how rarely do we view this technology as a means for worship instead of just a means for consumption?
• Technology can primarily be viewed as a way to do good and secondarily viewed as a way to worship — as a way to stir our affections for the Lord, both by not using it too much and by using what we use with great discretion. What we do with our time says everything about what we believe is important, and so often our worship also goes to whatever gets our time. Let’s be wise about how we do that as technology becomes more and more ubiquitous.
I had few (no?) expectations when I picked up this biography of Eugene Peterson. I knew the man vaguely as The Message guy and also as somebody who wrote other books that had entered my world, including one whose title — A Long Obedience in the Same Direction — I have quoted often though I’ve never read the actual book.
So I was joyfully surprised to learn that much of who I want to be as an elder and a writer existed in Peterson. I deeply desire humility and holiness in the same ways Peterson did. I have an immense affection for the way words shape and change our hearts and our souls. I have been compelled toward laboring with a hyperlocal church, no matter whether the hockey stick ever comes.
Three things stick out. The first was Peterson’s love for (both reading and writing) poetry. We think of poetry as a collection of stanzas and limericks, but poetry is just writing that sings. It’s writing that gives you information and nudges you toward a feeling about the information. It is the warm fire in a full house, but it is not the house itself. This is the version of writing I love the very most, and it can happen anywhere with any topic and in any industry.
Some quotes that stood out …
• The storyteller’s responsibility is to remember that we are all prone to forget, and to say it memorably.
• Eugene hungered to hone his craft, to honor the holiness of words with work that was not only true but also beautiful.
• For Eugene, writing was a way of prayer.
• It required the writer to become the person whose writing is true. Become true so you can write true. Writing is an expression of living, not knowing: of praying, not knowing.
I am grateful for men like Eugene Peterson and Andrew Peterson (no relation) who look at the archetype in their profession and say, “Why?” It has encouraged me to color outside the lines a bit, to toy with what could be instead of what should be.
Another piece of what made Peterson who he was remains topical: presence. How rarely do we have it. How rarely do we even try to have it? More quotes from the book about his presence with his people.
• He was fastened in God. You could go wherever you wanted in conversation, but it always came back there. Few people emphasize the Biblical knowledge they gained from Eugene, though there was much of that. People speak of his presence.
• By and large evangelical pastors are not deficient in energy or motivation or knowledge. But they are not conspicuously attentive, reverently listening to the voice/word of God and in being totally and personally present with the people we meet and serve.
• Sometimes I’m with pastors who don’t wander around. They don’t waste time. Their time is too valuable … To be unbusy, you have to be disengaged from egos — both yours and others — and start dealing with souls. Souls cannot be hurried.
• And in Eugene’s company, you’d always find yourself noticing how the most ordinary things shimmered with new and unexpected beauty.
And lastly, his humility. He shunned celebrity culture. He did not leverage anything in his life. He traded a worldly ambition for a holy one. What a characteristic to long for!
• To be a pastor requires immense humility and self-awareness, clinging to mercy like a drowning man grasps for a buoy. The strongest sign of authenticity in what you and I are doing is the inadequacy we feel most of the time.
• If I am ever to be a saint, it is a saint of the basics: love Jan, be faithful at my prayers, write well and abundantly, prepare to die.
• I’d like to actually be what people think I am.
• When asked what he considered to be the characteristics of a saint, he had once said, “Humility number one. Unpretentiousness, having no idea that they’re a saint.”
There were aspects of Peterson that I either do not desire or are simply not the way I am wired. But after embracing this book with no expectations, I walked away with several new ones for my own life as a pastor, a writer and a friend.
This clip is from a longer pastoral prayer on brokenness and what Paul writes about in 2 Corinthians when he writes about a lack of power. Here’s what Paul says: But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
And here’s the portion of the pastoral prayer that I loved the most because of how desperately I need to remember it.
If we can best bring glory to you through weakness, then we say take our strength; if we can best bring glory to you through poverty, then we say take our riches; if we can best bring glory to you through loss, then we say take what we have, take what we love, take what we cling to. We can endure any trial, surmount any suffering, face any sorrow, as long as you do not leave us, as long as you do not forsake us. And you promise you never will. In fact, you promise you will work all things for good and so we ask that in our lives you would do that. Work our weakness for good, work our losses for good, work our brokenness for good, for we love you and have been called according to your purpose.
Challies
I don’t know if this is a bigger nod to the laborious continuity of love or to letter writing. Maybe they are more intertwined than they would appear.
My friend John sent this to me, and it’s one I think I’ll have to keep revisiting. Here are the three temptations Keller speaks on.
This from Peter Leithart on reading books instead of articles or tweets is terrific.
Read books. There are so many distractions and temptations to read headlines and snippets. We need to resist the temptation, because something happens to your mind and heart when you read books that can’t happen any other way. When we read novels, we spend time with characters and situations, keeping intimate company with heroes and villains. We learn to love and hate. When we read complex nonfiction narratives or subtle arguments, our minds are made more supple, as we not only learn data but learn the intricate ways things, events, and people are interconnected.
TGC
There is a LOT going on in this thread, but this might be the most important part.
I don’t know that I agree with all of these ideas, but I’m glad they exist and think there are parts of each one that are invaluable.
I could include three dozen quotes from Andrew Peterson’s Adorning the Dark, but these quotes — which I saved from somewhere, although maybe not from that book — stood out to me and I wanted to fold them up and keep them on the shelf for posterity and for encouragement.
Author Dan Allender once said that he writes his books hoping to find just one good sentence.
-Andrew Peterson
The difficulty with writing is writing. You can’t get around it, so it’s best to just get used to it. Then shoot for the moon. -Peterson
-Andrew Peterson
I wanted to write the kind of book I would have wanted to read when I was ten—but also the kind of book I wanted to read right now.
-Andrew Peterson
The last quote reminds me of C.S. Lewis’ famous quote on children’s stories (which I probably also stole from Peterson).
“A children’s story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children’s story in the slightest.”
