Godly Marriage, Pt. 4: What Does a Christian Family Look Like?

Back to Ephesians 5…

Over the next few verses the smallest words become the most important. Paul admonishes women to submit to their husbands “as to” the Lord. The husband is the “head…as also Christ is head” of the church. “As” the church follows Christ, “so” wives follow their husbands. Husbands should love their wives “just as” Christ does the church. All of these small words qualify the relationship – husbands are to represent the love of Christ for the church. To the extent that they do this, women are encouraged to follow. When Paul says that the husband is “head” of the wife, the actual word means to lead by example. This is what headship actually means. When the example of husbandry reflects to the love of Christ for believers, wives are certainly willing to follow one who leads by example.

It’s important to note that Paul was not describing the marriages he saw at Ephesus. He was describing what Christian marriage should look like as men and women grow into spiritual maturity. Of course, the vision that Paul puts forward takes time to develop. I know that it did for us (and still is). Particularly, it took one spouse’s willingness to overhaul their own approach to marriage before the other caught up. That idea scares spouses – what if I make myself vulnerable and they take advantage of it? At first, you can be sure that they will.  But if “the goodness of God leads to repentance” in a person’s life, that same model will transform a marriage. God’s risk can also be yours.

In the end, Christian marriage should look like this: two people madly in love with God to the point that it affects how they treat each other. Made in the image of God, these two believers honor each other in the ebb and flow of life. Rather than squaring off against one another and digging in for a fight, they lay their own opinions aside. Then they do one of two things: 1) they defer to the other or 2) they pray for God’s guidance as their answer. Either way they are not individuals but a team working towards a common goal. The two have become one flesh…

The key to all of this is “as to…so.” In a Christian’s life, the depth of relationship they have with the Father spills over into their relationship with their spouse. Rather than the Western notion of priorities in order, see God as the center of a wheel with marriage as one of many “spokes” originating from it. Or as water spilling over a bathtub. Depth with God creates depth everywhere else.

Godly Marriage, Pt. 3: What Does a Christian Family Look Like?

Okay, on to the famous marriage passage in Ephesians 5:18-33 (NLT):

“Don’t be drunk with wine, because that will ruin your life. Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, and making music to the Lord in your hearts…And further, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ…For wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of his body, the church. As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything.

“For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word.…In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies. For a man who loves his wife actually shows love for himself. No one hates his own body but feeds and cares for it, just as Christ cares for the church. And we are members of his body.

 ”As the Scriptures say, ‘A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.’ This is a great mystery, but it is an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one. So again I say, each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.”

 There’s a lot in here to digest but let’s just pull some of the most overlooked parts out for a minute. Most pastors start with verse 22 – the part about wives submitting to husbands, passing over the preceding verses that qualify it. The whole passage starts where Paul talks about being filled with the Spirit.  What does he mean? He gives us an example – drunkenness, actually. When someone is inebriated, they have assigned their will over to a chemical that makes their decisions for them.  We call this impaired judgment – others call it being smashed.  In the same way, being filled with the Spirit is to allow the Spirit to affect your decisions and life strategies.  Make sense? We are to be “filled with the Spirit” to the point where it affects our judgment. Though I’ve never studied it out, I’ve heard that the grammar in the original here has a fluid, loose feel to it almost as if Paul was writing in a drunken way to convey his point. You Greek scholars out there can let us history people know if that’s accurate or not.

Next, before Paul says anything about wives submitting, he states in verse 21 that we are to submit to “one another in the fear of the Lord” (NKJV). Here we have mutual voluntary submission - a state of equality and interdependence under the Lord (similar to the concept of the social Trinity I might add…). Paul doesn’t say anything about the husband being higher up on the ladder of spiritual maturity than the wife. They receive equal investment under God.  After addressing this mutual submission under God, only then does Paul delve into the specifics of marriage.

I’ll finish up next post…

Godly Marriage, Pt. 2: Submission vs. Coercion

Truthfully, God calls us to submit to him and to one another, to the extent that we trust God and others are acting in our best interests. Submission merely means to voluntarily become vulnerable to the actions of another. However, in the context of relationships, God never says to follow someone who has not earned that submission. My wife is happy to follow my lead as long as she knows my intentions are for her betterment and not at her or our children’s expense. I expect her to submit (voluntarily open herself up) to me only to the extent that I am submitted to God. Furthermore, she doesn’t have to do what I say unless she believes I am fully informed of her and our children’s wishes AND actively involved in their lives. Husbands who do not fall into those categories should never ask for their family’s submission.

I want to concentrate on that famous submission passage in Ephesians 5, but a summary verse for a husband’s role in marriage is found in Galatians 5:13. “…do not use liberty as an opporunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.” Listen up fellas – women have an internal barometer that tells them where your affections lie. Their intuition tells them whether your heart values their input or not. If they feel that you are using the headship of your home as an “opportunity for the flesh” – to meet your own short range, inconsiderate goals – they will resist your leadership every time. 

Men who “through love serve” their families never have to ask for submission from them. His family immediately supports his decision because they trust his intentions are true. A husband who has his family’s trust rarely asks anything from that trust unless its absolutely necessary. On those rare occasions, they submit – voluntarily opening themselves up to your decisions – trusting that you will prize their volition. The husband that follows God will honor that trust, never capitalizing on it. Taking their cues from Dad, the other members of the family serve each other in love as well…and the cycle for healthy family submission starts over again.

 Next post, Ephesians 5:18-33…

New Church Website Back Online

It’s been a long time coming, but First Methodist’s website is back online: www.tfumc.com. I think you’ll like the new look.

On a personal note, I start a new Sunday school class this Sunday that focuses on the “tough” questions in Christianity – things like seeming contradictions in the Bible, the role of the supernatural and miracles in modern society. cultural clues to the gospels, and all those fun “why” questions like “Why does God let bad things happen.” Stuff like that. It’s should be fun and a good way for me to scratch my teaching “itch” since I only get in the pulpit every couple of months.

I stole my name from Robert’s blog: “Inquiring Minds.” Robert, hopefully you think imitation is the best form of flattery…

Godly Marriage, Pt. 1: Submission vs. Coercion

My wife and I have been married for about nine years. The first two years were hell on earth. Here’s why: we are both “type A” personalities. When we got married, as strong Christians, we assumed that God would automatically adjust our personalities to mesh in a glorious fashion.  That’s didn’t happen – I was offering her a divorce by the end of the first year!

Slowly over time, we developed an understanding of what godly marriage might look like. Surprisingly it looked nothing like what we saw in the church. The majority of spousal teaching we had acquired over the years taught the exact opposite of what we found to be true for us.  I want to share some of that here and in the next three posts as well.

The biggest problem surrounding Christian marriage teaching is the understanding of the word “submission.” I know…it conjures up images of wives waiting on husbands hand and foot, just happy to be alive serving their spouse and children in the name of the Lord.  I actually saw a blog on here a few months back written by a female that attempted to talk women into exactly that…like if you say it over and over to yourself it sounds better or something.  If wives would just submit to their husbands even when they don’t want to, they would find enjoyment and fulfillment in the act. For the record, that concept makes most women want to puke – and for good reason.  Submission, as it is generally understood in church circles, has ruined the true definition of biblical submission. Mostly because it was made up by men and taught by men to get what men have wanted: their wives to do their bidding.

Rather, what the church has taught is “coercion” or “compliance” the act of making another person do your will even when they don’t want to. I have actually been personally told, “you can’t submit until you disagree.” The problem with Christian men who teach such phrases is that they have no intention of listening to what you have to say in the first place. Most people assume that God requires submission in the same way – a subtle form of coercion. Like a boss at work, he makes decisions that you are expected to comply with even when they rob your emotional and physical vitality for some unknown purpose.  Usually such admonishments to submit by Christians are shrouded in mysterious phrases like, “it’s for your own good,” “you’ll see the benefits in the future” or “all things work together for good…” Who’s good are we talking about here?

We’ll discuss the alternative next post.

All Grace Is “Greasy Grace”

I just finished a really unsettling book: “Between Noon and Three” by Episcopal Priest Robert Farrar Capon. The book explored the notion of God’s grace using two “parables”: an affair between a professor and an older student and a murder by the mob. Yeah, I know – crazy. But it works. Capon is a wonderful writer with a great sense of humor. His book reminded me of something I realized several years back.

After I went to a weekend spiritual retreat called Tres Dias (similar to Walk to Emmaus or Cursillo), I was talking to Beth on the way home. “Grace is so dangerous,” I said. “What do you mean?” she asked. “Well, grace is given freely without strings attached. Ever. I’ve never been able to preach that simply for the reason that people may take advantage of the grace of God. The minister in me screams not to tell the congregation, simply because all leverage for moral conformity will be lost. They are free to abuse grace based on God’s design alone.” Beth said, “I don’t know what I think about that.”  “I don’t know either. But if I’m gonna teach the reality of God’s grace, I’m gonna have to come to terms with the fact that in God’s understanding, all grace is greasy grace, no matter what stipulations others may attach to it.” My supportive and loving wife told me to be careful as to the practical outworkings of such a notion, and that was the end of that.

But the truth is grace is dangerous. And there is only one type of grace: greasy. Now, you may have never heard of “greasy grace” but it’s a staple sermon illustration in the South. Greasy grace is the term to describe those people that take the grace of God and then live like the devil. People who cry out to God in distress but ignore him in times of comfort. In other words, greasy grace occurs when someone abuses the liberty that God gives us as Christians. I’m sure you can think of a hundred examples of what that may look like.

But here’s the reality of the free grace of God. For grace to truly be grace, permissive license and abuse must be an option. Otherwise it’s merely a suspension of moral law. The consequences are lifted, but only for a time – then the other shoe drops and we pay for our misdeeds. And that’s when some helpful person inevitably says, “Be sure your sins will find you out!” But let’s face it: it’s not grace until someone really gets away with it. Moralists hate that idea – it robs them of all control. Honestly though, people get away with things all the time. And the other shoe rarely drops. Instant Karma doesn’t getcha. We get away with all manner of sin, evil, and inconsiderate behavior.

I think we often mix up grace and moral law. Though we’d like for one to point to the other, they don’t. Apples and oranges, people. See, moral law points to grace, but it can never save us. Yet, we think yelling, ranting, and preaching moral instruction will save us. Educate, educate, educate! But in the end, moral law merely points out why we need Jesus…but it doesn’t bring us to him. Grace does. Grace, not moral law, saves us.

Capon uses this illustration in his book. Grace is like the fire department. Now the building inspector (moral law) may cite you twenty times for breaking the fire code. But when your house goes up in flames, the fire department still responds every time, whether you’ve been warned or not. A fireman never walks up to a burning house and begins to read the violations to the owner. Reminding, educating, cajoling, shaming, and guilting doesn’t stop the flames. Nope, the fireman runs past the owner and puts out the fire. Rescue (not education) is his business.

The bystanders watching the burning house could easily see the rescue as permission for the owner’s unwillingness to “follow the rules.” And the homeowner could certainly take the rescue as permission to violate the fire code again. The only person who doesn’t see it that way is the fireman that put out the flames. And that’s how God is. People may take permission but the rescuer never gives it. That doesn’t stop them from abusing grace…but neither does it stop God from giving it. The risk is inherent to the gift. Though law and grace can work together, grace is always the bigger of the two. Not because we’re worth the effort but because of the matchless generosity of the Father.

Pentecostalism: A Postmodern Dream

Following up my controversial post the other day: “Are Christians and Occultists the Same?”, I want to write a little about where I think Pentecostalism fits into our present theological scene. That will require some brief background.

We live in a postmodern world. Oversimplified, we live in a time where the structured safety nets that once held our views of philosophy, religion, science, morality, etc. together have mostly evaporated in Western culture. Some blame the cynicism of world wars, some blame the introduction of eastern religions through Lyndon Johnson’s Immigration Act of 1965, some blame loss of collective national identity, while other point to the deconstructionists. I suppose any of those reasons will do. But what interests me as a pastor is where our present spiritual landscape is taking us.

Something pretty interesting happened a while back in Christian culture. Theology began to shift toward a postmodern view as well. On the backs of philosophers like Alasdair MacIntyre and theologians like Bernard Ramm, postmodern faith began to take hold. I suppose that found its proper outworking in Frei and Lindbeck’s Postliberalism and its popularized (and shallow) knock-off, the emerging tradition, but describing it to you may be simpler. See, in evangelical circles, Christianity for many years was anchored on “propositions”: particular beliefs that guided the interpretation of scripture and formed the bedrock of the faith. Tried and true, these “fundamentals of the faith” guided evangelical theology for years. But slowly, with the encroachment of postmodern thought, those propositions began to be questioned. What meant one thing to one person may mean something totally different to someone else. So how can anyone really determine the true propositions of religion? This sent conservative Christians sounding the alarm, screaming big words like “antifoundationalism” (huh?) and the like. Postmodern thought had taken the Bible off its foundations plunging Christianity into relativism. Spirituality became a free-market with hundreds of choices – it became popular to be “spiritual but not religious.” In postmodern society, doctrine is not important compared to experience and personal belief.

Though conservative evangelicals have been wringing their hands over this scenario for years, trying to protect the “propositions” that were once so easily believed, I think there’s a better alternative. And one that isn’t mentioned very often. See, the rest of the global world went postmodern a long time ago. Some nations never even went “modern” so they could later become “postmodern.” And whether we believe that experience should be valued over dogma or not, there are some statistics that tell us something really important. There are 500 million Pentecostals worldwide – bigger than all other Protestant groupings combined. Only Catholicism is bigger. The rest of the world (while we chose scientific naturalism) went with experience over doctrine. And though we’ve always considered ourselves ahead of the curve,  we are now ”deconstructing” towards what the rest of the planet already knew: experience is (and always will be) the linchpin of faith. On a global scale, to be Pentecostal is to be Protestant. Experience-oriented Christianity is now the majority tradition. You don’t have to like it…but you better deal with it.

That means no one is really interested in hearing someone explain the case for “reasonable faith” or force a set of beliefs upon them. That approach to Christiantiy is now the minority. But people will happily adopt any set of beliefs if experience accompanies that belief system. Get it? So, for a minister interested in reaching people in this present spiritual climate, spiritual gifts are God’s way of making Christianity relevant from an experiential perspective, which is the majority view. Spiritual experience (through the charismata and other spiritual phenomena) was meant to be the anchor to the Christian faith in our pluralistic society. The last time a religious climate rivaled our present one? In the first century of the church. 

Sound doctrine is nurtured upon the foundation of experience, not the other way around. Now, that idea may anger you. That’s okay. Don’t run away from the idea…investigate it. You may find you end up agreeing with me. If you’re not into the whole “charismatic” thing, talk to someone about it…heck, you can talk to me if you want. God created us to experience our faith. That experience can make us relevant to the very people around us.

Are Christians and Occultists the Same?

I’m gonna delve into something radical here. As always, I welcome a chance to dialogue about this. Ready to think outside the box? Let me post a few quotes first and then I’ll explain…

Example one: 

Catholic mystic St. Teresa (1515-1582) basically describes the spiritual gift of words of knowledge that she often received in prayer as “…very distinctly formed, but by the bodily ear they are not heard. They are, however, much more clearly understood than if they were heard by the ear.”

Crossreference Jane Roberts, a classic New Age trance channeler, who described a similar experience in 1963: “…a fantastic avalanche of radical, new ideas burst into my head with tremendous force…I felt as if knowledge was being implanted in the very cells of my body so that I couldn’t forget it – a gut knowing, a biological spirituality. It was feeling and knowing, rather than intellectual knowledge.”

Example two: 

Gottfried Arnold (1666-1714) described a life of union with God where believers became a participant in the nature of God.  Along with ecstatic experiences including spiritual gifts, “He who has reached this high grade of love …will be overcome and almost drunken, indeed, swallowed up” in the presence of God. 

Spiritualist James Martin Peebles wrote revivalist Dwight Moody in a letter concerning the similarities between Spiritualism and Moody’s proto-Pentecostal beliefs in experience: “Yes, my brother, with you I want to see a revival of religion, a return to Pentecostal times, a return to that Christianity which gladdened and glorified the first three centuries after Christ.” Peebles glibly suggested a joint revival circuit with Pentecostals and Spiritualist mediums displaying the power of God together: “…what a power, what a mighty power, under the good providence of God, we should be evangelizing the world.”  To Peebles, the Pentecostal experience merely confirmed his own views.

Example three: 

A Methodist parishioner, after participating in a Mesmeric trance, was described by an observer: “…she appeared to be in a state of ecstatic joy, when she grasped [the Mesmerist's] hand and said: ‘O, Brother Sunderland, this is the happiest state I was ever in. It is heaven…Yes, Brother Sunderland, and this is the same heaven – the same as when my soul was converted and filled with the love of God.’” The Mesmerist was also a Methodist minister.

Theologian Harvey Cox recounts attending a Pentecostal service in Boston.  After an inspiring time of worship, singing and dancing, the minister praised the presence of the Holy Spirit with these words: “Yes, this is the way it ought to be. Yes.  This is the way it’s going to be in heaven.  Yes, and we don’t have to wait for heaven because here at Holy Tabernacle tonight this is the way it is now.” 

 Okay, I’m sure you can see the similarities here. I pulled just a few quotes from hundreds to give an idea of just how similar experiences felt in Christian and alternative religious groups are. Now don’t freak out; just listen. Christians have always had a tendency to reject all such occult experiences as counterfeit and demonic. Modern occultists although valuing the role of experience, usually assign it to the fringes of the unconscious mind. But what if our spiritual history, full of countless examples of people chasing experience, were saying the same thing?

Pentecostalism and Roman Catholicism are the largest Christian groups in the world. Why do you think that is? Pentecostalism is 500 million strong – bigger than all other denominations combined. I think it’s because of their willingness to value experience and the supernatural. Similarly, why do you think Wicca and the New Age movement are gaining ground? Same reason – they value personal experience and the supernatural.

I am a Pentecostal (don’t laugh – you’re the minority, not me) and proud that my Christian heritage includes the quotes of the Christians above. You may have Martin Luther, but we have Tertullian, Symeon the New Theologian, Bernard of Clairvaux (and a host of other mystics), Jacob Boehme, Valentin Weigel, the Pietists, and Horace Bushnell. But I also deeply sympathize with the quotes of occultists above who were disillusioned by the Christianity of their youth and went elsewhere to find spiritual experience. As a Christian, though I feel occultists are misdirected, I also believe their innate desire to seek out spiritual experience is dead on. That’s why they supplemented their formal religion with, say, Spiritualism. They are looking for the level of spiritual vitality that has made Pentecostalism the largest Protestant grouping in the entire world.

There’s a trend in Christian ecumenical circles nowadays: embrace Pentecostalism but relegate spiritual gifts to soteriological functions. Unfortunately, the trend is catching on since people like contemporary music but think spiritual gifts are freaky. Listen up ecumenists – you are destroying the single most important bridge to evangelize other religious groups. Pentecostalism has spread because of its power, not its ritual. You should be bending over backwards to accommodate individual experience in the church, not dismissing it as self-indulgent or immature. Individual experience is what anchors people to the faith. If you remove it from Christianity, you create an environment for people to go searching elsewhere for what you have minimized for the sake of achieving doctrinal consensus.

So what are occultists and others looking for? The same thing Christians are looking for. I think they are looking for the power of the Holy Spirit. In this way, Christians and occultists are the same. All of us are internally “wired” to seek after an experience (praxis) that accompanies our faith (dogma). To deny that experiential element is to reject part of what makes religion effective – a point of spiritual connection that bridges a pathway towards relationship with God.

Sermon Snipets: Debt Free – Putting First Things First, Part 2

A few years ago, I discovered a different way to walk out my Christianity. And it changed my life dramatically. Though we’ve been taught in our culture to see things as a list of priorities in a linear fashion, ordered 1, 2, 3, the Bible teaches something totally different. The Bible doesn’t teach us to place Jesus at the “top” of the list, it teaches us to place him at the “center” of everything. Think of it this way: God is at the center of life and all other aspects: family, church, job, finances, relationships, etc. are like the spokes of a wheel. They all stem from the same source: your relationship with Jesus. And the deeper your walk with the Lord, the more he begins to influence each “spoke”. Jesus came so that he could saturate every area of your life. And that happens simply as you draw near to him. See, it’s a change of mindset – a much more organic or natural way to live the Christian life. That’s what Jesus describes in John 15: “I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain (abide/dwell within) in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit.”

 Okay, how about this illustration? For a moment I want you to pretend you are a bathtub – what type of bathtub is totally up to you. You’re welcome to take creative license in that regard. Okay, what happens if you turn on the water on and leave it on? Eventually what happens to the water? It overflows. The Christian life is the same way. The Holy Spirit affects areas of our lives as he “spills” over into our marriages, family, jobs, friends, etc. The problem most of the time is that we don’t allow God’s presence to fill us up and overflow into our lives. It’s what Paul described in Galatians where he says we should be “filled” with the Spirit. We feel crushed under the weight of our schedules, commitments, and obligations when we refuse to be led by God’s Spirit in the little things. To be filled with the Spirit means to allow God permanent influence over all our decisions, even the ones we think we don’t need any help with. It means to make him the boss.

 If Jesus is placed at the center of life, then we will place first things first. That doesn’t mean placing one thing above another. Or even choosing one thing at the expense of another. It means placing Jesus at the center of all our life decisions – so much so that our reliance on him impacts how we live our life. That brings a level of clarity and contentment that isn’t consumed with deadlines, expectations and time constraints. Christians weren’t meant to live from the top-down. They were meant to live from the inside-out. It’s a purposeful life where Jesus is given the opportunity to live life through us as we remain in him and he remains in us.

As we close, let’s look back at our text for this morning, specifically verse 33. “Seek first God’s Kingdom and his righteousness and all these things shall be yours as well.” Now that we understand what it means to seek the Kingdom of God above all else, let’s focus on the second part. I love the Greek language behind the English text here. Some translations say “all these things will be added to you.” What things? Well, I think Jesus is talking about peace in the areas of life that keep us so stressed-out: material needs, family commitments, the tyranny of the workplace. But what’s so nice about the Greek is the word picture it gives us. The passage could easily read “all the things you’ll ever need will effortlessly float to your side, waiting for the opportunity to serve you.”

I think that’s what every Christian desires as they struggle to pay their “debts” to society. Jesus did say that God would provide for us. Why should we doubt him? But for all of us, it begins the same way: “Seek the Kingdom of God above all else.” In other words, as you place God at the center of your life, giving him access to every part, he will heal those areas that suffer under the weight of life’s constant struggle for peace. Living “debt free” begins when we make the decision to be led by God’s Spirit in everything we do. For as the Apostle Paul said, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”

Sermon Snipets: Debt Free – Putting First Things First, Part 1

Preached January 4, 2009.

Today we are beginning a sermon series that “hits us where we live” in a lot of different ways. We’re going to talk about being “Debt Free.” Now, when I say that phrase, most people think of financial issues. But we incur “debt” in other ways, not just financial – we’re also going to talk about debt in relationships, the debt of sin, as well as finances.  So, as our first installment, this morning we’re going to talk about how to relieve our “debt to society” by putting first things first.

 ”Debt to society.” Strange phrase isn’t it? But it most accurately describes much of our lifestyle today. We make promises and commit to projects that ultimately rob us of our time with God and time with family. We become a slave to calendars, and deadlines, and the tyranny of the urgent. We are always paying the “debt” of time to our commitments, spending our time being busy but rarely being fruitful. There’s a big difference, you know. And being able to tell the difference between fruitfulness and busyness determines whether we live a peaceful or hectic life.

 There’s a humanities professor named Stephen Bertman who published an important book about ten years ago. It’s called Hyperculture: The Cost of Human Speed. Bertman believes that our fast-paced lifestyle is ultimately the cause of much of our stress and illness – it affects our bodies, our relationships, or emotions, and the like. Bertman says we are all “hard wired” to live a slower lifestyle…and our current pace causes more problems that it solves. Not sure if you suffer from “hyperculture?” Try these phrases on for size: “I’m totally lost without my calendar. If I get more productive, I’m gonna scream! Sometimes it seems like there just aren’t enough hours in the day. My life is on fast forward. I don’t spend enough time with family and friends. I don’t feel like I accomplished anything today.” Listen to some of the symptoms of “hyperculture” Bertman describes.

 The technology explosion has changed our lives – over 25 million televisions are purchased a year – so many in fact that in America today, more people have television sets than indoor plumbing. With the rise of the internet and rapid access to information, Psychologists have noticed a trend they have dubbed “information anxiety” – a scenario where our mind literally cannot handle the deluge of information to which we expose it. In the process, the assimilation of knowledge among school age children is becoming thin and is producing an ever widening gap between what we think we know because we “googled it” and what we really know. We are becoming a mile wide and an inch deep. But an even more disturbing trend is occurring as well. Psychologists are beginning to see the emergence of a new type of personality among younger generations called the “saturated self,” where all stimuli are completely self-generated. In other words, a “self-saturated” person does not respond to anyone or anything outside of the world they create. They may be online, but they are personally isolated, remote, and detached. They alone create their own entertainment and they induce their own level of stress. What’s more, our stress levels are beginning to affect the national heart rate average. And it’s affecting our bodies as well. Recent studies estimate and average of 200 billion dollars is lost annually due to stress-related accidents, illnesses, and absenteeism. Over-stimulation and too many choices are making our nation physically sick. Houston, we have a problem! And a growing one at that. We’re so busy managing our time that we’ve forgotten to enjoy the time we’ve been given. The urgent has gotten in the way of the important. And church can be one of the greatest culprits in this struggle.

I remember the first time I really encountered this type of stress. Beth and I had been married for about two years. I worked for Flowers at the time and Beth worked for a health insurance company in Tallahassee. We were both actively involved in church…to the point where it took up most of our nights with meetings. We had also taken on several service projects and agreed to be the FCA leaders at Brookwood school. Though all were considered worthwhile Christian activities, we were totally covered in “busyness.” And something began to happen: whereas once we had a stable, though young, marriage, we became distanced and argumentative. We stopped connecting with each other because our “debts” to society took away our time to connect to each other. And that’s always the case: time spent doing one thing is time spent not doing something else. Robbing Peter to pay Paul, so to speak. So, Beth and I started saying no…to everything. We finished our commitments and declined offers left and right until we had most of our weeknights back. And things got better. But it’s still difficult for us to “just say no.”

 Out text for today, Matthew 6:33, is the first scripture I ever memorized: “Seek first God’s Kingdom and his righteousness and all these things shall be yours as well.” It’s one of the most important scriptures you can apply to your life. Now, most preachers I’ve heard over the years apply that scripture in the following way. They give you a list of priorities and the list usually goes something like this: 1) God 2) spouse 3) children 4) church 5) job – or something to that effect. And then they’ll tell you that what you spend your time on determines what your priorities really are. And that’s when everyone goes home feeling guilty for golfing or shopping or working long hours and promises to change for the better. They vow to spend more time with their children or their spouse. Or they vow to spend more time in daily devotions with God. But, to me, that’s as stressful a way of living as any. Those expectations are just as demanding. There’s got to be more than just learning to guard your time and say no to unnecessary commitments. And there is. Let me explain.

Part 2 tomorrow…