Rough Thoughts on Embracing Online Media in the Church

Media is so important to communication, and it is one area the body of Christ could stand to take better advantage of. Let's start by thinking of three ways you learn something: watching, listening, reading, doing.

Watching is great when you don't know much about a subject. There is tons of information is conveyed per second. Listening, with less visual cues, works well if you're already pretty familiar, but still takes a fair amount of time and attention. I, personally, never really got in to podcasts for this reason.

Reading distills ideas down to their core concepts and is potentially the most dense way to convey information. It requires a certain level of existing ability to understand and abstract concepts that are being built on, but can just as easily introduce someone to brand new ideas. Of course, text is just as easy to scan as it is to pore over, and this is one reason the web is so successful.

Writing has been with us for ages, quite literally. The Bible is text-based. And yet it records an aural tradition of preaching messages and teaching interactively that is quite as old as itself. With the internet's ability to transmit text, audio and video, obviously I'm not the first person to think that the church should get in on this action.

I do think the church can be doing a better job here. For one, we're only really seeing Sunday messages uploaded to YouTube or some church website. The savvy ones have even set up an RSS feed so that you can use iTunes or some other media player to subscribe to their sermons as a video podcast. Okay. That's a start.

But if we're really serious about the message, let's strategically embrace the media available to us. I can think of a couple key advantages of using the internet to distribute.

Publishing media on the web is cheap. Free services like YouTube are becoming near-ubiquitous. All you need is a laptop, video camera, audio interface, a couple mics, some software, a few friends and the skills to make it happen or at least the passion to try.

Speaking of friends, kids are saturated in technology and media know-how and more and more are graduating every year with degrees in Media and Technology. Let's encourage each other to make amateur music videos and little musicals and spy movies in our spare time.

We can keep our messages short, or make it long and in-depth. But going with short and sweet is probably going to be the best for video, with more in-depth concepts being fleshed out in long articles or small books. Although keeping it short does help us to really focus our thinking and squeeze every second for what it's worth. It's important to respect your audience's time.

De-centralize and flatten the church. Chances are there is more than one person out there with more than one good idea. Let's put the amateurs on the air and let the good stuff trickle to the top. Really help people feed each other, sharpen each other, keep each other accountable, deliver God's word to each other. Encourage, strengthen and exhort each other.

Paul write in 1 Corinthians, "What then shall we say, brothers? When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church."

Church is for church. The New Testament church met in each others homes not just to hear the disciples teach (though they did do that), but also to eat, to pray, to worship God and celebrate together. As we encourage and teach each other how to feed ourselves in our everyday lives, let's see more corporate activity at our corporate meetings.

So what's to stop you and your Jesus-geek friends from putting together a fifteen minute mini-sermon once a week? Don't worry about the quality, just get started and improve one bit at a time once you start getting the hang of it.

(Alternate title for this entry: Note to self #183.)

Tumblr

So I'm trying out a tumblelog-format blog at http://nick.zadrozny.com. I've been attracted to the idea since before it was popular, but am only just now deciding to dip my toe into starting my own.

Blogging here has been some motivation for that, now that I see I'm capable of writing. Furthermore that I am tending to prefer that short and pithy style that tumblelogs emphasize. We'll see how well my little commentary posts fare in that format. If I like it, I may move things over there entirely.

Lamentations 3:22-23: Accept compassion

Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

Lamentations 3:22-23

Some days you read a verse like this and just have to say, "Thank you."

I'm in Seattle right now, and have been for about two weeks. I've been very excited about this trip, because it's been a fantastic opportunity to get out of my comfort zone and into that moment-by-moment lifestyle of dependency. God has been showing me rather a lot lately, and it's really exciting, but that doesn't mean that the junk of my own nature and the world around me don't get on me still.

I was in need of God's great love and compassion just this morning, and, well, he provides. I say that without an exclamation point: this is not exclaiming, this is peace and quiet acceptance. God is not interested in our faking exuberance, so don't feel bad if it's not what you feel. God is interested in our putting one step in front of the next, guided by his word and glorifying to him.

Sometimes we need to just accept his truth: do not be consumed with false guilt and self-condemnation! God is compassionate, loves you greatly, and does not desire you to be consumed. Every single day is a brand new day in Him. The slate is wiped totally clean by the blood of Jesus Christ! We—Christian and non-Christian alike—just need to learn to accept that and live it.

Isaiah 41:10: Do not fear

I took you from the ends of the earth,
from its farthest corners I called you.
I said, 'You are my servant';
I have chosen you and have not rejected you.

So do not fear, for I am with you;
do not be dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you;
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Isaiah 41:9-10

So what am I afraid of? What am I apprehensive of? Why do I rush, or why do I hesitate? This is God, the Lord of Heavenly Armies, the most powerful, glorious and righteous person in all creation. He pursued me, chose me, and wants to strengthen and help me. He is pursuing you, wants to help you and strengthen you.

This is not a point to analyze and over-think. This is one to meditate on and let sink in.

Titus 3:5: Because of his mercy

He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.

Titus 3:5

My common theme is that it is good and necessary to glorify God through obedience, to worship him with our very lives, to live constantly in his presence. But it's important to remember one thing: all that is impossible until we can ask for and receive his unconditional love and mercy.

Sometimes it's not as easy as one might think to simply receive unconditional love. I've found myself struggling with just that the last few days. I often try to tweak and optimize my life into righteousness—worthiness—usually more to frustration than success. Often the result of my own efforts is failure, which only serves to drive me deeper into self-condemnation and away from God himself. Paradoxically, it is only when I stop tying to earn God's grace and instead just ask for and receive it with no strings attached am I capable of responding with a lifestyle of worship.

Obedience is not the price of love. Love and thankfulness is the fuel for obedience. We love God because he first loved us and died for us while we were yet sinners. Everything else follows pretty naturally from that.

Romans 6:23: Life, the gift of God

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 6:23

Pretty clear, isn't it? And yet I've heard people—Christians!—rationalize that statement to shreds, believe it or not.

The really interesting point here is that the eternal life here is not something that begins only when our earthly life ends. It's an eternal life that begins now. And likewise, that death is not just some kind of eternal separation from God that begins after our life on earth. It's a separation that exists now.

So don't be so quick to rationalize sinful and selfish behavior! The wages of sin is death, separation from God, now. Note this also: life is not the wages of righteousness. Thank God for that. Life is God's gift, found in Christ Jesus, received in humility. It starts now and prompts us to live a life of thankfulness and praise.

Let's not advocate legalism, and let's not be misled by cheap grace. Let's stop sinning, and let's receive God's gift of life. Easy, but not trivial.

Isaiah 53:7: Yet he did not open his mouth

He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before her shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.

Isaiah 53:7

How often do you open your mouth when you are oppressed and afflicted? How often do you defend yourself?

I was reading The Kite Runner today and the main character spent some time contemplating the eyes of a lamb about to be slaughtered. It isn't afraid, it isn't resentful. It is calm and accepting. What an odd feeling to possess when you have a knife at your throat. 'It's almost as if the lamb has a sense of the higher purpose,' or somesuch, he wrote.

"God and the devil have one thing in common: they're both trying to kill you." But God has a higher order in mind: infusing the likeness of his Son into you. Preparing you for the inheritance that He has for you.

A challenge today: be silent in your afflictions. Don't complain. Don't defend yourself. Don't run from God, because he's the one with your best intentions in mind.

(This is the rough draft, but I wanted to post something. I'll edit it when I have time.)

John 15:7

If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you.

John 15:7

I'm not even going to pretend to understand this one much less explain it. I know that part of the point here is that remaining in Jesus and allowing (enabling?) his words to remain in me mean my wishes naturally line up with His will. I've seen it, I think I've lived it, and I certainly ask for a lot of things. But, really, I'm still working on the first part there. I want to remain in Him constantly and have His words remain in me constantly. I want to be so identified with God that whatever I wish is whatever He wishes.

Joshua 1:8: Constant Devotion

Do not let this book of the law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you may be prosperous and successful.

Joshua 1:8

Meditate on the word constantly. Write God's commands on your heart. Pray without ceasing. Practice living in God's presence. Love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. It's a theme of so many commands and encouraging testimonies: stay completely and constantly focused on God.

And this is not a burden! It's the very promise of success, prosperousness and joy in the life of a Christian. It is the foundation to the experience of an intimate relationship with a God who is present in every little detail. God is real, and he is not not some distant, abstract (fake!) concept. Furthermore he is kind and good and that lifestyle of constant conversation with him, constant meditation on his law, is what gives him a chance to express that to you.

I was reading Richard Foster's classic Celebration of Discipline last night, and he made a particularly good point about the lifestyle of constant focus on God as it relates to corporate worship. "Worship" being more than just a formal expression of devotion and adoration, being the freedom of your spirit to intermingle with God's Spirit, and corporate worship being this plus the union and intermingling of individuals in God's presence.

Living in God's presence, experiencing him move in your everyday circumstances, is an important part of building a holy expectation for corporate worship. When you see God involved in your daily life, of course he'll show up for a gathering of his family! When your best effort at careful and complete obedience reveals God's grace and strength in your weakness, you grow in your understanding of his goodness and desire to express praise. And when you come into corporate worship with a heart stoked and ready, it absolutely serves to add to the fire and bless everyone present!

Of course, we're talking about uncompromisingly life-long and all-encompassing habits here, sometimes it can be difficult to get started. The best anyone can say is just keep at it, because it's worth it!