Sam Duregger wrote an article in Collide at the beginning of the year on the benefits of unplugging. He opined:

“Inventors are always getting dirty, stubbing their toes, and cutting their fingers on projects for tomorrow. In a real sense, our world has been shaped by hours of toil and the cumulative blood, sweat, and tears of innovators. In my opinion, social media has contributed to the deception that we all can be innovators and leaders, experts and specialists. I think this false sense of ingenuity has led many to adopt a lifestyle that distracts from where God is calling them to employ their gifts and talents.

“At some point we must slow down, take a moment, and listen.”

Read “Unplug” at Collide Magazine.

I definitely resonate with this article. This past week, I’ve been reading David Brainerd’s diary, as edited by Jonathan Edwards. Brainerd frequently bemoaned the lack of “retirement” (meaning seclusion, or removal from society) when he spent time with friends, and spoke affectionately of the time he spent by himself, as being of great value for spiritual growth. The pace of life today is so much faster than the eighteenth century, and with the advent of Twitter, Facebook, and email, we are inundated constantly with noise. I’m convinced this is directly contributory to our widespread spiritual anaemia.

Scott McClellan posted a follow-up post on the Collide Blog with several practical suggestions on “unplugging.” (Read it here.)

I personally struggle with constantly checking my email, allowing myself to be interrupted constantly with Twitter and Facebook updates, and not taking the time away from technology and from people to get alone with God. I know that my spiritual life is lacking as a result—when I look at the last several years in my journal, I see tremendous growth (followed by tremendous fruit) when I regularly, intentionally got away from normal life and spent hours with God in solitude.

For me, I’m grateful for the original article and yesterday’s post for reminding me of what I need. Now excuse me while I go turn off my phone’s social networking and shut down my email client.

There seems to persist a dangerous line of reasoning (or lack thereof) amongst my peers that seeking God is best left to the “professionals”, or at least until they are older. And by “my peers” I am referring chiefly to a select group of young men who are currently devoting their lives to serving at the ministry I’ve called home for the last five years. Of all the guys out there, these should be the ones seeking God the most.
Rather than earnestly and intentionally seeking God, there seems to be a patent lack of urgency and interest in Him and a definite, eager pursuit of entertainment—video games, TV shows, movies, frivolity.
Two scriptures: Isaiah 55:6-7 and Psalm 32:6.
God help us, if this portends what the future holds for the men of my generation.
My resolution: I must devote far more energies and time to seeking God then seeking entertainment.
My challenge: If the attention you give to an object is any indication of how much you value it, how much do you value your family? your Facebook friends? your TV? your God? How does this value statement (made subconsciously by where you place your attention) accord with the Bible?
My question: How can we convince and challenge young people to seek God more purposefully?

I read this yesterday on Abraham Piper’s blog:

That simple statement has been bugging me ever since. Today, I’ve been thinking a good bit about A.W. Tozer’s life example. What would Tozer have to say about iPhones, Twitter, and Facebook? If his actions during his lifetime are any example, I think he would have avoided them, in favor of seeking God with fewer distractions.
My dictionary defines “seek” as an “attempt to find (something).” So here is my thought:
Seeking God is radically different than dragging yourself out of bed, grabbing a cup of coffee, and showing up for morning devotions. Merely opening God’s Word, reading some text, and checking off your reading schedule doesn’t equate to an attempt to find God.
Seeking God should be an adventure. It is a quest, a journey, a search. It is a looking inward and outward and upward to find God. It starts with full commitment to the search, holding nothing back (Deuteronomy 4:29). It continues with full surrender and wholesale destruction of our heart’s idols (1 Chronicles 28, 2 Chronicles 14, 2 Chronicles 19:2-4, 2 Chronicles 30:18, 2 Chronicles 34). It requires a steady attention to God’s word and His commands (2 Chronicles 34). It must be our first priority, more important even than the food we eat or clothes we wear (Matthew 6). Ultimately, seeking God isn’t an issue of cloistering ourselves away from reality and avoiding people. Isaiah 58 clears up that to really seek God must include (or is demonstrated by) certain tangible actions. Read it.
We have to really want God, and like Jacob, refuse to let go until God has blessed us with a little more revelation. We must echo in our hearts the words of Psalm 63:

“ O God, you are my God;earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.”

Nikon D200 with Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 lens. 1/320sec @ f/2, ISO 400.

Photo taken with natural morning light during devotions. Text says: “This is not an end with a journey, but a journey with an end.” I went on to write:

“I journey successfully as I journey meaningfully—living on purpose, facing conflict with courage, acting as I am a character in His story, not treating everyone as characters in my story, focusing on adding meaning to the stories I encounter.

“With the end a given, a glorious fait accompli, why don’t I begin foreshadowing it now? I must live with the end in mind, but I must live! I live in the now, so I should strive to live with the now in mind, aware, present.”

I love quiet morning times with hot coffee, few distractions, and beautiful light streaming in through the window. He gives me much to be grateful for.

Doug Wilson has been reviewing Jason Stellman’s book Dual Citizens. Although it is on my to-read list, I’ve not read it yet. It does seem to strike to the heart of the Christians-in-culture issue. Here is a nugget of insight from Wilson:

“But Jason doesn’t want to see our worship, good or bad, as having a cultural impact. But I don’t see how it can avoid having that impact, for good or ill. Jason believes that the kind of worship we offer dishonors God. I believe that worship like what we offer dishonors God, which is why the salt has become savorless, and is fit only to be trampled on by Democrats and Republicans, listed here in alphabetical order.”

via BLOG and MABLOG.

Jason Stellman explains why he likes his Christianity salty:

“It seems to me that the evangelical church gets things precisely backwards at this point. Rather than being distinct from the culture on Sunday and part of the culture the rest of the week, they seek to be as distinct from the world as they can during the week, but as familar and non-threatening to the world as possible on Sunday. Hence the demand for Christian T-shirts and bumper stickers in order to stand out from the culture when they should be participating it it, and hence the market-driven desire to supply tailor-made worship experiences for Christian consumers (be they traditional, contemporary, or emergent) when they should be expressing their otherworldliness. Michael Horton is spot-on when he describes this approach as “ecclesial apartheid.”’

via De Regnis Duobus: Cult, Culture, and the Christian’s Dual Citizenship: I Like My Ecclesiology Salty and Subversive.

He is spot-on in criticizing the narcissism of market-driven worship and shallow attempts to solve our identity crisis using externals. However, I think he is wrong in identifying the solution. Christians are to engage in the cultural discourse, learning to speak its language and live relationally with their neighbors. But Christ also clearly taught a way of life that is remarkably different than our culture: Self-denial, and loving our neighbor. It was a radical concept in 1st century Judea, and it still is today.

“God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams!…In light of all this, here’s what I want you to do. While I’m locked up here, a prisoner for the Master, I want you to get out there and walk—better yet, run!—on the road God called you to travel. I don’t want any of you sitting around on your hands. I don’t want anyone strolling off, down some path that goes nowhere. And mark that you do this with humility and discipline—not in fits and starts, but steadily, pouring yourselves out for each other in acts of love, alert at noticing differences and quick at mending fences.” (The Message, Ephesians 3:20, 4:1–2)

As Francis Chan observes in Crazy Love, it is difficult to eat a box of Twinkies while running. He shares that the secret to defeating sins, to avoiding them, is to be constantly running towards Christ. Only when I slow down or stop or go down rabbit trails do I end up falling.
I am hungry, and desperately thirsty, for Christ. I feel like I’m pursuing Him, like a game of tag, and every time I turn a corner, I catch a fleeting glimpse of Him up ahead. I see enough to know I’m on the right track, but before I can be really satisfied, He disappears around the next bend. I keep catching whiffs of heavenly glory, tasting the tidbits of His glory, but being kept from the full meal. I was pondering these things this morning and realized that my me-focus (what Tozer calls the “self-life”) is what keeps rearing up and blocking my view of Christ. God is there, and His love for me knows no bounds. But I keep letting myself get in the way. One minute I’m passionately chasing after God, and the next, I find myself waylaid into a pointless running after His gifts. The cares of this world, the maintenance of my overabundant possessions, the creeping anxieties, these all rise up over me like aggressive weeds and threaten to choke my soul. At times, I envy those saints who had nothing, because I feel that they had a better shot at finding their satisfaction in God than I do. But I realize that is not really the whole picture—the problem is not the thorns and thistles without but the monster within. My stuff, my worries, my outward problems are small and insignificant, and would, in fact, be powerless over me if it weren’t for the beast within me, the beast that is me, and is constantly getting in the way of knowing God. Realizing this makes me appreciate even more Christ’s command in Luke 9:23–24:

“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.”

My heart’s prayer is simple: “Lord, kill me daily. Tear out of my heart any desire for anything apart from You. Crucify those desires, those wants, those supposed needs. Remove these scales from my eyes, so that I may see clearly. I want to see you, to know you, and I care not what it takes to get there. Accomplish your work in my life.”

Yesterday, I taught a class on Discipleship Counseling to the team leaders here at Quest. It was a great class, they had lots of good questions, and learned, I think, some useful principles. Biblical counseling, at its heart, is about helping the counselee work through the obstacles preventing them from walking freely with Christ by applying the message of the gospel to their lives. In fact, nearly every problem young men deal with boils down to a skewed perspective of themselves or of God and is solved through applying the Gospel to this deficit. What is this Gospel?

It boils down to this: Humans were created to glorify God. We were meant to live for His glory. However, everyone has failed to do this. We deserve death, eternal death, as the just consequences of this failure. The wonder of the Gospel is that Jesus Christ, through his life, death, and resurrection, paid the price. The benefits of this are available to anyone who repents and trusts in the Lord. As a result, we get what satisfies us most: Jesus Christ as our treasure.

Unfortunately, most young men in America today do not believe this gospel. There are two false gospels that seem to have stolen the hearts of Americans. These “religions” have supplanted true Christianity in many churches; and seem together to form the predominant belief system of Americans today.

Therapeutic Moralism is the adherence to a certain moral code with the goal of benefiting oneself in the present life. We seek to assuage guilt by being good; to have a good life for ourselves by being nice to others; to get rid of problems and past obstacles by following God’s principles for living. As many people have demonstrated, the principles found in the Bible are true, and you will gain temporal benefit for following them regardless of your view of God and Christ. However, this approach ultimately fails in eternity, as many good-doers are told by Jesus, “I never knew you” and condemned to an eternity in hell. In the short term, it also fails: What we need most is fellowship with Christ. The gospel, for all its eternal and temporal benefits, is really all about getting us what will satisfy us most: Christ, as our treasure. And so the practice of Therapuetic Moralism will never quite satisfy; our soul will continue to hunger for the Bread of Life.

Only slightly different is the Gospel of Personal Peace and Affluence, otherwise known as Materialism. This false gospel tells us that we must “look out for number one,” and ultimately life is about our lives being comfortable, our needs and wants met, and our every desire fulfilled. It casts a short-term perspective aimed at instant gratification, and defines hell as being without what we want, poor, uncomfortable, or stymied. We then make an idol out of the means use to meet our desires—a false idol, because the only thing that ultimately satisfies is Christ. This is a religion, complete with deities (Visa & Mastercard, Amazon & eBay), sacrifices, temples (your local mall), and shrines on every street corner. It is disgusting. Ultimately, it fails us because we spend our short lifetimes searching in all the wrong places for satisfaction, only to show up before the throne of God and realize that we spent our whole lives seeking our own glory and not His. Death awaits. In the short term, this only will lead to disappointment, frustration, obesity (both physical and spiritual), and an endless searching for fulfillment.

Finally, many Christians twist the gospel slightly and begin making God’s promises dependent on their performance. I fall into this trap when I start to blame my own failings for the perceived lack of blessing, or glory in my spiritual successes when I notice God’s hand on my life. This error is properly slipping into a works-based salvation, or the performance gospel. If I can lose my acceptance with God because of my works, then my salvation/acceptability in God’s eyes depends on my works, thus negating the finished work of Christ on the cross. This leads to either depression (if failing) or pride (if succeeding). Both prevent us from being satisfied in God.

The cure for all three of these skewed viewpoints is proper theology. A careful reading of the New Testament, rejoicing in the immutability of God’s promises and the amazing grace He has poured out for us. As we work out our salvation, figuring out how the gospel affects every area of our life, we will come to realize: a) What an amazing gift God has given; b) How unworthy we are of it; c) How this fact changes the way we live.

Neue posted this article today, urging the Church to engage with the souls of twenty-somethings.

Charles Wesley was a 20-year-old college student when the Methodist revival began. Pioneering missionary Hudson Taylor was 21 when he climbed aboard a boat for China. Conversely, the father of all anti-supernatural philosophers, David Hume, embraced his convictions at age 18 and Joseph Stalin decided to leave seminary at age 21 to dedicate his life to communism. I could go on and on. Amy Carmichael, Catherine Booth, Charles Darwin, etc. etc. etc. all set their destinies and seeded their greatness into history by their early twenties.

The author goes on to point out the growing influence people in their twenties are having and then reveals that my generation is more spiritually disconnected than ever before. There are a lot of reasons for this, although it boils down to older generations, those in the seats of power at most churches and ministries, failing in their Biblical duty to mentor the younger generations.
I can attest, as a single twenty-something living by myself, that I am hungry for those connections. Most of my peers are as well. The churches I’ve attended have done a poor job of reaching out to those of us at this critical point in our lives.
The author of the article finishes with this quote:

The historic trend is not hard to see. If we are serious about reaching our world, we must reach these strategic souls. If we do, more leaders like Wesley and Taylor will send shock waves of revival through the Church. If we do not, more leaders like Hume and Stalin will use their intellectual and political skills to convince a generation that God is dead.

I would add that if the church does not get serious about reaching twenty-somethings, an ever increasing number will leave, become dissatisfied with and reject the claims of Christ, and ultimately, much of the blame for this will be laid on the heads of those who had the opportunity to reach these individuals but were to selfish or busy to do so.

Earlier this morning, I reviewed my notes on the astounding book God Is The Gospel by John Piper (Crossway, 2005). What this book posits is, for me at least, both revolutionary and yet obvious. I can’t believe I’ve missed these truths before. Piper suggests that the whole point of the gospel (the “good news”) is God. He asks the cutting question, “Would you be happy in heaven if God were not there?”, and then goes about proving that the whole point of the gospel is that we might see and savor the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. As usual, Piper’s single-minded focus on the glory of God (and finding our ultimate pleasure therein) is refreshing, challenging, and invigorating. Reading Piper is for the soul like a brisk morning swim in a cold river for the body.

As I was setting up for work in my office, I got to thinking about an article I re-read yesterday in Leadership Journal. The Leadership Journal team interviewed Craig Gross, the “porn pastor” who has gotten a lot of attention for his concerted efforts to reach out to those in the pornography industry with the message of the gospel. A significant part of his ministry is working with churches to try to bring about more openness on the issue of sexual sin and pornography. Gross was asked whether or not it was working, and responded that yes, it was, but many pastors were still uncomfortable addressing it. He said, “Not to knock sermons about the end times, but porn is killing people in our churches. We’ve got to talk about it.” I couldn’t agree more. Biblical literacy and education are important. But not nearly as important as openly discussing the sin that is killing our churches.

Gross is currently conducting ministry on the Strip in Las Vegas—without a doubt one of the most temptation-filled, sinful places in the country. But he points out that with the ubiquitious nature of the internet and the abundance of porn and sin on it, Sin City is now in almost every home, business, and even the pockets of those with cellphones. Our ministry mindset must change. Parents must change their perspective—it seems to me most parents (especially mothers) are in denial or ignorance of their teenage sons’ struggles with lust, porn, and addiction. It is a rampant infection in our churches, and is destroying our effectiveness for the Kingdom.

This morning I put these two thoughts together: The need to openly discuss the sin that is secretly destroying us, and the fact that the gospel is the good news of the glory of God. I came up with an insight I first read in John Piper’s excellent treatise The Supremacy of God in Preaching (Baker, 2004). What our churches need is God-enthralled, Christ-saturated preaching that emphasizes the glory of God.

In God Is the Gospel, Piper explains that we become like Christ as we behold His glory. The cure for our sin is to find superior pleasure in God, and the pathway to sanctification is to see and savor God’s glory. They are one and the same. As we revel in the glory of God, finding our satisfaction and pleasure in God, sin melts away, and we become more like God. In the words of the hymn, ” Turn your eyes upon Jesus / Look full in His wonderful face / And the things of earth  will grow strangely dim, / In the light of His glory and grace.”

The answer to our churches desperate need for deliverance from our sinful addictions is not simply theological education or edgy, relevant topical sermon series. The cure we are looking for is simply this: The preaching of the glory of God. Christians need to know that God is glorious. We need preachers proclaiming His beauty, His wonder, His excellency. We need worship leaders singing of His surpassing greatness. We need theology that exposits His attributes and who God is. We need less teaching, preaching, and singing about us and more about God. The gospel is not ultimately about us being loved and made much of, but is really about God being glorified in us.

The cure for our personal sin is beholding and savoring the glory of God. The cure for our churches’ sin is preaching that elevates Christ and holds Him up for the congregation to see and savor God’s glory in Him. Oh, that our church leaders would grab ahold of this and give us the drug God has prescribed!