For many of us summertime is the best time of year: vacations, free time, catching up on reading, home maintenance, videos, sports, gardening and friendships. We finally get a break from our increasingly complicated, busy and changing world. It’s time to recharge our batteries (re-creation). And I would suggest we also take some time to look at some ways we can remain steady and even flourish in our increasingly chaotic society – that we might learn anew how to grow in our Christian faith and make significant progress in Christ’s work of reconciling all things to Him.

First, let’s take some time this summer to consider, or reconsider, our relationships with technology and new media – the Internet, Facebook, blogs, Twitter and wireless communications. As we all know human knowledge is increasing exponentially. Our brains and our waking hours are not. How do we keep up with it all? How do we manage this information in ways that feed, inform and nourish us rather than confusing, frightening and frustrating us? Information technologies help us do that. They help us search, retrieve, collect and manage this new information like nothing else. While critics bemoan these innovations as brain-altering and attention-span-shortening, this is not the case. As Harvard’s Stephen Pinker argues, “Far from making us stupid, these technologies are the only things that will keep us smart.”

Second, let’s take some time to look at how we’re honing the skills we need to keep steady – like self-discipline, self-control, and concentration. While distraction is nothing new, we have more things by which to be distracted and those same skills we learned in grade school - of organization, prioritizing and boundary-setting - are becoming more and more valuable. Temptation is taking on new forms. The solution is not to demonize technology, but to put it in its place. Only check email at certain times of the day. Turn off Twitter when you work, put the cell phone away at dinner. It is much less productive to criticize iPads and Google Voice than it is to hone our skills of critical thinking, deep reflection and intellectual rigor.

Third, let’s do some thinking about ‘change’ - life’s only constant. We rarely like change because it means we take on something new and trade in the old. And many of us liked the old. So with change there is loss, grief and often, conflict. It is both bittersweet and inevitable. But change also means possibility. When we welcome change we open ourselves to new things that may fulfill us in ways we never dreamed of. The Scriptures describe God as a 'consuming fire' which paints a picture of morphing movement, drama, and uniqueness. So change means acknowledging and grieving the loss, then handling the conflict, before finally assessing the new landscape and deciding how best to fit in, chart a new course, and open ourselves to newness.

Finally, let’s take this summer to reaffirm the greatest asset Christians bring to a changing landscape, perhaps best put by St. Matthew when he quotes Jesus’ final words, “And remember I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 29:19) We do not sail through uncharted waters alone. Someone has gone before us and remains with us. In the midst of the swirling chaos that surrounds, we have peace and Presence. It is a Presence that has a plan, and is working in amazing ways to bring it to fruition. So relax, we go through this storm griping a steady hand. And we ask ourselves how we might more deeply cling to the peace of Christ, the conviction that Jesus is at work in and around us, and more intentionally focus on how He is asking us to be His hands and feet in a broken world, in deep need of healing.


Reading:
Can Our Church Live? – Alice Mann
Explosive Preaching – Ronald Boyd-MacMillan
Healing Light – Agnes Sanford