For Tweets Sake, Message Me!

Social Media. It’s one of those terms that a few years ago only a small number of tech savvy nerds knew what it was, but now the use of it has a pivotal effect on our world. Over two billion people engage on some form of social media on a regular basis… and its influence is staggering!

Social media is the primary shaper of culture; it is how people connect to their friends, the news and their

world. Social Media is where millions of advertising and marketing dollars go each day that makes or breaks
the companies that form the foundation of our economic infrastructure. Through social media people find out where they need to be, when and who they need to be with. Social media find people jobs and are responsible for people losing them. It disgraces politicians and elects presidents. It organizes birthday parties and overthrows governments. It helps people find love and it invokes mention on hundreds of thousands of divorce papers. It unites people and separates people. It makes people and it destroys people. It is both good and bad.

And that’s the tension that Christians need to manage as we try and understand this social media driven world that we live in. Some believers curse it as a device from the devil; others embrace it as a gift from God. But like many things in life, the medium is neutrally neither good nor bad, it is the message that we put into it that defines it. That is especially true of social media where the consumers of it are also the creators of it.

Listed below are three suggestions as to how believers should understand and use social media so that we can play our part to leverage this foundational societal platform for good.

1      Use Social Media to connect with people! There are two common mistakes people make with Facebook. One is to overshare information (e.g. what you had for dinner) and the other is to under share (not say anything). Facebook is a great “middle level” way to let people into your life a little more. The gospel of Jesus Christ is all about loving relationships and as Christians we are called to a relentless pursuit of relationships because they provide the context for people to come to know and grow in Jesus. Social media, when used properly, allow us to move acquaintances closer to becoming friends and tighten the bond between friends. Closer friendships advance the spread of the gospel.

2      Use Social Media to inspire, encourage and bless! As Christians, the Apostle Paul exhorts us “look not only to our own interests, but to the interests of others” (Phil 2:3). Unfortunately, much of social media is filled with narrow minded narcissism as people clammer over each other to show off what they have done, where they have been, who they have been with and why we should consider them to be an awesome person. Based on Paul’s encouragement a better use of social media would be to use it to brag not on ourselves, but on others. Who is doing something that you need to celebrate? Who can you honor? What are you grateful for? Who needs some appropriate encouragement and to be honored among their, and your, peers? Honor is to be given, not grabbed. Ultimately, we should all make sure that what we post brags on God’s goodness.

3      Use Social Media to promote God honoring values. Facebook and Twitter are the new social

melting pots of our society. What we put into them is what comes out of them. It is essential for Christians to input good, Christ honoring – and non-judgmental – values. We do this by affirming values we believe in, sharing concern about what we don’t and thinking through what we press the “like” and “share” buttons on. This of course, challenges us to live with greater levels of integrity to the Holy Scriptures and faithfulness before God. The last thing that Facebook needs is more hypocritical pretenders. Social media has given everyone a voice and we have a responsibility to promote good, God honoring values. If we don’t do this, no one will. We are encouraged in Psalm 45:1 to let our “hearts overflow with a pleasing theme”. The question for many is, “Do our social media forums overflow with themes that are pleasing to God?”

Social media is the medium that shapes the message to the masses. We, as consumers of it, are also the creators of what that message is.  What message are you “sharing”?

Thoughts? …Tweet me J

The Good Life Show - Red Bag Project!

Today I was involved in taping the following show for Good Life 45 about one of the projects we are using to attack the issue of Childhood hunger in Central Florida. I am so grateful for some great people who have fully given themselves to a great cause!



The Good Life - Seminole Red Bag GC051613 from The Good Life on Vimeo.

...Or you could just stop it?

About a week ago, while preparing to start my day, The Today Show ran a segment that revealed how some of the brokenness is in our over sexualized culture catches up with people. The segment was about a thing called “revenge porn”.

The main interview was with a lady (and of course, her lawyer) who had recently become the victim of

revenge porn. Revenge porn is a social sickness that didn’t exist 50 years ago, and honestly has probably grown exponentially in the past 5 years. This is how it works. In order the get revenge on a scorned lover, the broken hearted partner goes public with intimate pictures that the couple took of each other when they were in their relationship. I have never, nor do I want to, see such pictures but it is my belief that such pictures include levels of intimacy and nudity that are not really anyone else’s business.

The segment is about a woman, a 26 year old Phd student, who was a victim of such an attack and was taking her ex to the courts to get the inappropriate pictures taken down from a website. The pain that this lady has gone through in the four years since she and the man in question broke up was immense, embarrassing and violating. She had lost jobs over these pictures, been treated differently by friends and really experienced a deep level of pain. As the interview concluded, Matt Lauer, the host, slowed the tone of the conversation down and in the excellent way that he does asked the lady the crucial question.

“Here you are”, Lauer said, “in front of the country and having endured all this pain, what is it you would want to say to people? What is your message to people?”. I was so glad that Lauer asked this question – it was a perfect time for her to denounce how silly and dangerous it is to take and share inappropriate pictures and it was a great opportunity to put in place an appropriate boundary in our sexually broken society. She should have said “my message is don’t take inappropriate pictures because they can cause A LOT of pain and damage personally and professionally”. But she didn’t.

She said, words to the effect of, “I want people to know that they should stand up for what they feel and that it is not OK that someone you trusted share intimate photos of an intimate moment”.

What’s happening here is that this lady is trying to manage sin rather than stop sinning. The way to make this problem go away is to make sure there are no inappropriate photo’s floating around, not to entrust them to someone you are not sure can fully be trusted! Unfortunately, we live in a society where we spend so much more time managing sin than we do stopping it.

I am not judging this lady as there are times and situations in all of our lives when we try and manage our sin. We belittle it, try and hide it, justify it and put boundaries around it. We further manage our sin by telling others that they are in no place to judge or that it is none of their business. But still, the best thing that we can do is to stop it. Think about how you cheat on your bills or budget, when you redistribute resources at work or manage difficult situations with a number of “white lies”.

What this segment reminded me is that the gospel of Jesus Christ is not about us managing our sin to minimalize the pain of it – it’s about removing the root of sin so that the consequences of it never have  to catch up with us.

Don’t just try to manage your sin – that unsuccessfully tries to minimize the consequences. Stop the sin and then there will be no consequences to face. Oh… and be grateful for great grace.

Link to clip: http://www.today.com/news/revenge-porn-victim-fights-back-i-was-terrified-6C9761188

Leveraging Fame for Something that Matters.

I love it when groups can come together and make a difference! Here's one small partnership that I have seen begin to form to bless the people of Haiti! Jean Alexandre, a Haitian international soccer star, is using his name and notoriety to encourage orphans in Haiti towards better lives and Christ-centered values.

Read the article here: http://www.orlandocitysoccer.com/community/blog/index.html?article_id=1338

"Caught Ya" -

Thanks to the Lake Mary Magazine who wrote the following article on the Casselberry Community Task Force that I am a part of. The article is called "Caught Ya".

If you can't read the article here, please go to: http://www.lakemarylife.com/5-13wsl/index.html. The article can be found on page 49.

God is Closer than you Think!

Recently our family went to Disney. Despite living in Florida, we don’t go there as often as you’d think, and so when we do go, it’s a treat. On this trip we started our adventure in Epcot, probably because it’s often one of the quietest parks and because I like to buy a British candy bar when we go around the World Show Case!

One of the new things that they had added since we were last there was a high-tech (ish) game based on the Disney TV show, “Where’s my Perry”. The premise is that on your transmitter you receive certain clues to find and capture the bad guys. There is a time limit on the clues and several fun surprises along the way. There are several versions of this game that are played around Epcot’s World Showcase. We were playing our game in the fake UK and having to endure many rather cheesy and over-amplified British stereotypes.

About half way through our fast action game, while the kids and I were frantically looking for the next clue,

Tracie became distracted and started to stare at something, or more honestly, someone. She pulled me aside and said that the person she was looking at looked really like someone she had gone to high school with in Omaha, Nebraska about 20 years ago. She initially dismissed this as we continued with our challenge, but couldn’t help but keep staring. The similarity was uncanny. The lady and her family were only about 10 feet away.

I encouraged her to go and say “hi”, but I think because of the improbability of it being she– there were hundreds of miles and twenty years distance between them – and our desire to complete our task, we moved on.

That evening we came home and curiosity got the better of Tracie; she jumped on Facebook to track down her long lost friend. As soon as she located her page she saw that her friend had recently uploaded several pictures of herself and her family – all coming from Epcot! All along Tracie was just 10 feet away from someone she hadn’t seen for 20 years and who lived 100 of miles away, but because we were lost in our game we didn’t go and approach her.

We were both a little sad about this. It felt like we’d missed an opportunity.

As I reflect further on this, I think that we often do this with God. We think we have lost touch with Him, we think we have let time and distances separate us, but the reality is He is never far from us. In fact, because He is God, He is always closer than we think. Because of our doubt, because of our low expectations, and because of a thousand different reasons we think that God is unapproachably far away from us.

But He’s not. He’s really close and wants to reengage in a relationship with us. God is closer than we think. How many times do we miss God because we are not sure it’s He How many times do we not notice God because we are so busy trying to finish the task at hand?

Don’t miss Him today.

Rushed

As I was reading through the Old Testament the other day, there has was a word that I have noticed several times that has grabbed my attention. Often, as I am pouring through scripture, when this happens, I want to look a little closer into the scripture because there is an increased probability that God wants to show me something.

The phrase that jumped out at me is “The Spirit Rushed”. It is found in at least 6 times in the books of Judges

and Samuel to accomplish, through leaders, what God wants to get done. The Hebrew translation of this word can be better translated as “invade” and it presents some wonderful insight into how God uses His Holy Spirit. I like to imagine that one of the roles of the Holy Spirit is to act as a kind of 911 responder who rushes to invade our struggle and aids us in our times of need. I really don’t like to do anything in a rush, although I find myself having to a lot of the time; but there is great comfort in knowing  that we can call out to God and He will rush His Holy Spirit to us.

It appears that there are four things that this 911 call to the Holy Spirit can do…

1      The Spirit rushes to provide strength

This is how it worked with Samson. Whether he was being attacked by a roaring lion (Judges 14:6), preparing for battle (Judges 14:19) or being set free (Judges 15:14), the Spirit rushed upon him to provide strength. Kind of like the superhuman strength than parents develop when their children are in crisis. God rushes His Spirit to us to provide us with a strength beyond ourselves.

2      The Spirit rushes to speak the word of God through us.

God had given to Samuel a new heart through which Samuel could serve. Part of the design of this heart was that it was attuned to speak on behalf of God. As Samuel met up with others of a similar heart, he Holy Spirit rushed into their meeting (1 Samuel 10:10) and they began to speak boldly the word and promises of God. His prophesying brought people to God and also established credibility for Samuel. Next time you are lost for words, ask the Holy Spirit to rush upon you.

3      The Spirit rushes to make us angry about unrighteousness.

Saul, in 1 Samuel 11:6, had become fed up with the selfish and violent bickering of the people around him. When he heard that once again they were weeping in self-pity, the Spirit rushed upon him to “kindle his anger”. His anger challenged the people to get over themselves and to serve God. One of the things that God wants to do today is to rush his Spirit into our apathy so that we can stand against selfishness, pride and injustice. I can think of numerous times in my life when this has happened to me. If we want to change the world, I pray it will happen to you as well.

4      The Spirit rushes to anoint us to do what God has called us to do.

As David was beginning his ministry Samuel took some oil (1 Sam 16:13) and anointed David as King of Israel. As the anointing oil trickled down his head the Holy Spirit rushed upon and remained with him from that day forward. It was shortly after this rushed arrival that David took on and defeated the mighty Goliath, the pivotal moment that established David’s leadership. In the same way today, God’s Holy Spirit wants to rush to your side and help you to establish what it is that God has called you to do.

There is a song we often sing at my Church, the lyrics say of God, “He’s never early and he’s never late”. God’s timing is always perfect. I pray that when you are in need of strength to sustain, words to say, passion to address or power to fulfill that God’s Holy Spirit will rush to you and invade your situation.

Holy Spirit, rush upon us again today!

Some Things Have to Get Worse Before they Get Better.

Sometimes things have to get worse before they get better.

A couple of weeks ago I was warming up for my soccer game when from about 5 yards away a team mate

of mine was practicing his most powerful shots and the ball accidentally caught me on the side of my thumb. It stung a little at first, but certainly didn’t hurt enough for me to stop playing.  By the time I got home though, my thumb had doubled in size. Ice and Advil got me through the night before the next morning I started my research into what to do.

Most of the suggestions as to what I should do revolved around the fact that there wasn’t too much that could be done and that my thumb would in time heal itself. As the days progressed my thumb got blacker and bluer and the pain steadily increased. Yesterday, two weeks later, I finally decided to get it X-Rayed to see what was going on. I don’t like waiting and drama and these are two traits that I tend to associate with a hospital which is probably why I waited so long to go. Forty-Five minutes after my scheduled appointment time I saw the doctor, who, ironically, bad a broken thumb. We shared stories and he evaluated my x-ray. There were no broken bones but significant ligament damage. He sent me away with instructions, and I quote, “Stay as faithful as humanly possible to the splint, take it off only to bathe”.

So, for the past 24 hours, that is what I have been doing. But while the splint may be helping my injury, it is not helping my pain. I had no intention yesterday of using the extra strength pain meds the doctor prescribed, but I will be heading to the pharmacy as soon as it is open tomorrow. The pain on the wrist since it has begun to be corrected by the brace has been unbearable, waking me up several times during the night.

What is happening is that the brace is pulling my thumb back into a healthy position that will allow it to fully, healthily and painlessly function in the future and the dislocated position is fighting against this.

Sometimes, this same dynamic happens in life. When one of the ligaments of life is out of line we often experience some pain, but when we try to bring that ligament back into alignment the process becomes more painful. Unfortunately, there are many in our society who settles for a low level pain rather than a short burst of intense pain to make something right for the long term.  Why do some things have to hurt in order to get better?

1      Because God Disciplines those He loves (Hebrews 12:6). My wrist would not have got better on its own. If it had gotten progressively worse it could have led to all kinds of problems and pain in the future. The splint that I am wearing is a way to discipline my hand to get back into alignment. Do I like it? Do I like what it prevents me from doing? Do I enjoy the added pain? No… but I know it’s good for me.

2      Because God is Holy (1 Peter 1:16). God in His holiness is brilliant, complete and perfect. He wants similar people to be with Him in heaven, but unfortunately there aren’t any. So God has a choice. He can either be lonely in heaven or help transform us. And, though Jesus He chooses to transform us. Jesus invites everyone into heaven, but requires that we are transformed further into His character to live there. Sometimes this process can be painful for us as old habits, traits and behavior have to be healed.

3      Because we are broken. My thumb is not working properly. I want it to, but it’s not. Brokenness isn’t good and prevents us from doing things we need to do. It needs to be fixed if we are to function at full capacity and Jesus wants to help us do that. It’s just a law of life that when bad things happen they sometimes have a painful cost of fixing them.

Sometimes things have to get worse before they get better… as my thumb is reminding me. But it’s good that things ultimately get better.

Marriage Lessons from an Air Mattress

Last week, Tracie and I got to do something that I don’t think we have done for a long, long time… and if I

have my way, won’t do again. We slept on an air mattress. I am really not a mattress snob, but I have never had a good experience with air mattresses – especially ones that leak.

This mattress rested inflated upon a tile floor which may not have helped our plight. As the night hours passed, much to my disappointment,  I was provided more waking hours than I had hoped for to reflect on some of the dynamics of air mattresses… and their relationship to the  wonderful union that Tracie and I are a part of called marriage.

While I don’t understand all the physics involved, I do appreciate how sleeping with your spouse on an air mattresses (or I assume a water bed?) provides some good insight into marriage. In these examples consider the mattress as being the metaphor for marriage. Here are three things we learned.

1      When one gets up the other can go down.

At about 3am in the morning, Tracie needed to go to the bathroom. As she got up off our inflatable bed, the air pressure that she had been suppressing was released, filled the space she vacated and brought me a little closer to the tile floor. As she returned and reclaimed her space, I found myself elevating a little further away from the tile.

Sometimes the same dynamic works in a marriage. When one of us, even for a short time, physically or emotionally leaves the marriage it causes the other one the hit the floor. No one likes this, and it’s far from ideal but it happens. I realize that there are occasionally times when I “leave” our marriage because I am distracted, or not listening,  or not paying attention and this causes Tracie to “hit the floor”. The reverse, of course,  is true as well. When one of us returns fully to the relationship we both experience the lift of us being together.

2      When one person moves the other has to move as well.

Neither Tracie nor I are particularly restless sleepers, but at the same time we are not always particularly still. Because of the air distribution in our mattress, the way that our sleep patterns went that night was that if one of us turned, the other had to turn and if one of us moved, the other one had to move.

So it is in a healthy marriage. The two individuals have become one and so what happens to one person has an effect on the other. Marriage is often about consistent, sacrificial moves to respond and adjust to our spouse. When one moves, the other has to as well. Friction occurs when one moves and the other gets upset that they have to adjust, but adjustment is all a part of married life.

3      Finding the right balance is crucial.

At about 7am in the morning, Tracie and I found positions on the bed where we were both comfortable and we had our bodies positioned in just the right way to allow each other to get some sleep. We’d found the right angles to ensure proper and comfortable air distribution on the mattress.

This same balance is crucial to find in marriage. It often takes a while to find the right place of balance and often takes many uncomfortable hours to find it. Finding this balance revolves around lots of give and take and trial and error It involves being a little uncomfortable so that your spouse can find her comfort spot and then the spouse being a little uncomfortable so that you can find yours. But when you distribute your weight properly, when you find that right balance, the comfort and contentment is wonderful. I wish we’d found this before 7am!

Our night on the air mattress on the tile floor didn’t provide either of us with a good night’s sleep, but it did offer us a good metaphor for marriage for which we are both grateful.

How’s your mattress?