As a writer and editor of books, most of my thoughts on Apple’s new iPad were centered on its capabilities as an ebook reader. The industry is abuzz about the coming showdown between Amazon’s Kindle and the iPad. But in the end, the ebook discussion, while important, will not be the deciding factor in the iPad’s rocket ride to success.
What will?
Porn.
A great article (warning: there are some risque pixilated images, but no nudity) in Fast Company hits it on the bulls eye.
Its laser-like focus on cash has given porn an edge in technology development history. And it’s a business that’s always looking for new and novel ways to deliver its product through systems that appeal to its consumers–the one who gets there quickest gets the biggest share of the booty. Pornographic Web sites test drove online payment systems as ways to make quick bucks while everyone else bit their nails and waited years for PayPal. Broadband crushed slow dial-up in part due to users’ hunger for speedy, sexy data…porn. Going back further, porn was thriving at the dawn of cable TV and photography itself. One of the first popular uses of the printing press was to publish pornographic writing and imagery.
Today it’s a multi-billion dollar industry powered by the human psyche and high technology. It’s hard to put a finger on it precisely, but the U.S. porn industry alone is probably worth a long way north of $10 billion per year. Remember the famous adage: “If all the porn was clensed from the Internet, then there’s just be a single Web site in the world. It would say–’bring back all the porn!’” Porn has always been with us, and probably always will in one form or another.
Continuing:
But if there’s one single industry which is agile–aggressively so–and ready to quickly adopt a new technology fast in order to make a quick buck, it’s the adult content industry. You can bet many sites’ll be wrapping video content in iPad-friendly code before too long, and charging visitors handsomely for the privilege (or embedding the sites with ads, and making a profit this way.) Then, because HTML5 video is also compatible with desktop browsing too, Flash might well go the way of Betamax and HDDVD.
As we all know, porn is a huge industry and a huge problem for the church. Not only our young men and women, but also our pastors and leaders are being aced out by addictions to porn. Marriages and families are being torn apart. Churches are being devastated.
The rise of access to porn on devices like the iPad should be of great concern. One, because just as with the iPhone, there will be a significant lag between access to content and porn filtration software development. Two, because access to this content will become that much easier for both people in the church and for pastors.
This furthers the need for the church to provide a holistic healing of the mind and spirit when it comes to porn. While blockers are great, they are merely a stop gap. Our minds, and the minds of the people in our churches must be transformed to the point where we can overcome temptation rather than just manage it.
This will also create a greater need for openness and accountability among brothers and sisters in Christ.
If you’re not praying for the sexual health of your church, I encourage you to do so. We’re in a war and new weapons are being deployed every day.
OK, I really don’t get the way some in the Christian blog world are rallying around (against) the Super Bowl this year. I’ve ran across a number of blogs that have either been focused on over-spiritualizing the Super Bowl event or sports in general over the past week.
I can (sort of) understand where they are coming from in the sense that if idolized the game can take away from God–of course we could do the same thing with Antiques Road Show if we wanted to. After all, we have the capacity to turn everything into an idol. But we don’t do that for Antiques Road Show because it’s not such a powerful cultural event.
But I have to admit I find Ray Ortlund’s post a little mystifying this morning:
The Super Bowl is not just another NFL game. It has become an intensified concentration of vulgarity and ego, with enough athletics in the game and cleverness in the commercials to trick me into watching. It’s simply not what I’m living for.
That was my last Super Bowl.
Mike Pohlman thinks that Pastor Ortlund “may be on to something” with this post. I agree. He’s certainly on to something, but I’m not so sure that it’s something we should be onto.
Listen, I get it if you don’t like the Super Bowl. There’s certainly things about the event that are distasteful. But don’t be a hater for Christ’s sake (pun intended).
This kind of post villianizing the Super Bowl doesn’t seem to accomplish anything other than stir controversy, make Christians yet again look like joy-kills, and pit people who simply enjoy football and don’t mind having a good time watching the Super Bowl against more “spiritual” people who place the Super Bowl as some sort of event that diminishes Christ, and the Christian for watching it. “It’s simply not what I’m living for.”
To me this seems like a better idea: Let’s redeem the Super Bowl. Let’s get our neighbors together to watch the game. Let’s host parties at our house. Let’s expose people to Christian community that stops talking about what they’re not living for and instead starts talking about what they are living for.
Let’s not revert to being people known for what we’re against. We spent decades doing that, and it hasn’t served us or Christ very well.
So, what do you think? Am I over reacting here? Even worse, am I completely wrong?
I spend a lot of time in bars. I like bars. I like the people and the beer. I like hanging out with my friends and having a good time.
As a pastor, I’m also highly aware of my need to be a good witness. For some pastors, that means they avoid bars and “unseemly” places. I don’t see that as a good strategy. And this week was proof positive for me on that.
A couple great things happened in the bars this week.
First, I met with my friend and fellow A29 pastor, Brent Thomas, at Lis Doon Varna in Peoria. The topic was The City and how it might help his church. We then moved on to what God was doing in our churches. It was a great time of talking about Jesus and what he was doing in the Valley–all over a couple pints.
Towards the end of our conversation, I remember distinctly saying, “I just want to see people’s lives transformed by Jesus,” when a girl who was sitting at the bar across the room asked, “Are you guys talking about religion?”
Well, I got what I asked for. Long story short, this young woman came over to sit with Brent and I, broke down in tears, admitted her need for Jesus, and promised she’d be at Brent’s church this weekend. It was an awesome and humbling moment to be in the middle of a bar, holding hands, and praying with this broken and hurting woman.
Second, members from our worship team at Praxis Church are in a band called Maple Ash. They played a show last night at Rogue Bar in Scottsdale–and they rocked. Here’s a clip from the show shot by Justin Garbinski’s (the drummer) wife, Audra:
It was awesome to see tons of young people from our church packed into this little dive bar to listen to the band. We did little things, like tip well. The owners know Maple Ash is from Praxis. All of this is part of Garth’s (our worship director and front man for Maple Ash) vision to have his music teams out doing professional as well as church music to engage the culture.
Some would accuse us of cavorting with publicans and sinners. But I’m pretty sure we’re in good company for doing so.
Josh Harris writes a pithy post on the wrong reasons we often have for loving the church. It’s worth the read, and worth reflecting on even more.
Don’t love the church because of what it does for you. Because sooner or later it won’t do enough.
Don’t love the church because of a leader. Because human leaders are fallible and will let you down.
Don’t love the church because of a program or a building or activities because all those things get old.
Don’t love the church because of a certain group of friends because friendships change and people move.
These seem simple and obvious, but I’m willing to bet we rarely give thought to them. I hear of people leaving churches all the time, and usually it’s because they’ve put their hope in one of those four things instead of fully in Jesus.
We’ve started a new sermon series at Praxis Church called “The Survivors Guide to the Apocalypse”. We wanted to have some fun with this one and decided to go with a 1950s fallout theme. We created a guidebook and an innovative little film series. Here is the first film in the series. I’ll post up the others each week.
This Miller Lite ad that was pitched a decade ago by the famed Ogilvy & Mathers agency has surfaced on YouTube.com.
Gross, right? Miller executives thought so too…that’s why they killed it. But thanks to a spec reel on a personal website, we all have the pleasure of watching. There’s a lesson here in making sure that you have control of all your collateral – even the stuff you kill.
In any case, I’m sure you can find a sermon example from this video…maybe something relating back to dogs eating vomit?
We’re always trying to balance risk-taking with accessibility at Praxis Church. Above all else, we want to capture people’s attention and help communicate the Gospel effectively by adding to the overall impact of our sermon series.
This Advent we took a big risk with our “Give of Yourself” campaign. For the four weeks of Advent, Pastor Justin is preaching on generosity. My team came up with the concept of people literally giving of themselves to highlight the sacrifice true generosity takes. To be honest, I was skeptical that we could pull this off without being creepy…but hats off to my team for doing a great job. In the end, we approached the art to make it campy and over-the-top, which helped take the edge off. Here’s what we came up with.
We incorporated this art into our sermon study guide, which you can download here. The Church’s response has been positive.
Finally, we took a more conventional approach to our sermon intro videos. I firmly believe that culture is created by sharing stories. As such we chose to highlight four stories of extraordinary generosity in our congregation. Here are the two of the four videos.
In a recent post over at Swerve, Pastor Craig Groeschel talked about the need to “let go of old assumptions about how to reach people.” In making his argument, Pastor Groeschel uses some troubling language to open his post: “The world is changing faster every day. Too many Christian leaders are working off old assumptions rather than new revelations.”
To be clear, this post is not an argument against new methods in ministry, or even Pastor Groeschel, whom I’ve never met. It’s just that his post got me thinking. I understand the importance of utilizing the latest technologies and implementing new strategies to reach people with the gospel of Jesus. My concern is that often times we buy into the myth of the new. As such we can easily turn the chasing of the latest fad into an idol for our ministry. It’s easy to get sucked into the mindset that new = better. And that’s just not the case.
We don’t need new methods for the gospel to be effective. Period. It is the Holy Spirit that works to make the gospel effective. Not our technology. Not our preaching methods. Not our music styles. And not our innovation.
As the writer of Ecclesiastes so wisely wrote thousands of years ago, “What has been is what will be. And what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9).
While some may dismiss this as poetic hyperbole that can’t be prescriptive, the reality is that there is much wisdom in this verse. God is ageless, timeless, enduring, the alpha and the omega. He is sovereign and the creator and sustainer of all things. But, “Man is like breath; his days are like a passing shadow” (Psalms 144:4).
As passing shadows, let’s not think too highly of our new methods and ways. I have a hunch that they too are like breath.
Rather, let our focus be on the enduring and unchanging Word and only Revelation of God – Jesus Christ.
We do not need “new revelations.” Though it doesn’t hurt to have new ways and tools to preach the Revelation of Jesus.
As a writer and editor of books, most of my thoughts on Apple’s new iPad were centered on its capabilities as an ebook reader. The industry is abuzz about the coming showdown between Amazon’s Kindle and the iPad. But in the end, the ebook discussion, while important, will not be the deciding factor in the iPad’s rocket ride to success.
OK, I really don’t get the way some in the Christian blog world are rallying around (against) the Super Bowl this year. I’ve ran across a number of blogs that have either been focused on over-spiritualizing the Super Bowl event or sports in general over the past week.
In a recent post over at