How do you explain to a child what you do to get a PhD? Phone conversation: "Hi Mom, how are you? What ya doing?" "Well sweetie, your Mommy is studying quite a bit and does lots of homework." With concern in her voice, Valerie queried, "How can you still be in school when you are as old as you are?" (probably beginning to wonder if Mother had been held back for many years and was repeating a grade....) "Well, Valerie, learning is a life-long process, you don't stop learning just because you graduate from High School." "Hmm. I don't know if I want to keep doing homework the rest of my life," she said with a worried voice. "What are you studying about Mom?" "Well, interestingly enough we are studying children and how they grow and develop." "Silly Mommy, you don't need to read a book about children, just ask me. I'm a kid!"
I have taken the liberty to adapt an article written by Randy Alcorn in his blog (http://randyalcorn.blogspot.com/) since his perceptiveness regarding technology and how it can be used I found to be very educational.
“AGAINST: The argument against the use of social media like Facebook, Tweeter and the like is that these media tend to shorten attention spans, weaken discursive reasoning, lure people away from Scripture and prayer, disembody relationships, feed the fires of narcissism, cater to the craving for attention, fill the world with drivel, shrink the soul’s capacity for greatness, and make us second-handers who comment on life when we ought to be living it. So boycott them and write books (not blogs) about the problem.
FOR: The argument in favor of using social media says: Yes, there is truth in all of that, but instead of boycotting, try to fill these media with as much provocative, reasonable, Bible-saturated, prayerful, relational, Christ-exalting, truth-driven, serious, creative pointers to true greatness as you can.
Together with Randy Alcorn, and numerous other ministries, like “Desiring God”, I lean toward response #2. “Lean” is different from “leap.” My brother-in-law, Rogelio Umaña, whose job title literally reads: Social Media Evangelist (how’s that for an oxymoron?) and I are aware that the medium tends to shape the message. This has been true, more or less, with every new medium that has come along—speech, drawing, handwriting, print, books, magazines, newspapers, tracts, 16mm home movies, flannel-graph, Cinerama, movies, Gospel Blimps, TV, radio, cassette tapes, 8-Tracks, blackboards, whiteboards, overhead projection, PowerPoint, skits, drama, banners, CDs, MP3s, sky-writing, video, texting, blogging, tweeting, Mina-Bird-training, etc.
Randy concludes his article with the acknowledgment that there are indeed dangers, dangers everywhere. Yes. But it seems to us that aggressive efforts to saturate a media with the supremacy of God, the truth of Scripture, the glory of Christ, the joy of the gospel, the insanity of sin, and the radical nature of Christian living is a good choice for some Christians.
As if to prove his point about how far technology has developed, Randy posted on his blog site (november 6, 2009) an amazing video clip: The video in this blog is an incredible look at how far technology has advanced and is changing, even just within the past year. As you watch it, remember that technology is a part of society or culture, which is the creative accomplishment of God’s image-bearers. Human creations are an extension of God’s own creative works because he created us to reflect him by being creators.
Mankind glorifies God by taking what God made from nothing and shaping it into what is for mankind’s good and God’s glory. The entire universe—including angels and living creatures in Heaven—should look at our creative ingenuity, our artistic accomplishments, and see God in us, his image-bearers.
It’s true that with engines have come pollution and fatalities. With printing and publishing have come godless books and magazines. With television has come the glorification of immorality and materialism. Computers have led to Internet pornography. With the splitting of the atom came a destructive bomb and loss of human life. With medical advances have come abortion and euthanasia. Yet none of these negative byproducts is intrinsic to the cultural advances themselves. Imagine those advances used purely for righteous purposes, without sin to taint them.
What you are imagining is the New Earth.”
Check out this 4 min. video:
Randy is one of my favorite authors, his book on Heaven, has been the delight of my children and that book, together with the manner in which they experienced the death of my father (6 years ago to this day—Veteran’s Day, 2003) has shaped their view of life on earth and created an amazing anticipation and excitement of what life will be like in heaven.
This comment was made by the husband of one of the women who attends the weekly Bible Study I hold in our home. We are studying "Worldview Thinking" and last week's homework was to interview three people asking the following two questions:
1.What gives your life meaning?
2. Why did God create human beings?
This husband was delighted with his wife's questions and proceeded to give her such an indepth answer that she took two pages of notes! until she could take it no longer and said: Enough, that'll be enough for my class!
As the women shared, their answers were quite fascinating. Most had interviewed their own family members and the answers were:
My family, my husband, my children bring meaning to my life
Helping my country brings me fulfillment, now more than ever Honduras needs us.
I have no reason for living (spoken by a friend who is struggling with depression right now)
God made man to be happy.
God made us to glorify Him.
We studied Isaiah 43:7 and John 10:10 and realized that we were made to glorify God and enjoy Him forever (Westminister Catechism). And that we strive towards that lofty goal by growing in Christlikeness (I John 3:2), since Jesus was the One who glorifies His Father without fail.
Each week brings us new discoveries and we delight in learning together. I will be gone to Chicago (Trinity Evangelical Divinity School for another class) for the next two weeks so I left them a very difficult homework assignment: Interview an atheist. They all looked at each other and said: Where do you find someone like that in a Catholic country like ours? Try the universities, we concluded!
That homework will enable us to grasp an understanding of how a "secular modernist" and postmodernist would answer those same questions.
Pray for us as our worldview is being stretched and as the ladies say: Our gray matter is being exercised !
By the way, we do say AMEN at the end of our time together! :) See me on the upper right? Just kidding! :)
