Review: 33 The Series - Authentic Manhood

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I can’t remember ever reviewing a video series so this will be a first. I wasn’t familiar with the 33 Series when I was first offered the video to review, but once I hopped onto their website many of the names are once I trust and appreciate.

I received volume 5  “A Man and His Marriage.” I’ve sat through countless video teaching DVD’s in small groups. Most of them are OK, but they end up being just straight up recorded teaching.

What I liked most about the 33 Series was the presentation. It wasn’t just video teaching. Each session starts with introductory comments transitioned into street interviews then into teaching and might mix in an interview with a trusted bible teacher related to the session (I’m a big fan of Paul Tripp and there was a good dose of wisdom from him in these teaching bursts).

I watched a few of these during the day when my wife and kids were home and I’d find my wife standing over my shoulder listening to the interview or teaching and asking questions. The format and presentations lends itself to this kind of question asking and discussion.

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Culture Creators: An Interview with Dr. O. Alan Noble

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One of my favorite ongoing blog series is LifeHackers' How I Work. Simple questions about how people in a variety of workplaces get stuff done. As I read more and more of these, I kept thinking about wondering about creative people I know and what their answers might be. That got me thinking. Why not host an interview series at my own blog with Christians who are working with excellence, who I admire, and who do creative stuff? I was concerned about getting enough people to host a meaningful series, but the yeses kept rolling in. So here we are.

Who is Dr. O. Alan Noble: Dr. O. Alan Noble is an Assistant Professor of English at Oklahoma Baptist University, the Managing Editor and Co-Founder of Christ and Pop Culture, and a Freelance writer for The Atlantic. He earned his PhD in Contemporary American Literature at Baylor University in 2013, writing on manifestations of transcendence in twentieth-century American literature. His wife, Brittany, currently teaches in the Math Department at OBU whiling finishing her Master’s in Economics at Baylor. They have a 5-year-old daughter and a 2.5-year-old son.

 

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Culture Creators: An Interview with Matt Heerema

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One of my favorite ongoing blog series is LifeHackers' How I Work. Simple questions about how people in a variety of workplaces get stuff done. As I read more and more of these, I kept thinking about wondering about creative people I know and what their answers might be. That got me thinking. Why not host an interview series at my own blog with Christians who are working with excellence, who I admire, and who do creative stuff? I was concerned about getting enough people to host a meaningful series, but the yeses kept rolling in. So here we are.

Who is Matt Heerema: Matt Heerema lives in Ames, Iowa and is a bi-vocational pastor and Web agency director, husband, father of four daughters, musician, and massive geek.  He serves with a team of six pastors at Stonebrook Church where he helps oversee corporate worship ministries (he can’t bring himself to say worship pastor, all pastors are worship pastors . . . ) and theological training. He owns and directs Mere Agency, and is very excited about their recent launch of MereChurch: effective Web sites for small churches and ministries. Matt is also working on a Master’s of Theology Degree through the Antioch School for Church Planting and Leadership Development. He posts occasionally on his blog at mattheerema.com. Find him on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and all the other places.

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Culture Creators: An Interview with Jonathan K. Dodson

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One of my favorite ongoing blog series is LifeHackers' How I Work. Simple questions about how people in a variety of workplaces get stuff done. As I read more and more of these, I kept thinking about wondering about creative people I know and what their answers might be. That got me thinking. Why not host an interview series at my own blog with Christians who are working with excellence, who I admire, and who do creative stuff? I was concerned about getting enough people to host a meaningful series, but the yeses kept rolling in. So here we are.

Who is Jonathan Dodson? Jonathan K. Dodson (MDiv; ThM) serves as a pastor of City Life Church in Austin, Texas. He is the author of Gospel-Centered Discipleship, The Unbelievable Gospel, and Raised? He has discipled men and women abroad and at home for almost two decades, taking great delight in communicating the gospel and seeing Christ formed in others. Twitter: @Jonathan_Dodson

 

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Should I Retweet That Compliment?

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Part of my trip to Louisville for Together for the Gospel included attending a pre-conference event hosted at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and organized by Tim Brister. If you ever attend T4G, Tim’s Band of Bloggers is the best money you’ll spend. You get a free lunch and more free books than the main conference. This year’s panel discussed platform building.

That’s an important conversation--especially with the rise of celebrity pastors and the abuses that go along with it. How does one navigate these murky waters?

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Social Media Ain’t a Covenant Community (or Why Social Media Shouldn’t be a Spectator’s Sports)

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Count me as a friend of technology and social media. In fact, I recently wrote a piece for the CBMW Manual blog argue for the God glorifying benefits of technology and social media. God created all things and said, “This is good.” As Christians, we start there. He also gave us the command to create, work, and have dominion. The good includes these endeavors, and, therefore, includes our work as sub-creators (a quip borrowed from J. R. R. Tolkien). Of course, many people take beautiful, good, God glorifying things and turn them into ugly, perverted orcs. We must use discernment anchored to Scripture. I say all that as a preface for my post today.

I want to now pushback on social media. Some use social media as a stand in for flesh and blood covenant community. Social media and technology can never replace the living Church. You see it’s easy to defriend, unfollow, block, or not pin someone who you disagree with on social media. It’s easy to anonymously criticize someone. It’s easy to sub-tweet. It’s easy to make generalizations. It’s easy to slander someone when you don’t have to look them in the face.

It’s much harder when you are committed, hands calloused, to a living, local church. You can’t defriend, unfollow, block, or ignore someone, when you’re face to face with them week in and week out. It’s much harder to take pot shots and snipe in this context. (Notice I didn’t say impossible. It happens. We’ve all seen it.)

There are some in the Christian blog-o-sphere who are known for being shall we say prickly. I’ve heard more than once though, “So and so is a great guy [or gal], when you talk to them face to face or on the phone.” God forbid that our online persona is different than our true life person.

Where it has, social media devolves into a spectator sport on the level of WWE’s Monday Night Raw. We all have our favorite Christian wrestler...errrr I mean blogger, pastor, ministry leader. They don their two size too small spandex costume and strut out to their rockin’ theme song to the tune of three weekly blog posts. Many of us sit in the stands and cheer them on. We jeer their opponents. We mock and slur the other side. We are entertained.


All of this is just sad. This kind of social media spectacle only survives where anemic ecclesiology thrives. Where a robust eccelsiology is alive and well. This kind of spectacle will be on the fringe and shortly extinct. Where churches are rehearsing the gospel weekly and sending the Church out to rehearse the gospel in their daily lives, social media becomes an opportunity to rehearse the gospel in a small sliver of life. It doesn’t become the Monday night main event.

So let’s use technology and social media for the glory of God, but let’s not make it a spectator sport. Let’s always prioritize our local covenant communities. Let’s always prioritize our families. Let’s always prioritize soaking our lives in the gospel over watching our favorite online persona drop their finishing move on the opposition.

CBMW Guest Post: “Technology and Social Media for the Glory of God”

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Monday I guest posted at the CBMW blog. I wrote the fifth piece in a series on Manhood and Technology. All the posts are excellent so check it out.

I work in an industry that thrives on technology and innovation. I have to know about the latest innovations in my field and be comfortable conversing about them. Daily I see all the opportunities and pitfalls of technology and social media. Seeing these, I’m convinced technology and social media must be used by Christians to glorify God. So here’s why I gave technology and social media a chance.

First, tech and social media provide unique opportunities for world missions. The Church’s mission is to teach and baptize peoples from all nations. As one example of the immense benefits of technology, in an article entitled “Tribal Technology,” John Dyer describes the immediate impact Apple’s innovations over the last decade plus have had on spreading the gospel in closed countries. Thousands of music files and ebooks can be stored on a single device or on a memory card. Gigabytes of biblical resources can be smuggled into countries with no detection.

Read the entire article here

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