West Main

HONEST FAITH

Recently I was walking with my I-pod when a song called, “Outdoor Type” by one of my favorite bands, The Lemonheads, came on. I hadn’t heard it in awhile. It’s a humorous little ditty. It is about a guy who lies to get a girl. She wants a man that is the “outdoor type.” So he lies about being able to camp, rock climb, build a fire, grow a beard and mountain bike. He sings “too afraid to let you know ‘cuz you knew what you were looking for. So I lied until I fit the bill ... but God bless the great indoors.” It is a good song and makes me smile every time I hear it.

It does make me think of my own relationships, though. Many times, I think we try to do this same thing with other Christians. We say the things that we think others want to hear in order to sound like we are holy. We know all the latest church buzz words to sound like eager servants. I can speak “Christianese” with the best of ‘em! :) Yet our actions when we are alone do not reflect the words we speak. We can “lie until we fit the bill” in a crowd, if you will, but our language, viewing and internet choices, etc. might tell a different story.

I’ve always loved the book of James. I am convicted more than ever about what reveals our TRUE selves. It is our actions! Our language! Our choices, etc.! James says the word of God should be like a mirror for those of us who follow Him. When we read his word, we should be able to see ourselves in it. It is my desire to live a life where I will never have to stretch any truth to show people who I serve. May we all live lives of honest service for our wonderful Savior!

– Pannell

GOD DOES NOT POST TO YOU TUBE

The following is a short excerpt from a chapel talk given at Wheaton College by Read Mercer Schuchardt. Here is the link to the full speech: http://secondnaturejournal.com/god-does-not-post-to-youtube/

When everything grabs your attention, it grabs it in, by my rough estimate, 15-20 second bursts of attention minimum, and at maximum it lasts three minutes, roughly the length of a music video.

Cui bono? Who benefits from this shortened attention span? Your banker benefits, because you’re not paying attention closely enough to your electronic deposits and withdrawals. Your politicians benefit, because a people easily distracted are easily dissuaded from their own opinions, and perhaps their own convictions. Your media entertainment consumer complex benefits, because it’s so easy for advertisers to create desires you didn’t have to make you buy products you don’t need with money you haven’t earned to impress people you can’t stand. Your churches churn and turnover members and leaders like a laundromat, because with 23,000 Protestant denominations to choose from, the primary reason for switching churches is musical worship style, or in other words, how you feel about the three-minute song you’ve just heard.

So really, everyone benefits except you. At the Exxon-Mobil gas station, a poster for their SpeedPass payment system actually advertised the product with the headline, “No attention span needed.”

Now how about the word of God: is it addictive, powerful, and very entertaining? It is, in truth, only one of these three things. And it is powerful only to the degree to which you approach it without the need, desire, or expectation that you will be very addictively entertained. In other words, what matters are the conditions of attendance, and the form of transmission. If you are, like the average American is, spending twelve hours of your sixteen-hour waking day engaged in some form of electronic mass media, then you are habituating your psyche to have certain needs.

Under conditions of twelve hours a day of mass media, we’ve literally fulfilled the letter of the law of Deuteronomy 11:18-19, but with the wrong medium:

Fix these images of media in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them as logos on all your clothing. Show them to your children, texting about them when you sit at home and when you multitask along the road, when you lie down with a sleeping pill and when you get up with a double espresso. Never turn them off.