The renovation of our back building continues. We are currently in the painting stage. Here are a couple panoramic pictures of one of the two-bedroom apartments.

One of the practices we have in our community is our Friday morning thanksgiving time. The men meet early before work each morning, and on Fridays we take time to tell each other what we’re thankful for. It’s fun hearing from the other men what blesses them and how they’re seeing God’s goodness in their daily lives.

But the best part of the whole thing is to hear how often the men thank God for their wives, children, and each other. It’s not uncommon to hear someone waxing lyrical about how wonderful his wife is, or what a blessing his children are, or what an inspiration his parents are, or how helpful the Sunday meeting was, or how appreciative he is for our leadership. For us, Thanksgiving happens every Friday.

Over the years I have seen that the one essential virtue is honesty. Honesty is important because it is what relationships are built on. Honesty creates closeness in a relationship. When someone speaks truthfully it enables you to trust them. You simply can’t have a warm and intimate relationship with someone you don’t trust.

Honesty provokes communion. It creates an atmosphere conducive to friendship. By removing the fear of being manipulated and deceived, it allows us to drop our guard and be known for who we really are. I don’t have to hide what I know will be handled with care. When two people are in this state of mind, communion is inevitable.

In a sense, honesty is “keeping the commandment” of others. It is staying loyal by not having a hidden agenda that may injure them. This act of love elicits love back and enables others to disclose themselves to us. And disclosure is the fuel of communion.

It just so happens that communion is the stuff happiness is made of. Poets and prophets have forever told us that real meaning in life is found in friendship. It’s simply an established fact that life is empty without someone to share it with. Our greatest joys, and sorrows, come in the form of people. Honesty creates communion and communion creates happiness.

This remarkable little formula – honesty, communion, happiness – is the key to our relationships: father and son, brother and sister, husband and wife, and every other relationship. And not surprisingly, it holds true with our relationship with God.

John 14:21 “He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.”

John 17:3 “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”

In my last post I laid out the biblical story in nine points. This helped give me perspective about the mission of the Church. I’ve also been collecting various phrases from different authors with the same intent, namely, to clarify what is the mission of the Church. Below is what I’ve compiled so far:

1. “prefigure the peaceable kingdom of God”
2. “palpable signs of God’s reconciliation of the world”
3. “concrete social manifestation of the righteousness of God”
4. “the way of Jesus reenacted in the church”
5. “harbingers of God’s new creation.”
6. “prefigure and embody the reconciliation and healing of the world”
7. “embody the costly way of peace”
8. “the sphere where the future of God’s righteousness intersects – and challenges – the present tense of human existence”
9. “winsome embodiment of the Christian faith”
10. “to be an expression of the new creation”
11. “to live out the new creation in the old creation”
12. “To bear witness to the life of God and His nature revealed in His relationship to the world as creator and redeemer by our life together.”
13. “a sign and agent and foretaste of the kingdom of God”
14. “it is the task of those gathered together by God to live, to the extent possible, as citizens of the new age”
15. “The very best contribution which the people of God can make to society is that of lives and works which already participate in the ‘age to come’ and which point toward the quality of relationships which characterize the kingdom of God.”
16. “Peoplehood is a part of the good news as well as an essential instrument in mission.”

I thought about putting, “To boldly go where no one has gone before,” but it really didn’t fit.

Footnotes:

1. Richard Hays, Ecclesiology and Ethics in 1 Corinthians
2. Ibid
3. Ibid
4. Richard Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament, p. 343
5. Ibid 292
6. Ibid 32
7. Ibid 344
8. Ibid 344
9. James Sire, A Little Primer on Humble Apologetics
10. Alec Brooks – audio lecture, Life Mission Fellowship
11. Ibid
12. Ibid
13. Leslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralistic Society, p. 136
14. Joel James Shuman & Brian Volck, M.D., Reclaiming the Body, p. 31
15. John Driver, Kingdom Citizens, p. 74
16. John Driver, Images of the Church in Mission, p. 211

The following is a nine point summary I’ve been working on of the Biblical story. I’m trying to capture an overall picture of Biblical history and where key doctrinal concepts fit in (listed in parentheses). It’s not perfect or complete, but I’ve found it helpful in thinking through the purpose and mission of the church.

The Biblical Story

1. The Trinity exists in loving communion.
2. The Trinity creates man and invites him into this communion (Kingdom of God).
3. Man rejects the Kingdom of God and becomes lost (Fall).
4. The Trinity initiates a redemptive plan to restore man to the Kingdom of God (Salvation & Redemption).
5. Israel becomes the embodied witness of the Kingdom of God and participates in the redemptive plan (Abrahamic Covenant).
6. Israel fails to fully carry out the redemptive plan by becoming parochial and self-absorbed (Apostasy).
7. The Trinity intervenes through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, the second Person of the Trinity, radically moving the redemptive plan towards its fulfillment (Incarnation, Atonement, Resurrection).
8. Worldwide local communities of a changed, transcultural people, empowered by the Holy Spirit, become the new embodied witnesses of the Kingdom of God, participating in the redemptive plan, and prefiguring the coming New Creation (Church, Great Commission).
9. Christ returns bringing the fulfillment of the redemptive plan (Second Coming, New Creation).

Trying to create a policy that would enable us to capture and retain the lessons learned from last summer’s TV and electronic entertainment fast was a challenge. We wanted to continue to reap the benefits of having more time for personal development and relationship building, an atmosphere in our midst that spoke of spirituality and peace, and freedom from the tyranny of passive and superficial entertainment.

We didn’t want, however, to corporately over-regulate our personal discipleship. This can become a slippery slope and subjective nightmare. The areas we would need to regulate with a policy could easily expand endlessly. And often the standard by which regulations are created can be highly influenced by cultural preferences and outlooks. There’s just too much gray. Additionally, while we recognize the benefit of establishing group standards that reinforce personal growth, we realize these can never be a substitute for individually developing discipline and self-control.

Weighing these pros and cons led us to come up with a policy that we’re finding is quite effective. To help us regularly awaken to the negative impact electronic entrainment may be having on us, we’ve agreed to have an annual fast during the Eastertide season. Eastertide is the seven weeks between Easter and Pentecost. This year we started a tradition of celebrating the seven days of creation (and looking toward the New Creation) for each week during the season with special meals and events. We thought it appropriate to sharpen our focus during that time by also fasting from the Tube.

We also agreed to not watch any TV or play video games during the day time. This keeps the incessant noise down and cultivates a healthy atmosphere of work, study, and prayer. Really, there isn’t much time available anyways during the day, but this eliminates the before breakfast, at lunch, and after school possibilities. After dinner we do allow the Tube to be enjoyed. But again, with homework, meetings, and other events the time is limited, yet the opportunity is there.

Also, we’ve decided to declare Saturday evening to Sunday evening our “sabbath” time, so no electronic indulgence during that period. We want to set aside this time to renew ourselves in God and our relationships. Saturday night we usually have small groups and Sunday morning is our main service. Keeping that time clear of distracting electronic noise sharpens our senses for the spiritual.

So, that basically leaves us time in the evenings, except Saturday, for electronic entertainment. This makes it more of a special, planned event, as it probably should be. A couple exceptions: the last Saturday of each month is unscheduled. There are no community planned activities or responsibilities. This is a nice day for fun and renewal for our families. We decided to allow the Tube on that day. The same goes for holidays and vacation.

Well, that’s it. We can always change it, but for now it seems to be working for us. Community is a wonderful place where we can, together, figure out how to live out the gospel in practical ways.

Our summer fast from TV and electronic games taught us a lot about ourselves and community. We saw that this medium had a greater hold on us than we would like to admit, and that it could hinder our personal growth and relationships. The fast made us all aware of these things and universally we felt we needed to alter our lifestyle in some way. The difficulty was in trying to figure out what are the principles that should govern a policy we might create.

At first, we were tempted to have a “throw the stupid thing in the dump” reaction. Obviously, electronic entertainment was sapping a lot of life out of us, so why not just do away with it? That seemed like the righteous thing to do. But we could see some good that has come from the Tube: educational programs, dramatizations of classic literature, teachings, fun, and fellowship. Also, some of the fathers have had memorable times playing video games with their kids.

Our next thought centered on regulating content and usage. We know of other communities that have committees that approve movies and music for their community’s consumption, and they strictly regulate when these things can be enjoyed. This thought had some appeal because it would keep a unified standard in the community and would also act as a helpful control structure for those less disciplined. The downside was that we weren’t sure where to draw the line: why just movies? Perhaps we should think about regulating books, desserts, attire, etc.. We do have some general standards for these things already, but should we form a committee to regulate these more specifically? Why limit just electronic entertainment (that’s making you stay up late and exercising a negative influence) when reading a book can have the same effect? And besides, where is self-control in all this? Shouldn’t the Christian be actively developing his judgment and self-discipline?

Yet, it was the joint fast that really helped us. On our own, most of us probably wouldn’t have come to the insights we have now. The group dynamic really made a difference (kind of like exercising together with a friend or in a class…it strengthens your resolve). Plus, the atmosphere created in the community during the fast was noticeable. We wanted to retain that. None of us had an appetite to just go back to how it was.

Principles began to emerge as we discussed these things. External policies are good for creating corporate atmosphere or environment. Generally, that is their proper purview – regulating the common life among us. We want to model a different value system and priority in this world. We want our home to be a place of peace and spirituality, not noise and dissipation. In one word, we want to create “liminality.” Benedict Groeschel defines what I mean by this, “Liminality derives from the Latin limen (which means threshold or edge) and refers in this case to people who live beyond the accepted norms of the establishment.” We want to stand in contrast to a society that doesn’t recognize the way of the kingdom. So, whatever policy we come up with should somehow help us in this goal.

Secondly, the policy should help us get a vision for a more disciplined life and yet not dominate in such a way that one’s will is atrophied. In other words, if I never have to exercise self-control because the options for indulgence just don’t exist, I won’t grow. We want to cultivate interior righteousness, not lifeless, external righteousness. For the Christian, love is a “want to” not a “have to.” Our policy must aid us in our endeavor to mature as Christians.

We were able to craft such a policy and next post I’ll share what it is.

Our summer fast from electronic entertainment has been an interesting experiment. One consequence of the fast was to see how much power this medium had over us. Foregoing something you enjoy for a significant time educates you about yourself and your motivations. You learn that you may have overestimated your level of self-control or that your use of time has been unwise. It can teach you about what you’re neglecting and what you’re missing out on.

Two of our teens, Pat and Brittany, have written down some of their thoughts about our experiment and some articles we read together during the fast.

Pat says:

The passive pursuit of television is a key idea that has stuck out to me through this article and our TV fast. Above any other psychological effect TV has on us I think that the passiveness of TV watching or video game playing is the main danger of the medium. Something that surprised me when we ended the TV fast was that I actually did not have the desire to go watch TV or play video games like I used to. Being unplugged forces you to spend your time actively, engaged with those around you.

Another subject that I found interesting is how TV feeds emotionalism and hinders the logical thought process. It is so true that you can watch the news for an hour and really not get any more information out of it than you would reading a ten minute article on the event. TV flashes images which make you feel in touch with what is going on without the need of giving you real substance. Emotionalism blocks your mind from judging reality for what it is.

TV can truly be a “blood-sucking parasite” as Frank Schaeffer puts it. The passivity of TV watching leaves a hole in one’s life if left unchecked. I have greatly benefited from the recent awareness in our community to this subject.

Brittany agrees and adds:

The one point that really stuck out to me, however, was this: television encourages a loss of the “immediate community.” It makes you out of sync and out of touch with the people who are around you. I can relate. I have found myself getting so sucked into the hockey game I am watching that I don’t pay much attention to the people around me. Short of the house burning down, I really won’t know what’s going on – until the next commercial. Television, in and of itself, is not evil and is not bad. However, if we allow ourselves to be accosted constantly through this medium, it can be harmful. Television is to be used as entertainment, not as a replacement for reality.

Next post I’ll share how we decided to manage the Tube.

In the spring our community decided to conduct an experiment with our electronic entertainment. We decided to fast TV and video gaming for the summer. We went unplugged. We did allow for some fun in front of the Tube during one’s vacation and holidays, but generally we went cold turkey from the drug that TV can be. When I use the phrase “watching TV”, I don’t necessarily mean watching broadcast television, which few of us do, but I refer to any time one’s eyes are fastened to the flickering Tube that shoots pictures into one’s brain. Mostly that’s watching DVDs and playing video games.

We’ve been inspired by other communities we know who have “no TV” policies. Also, we wanted to find out just how much of a hold this medium has over us. Admittedly, it was a little difficult for most of us. It’s all too easy to pop in a DVD in the evening when we feel the day has been full of stress, or to let an embarrassing amount of time pass unnoticed while we aim to master a new game on a PC or gaming console. These things provide much pleasure, and in their proper place, a legitimate opportunity to learn, explore, and have fun. But, ah, that illusive concept of “proper place” is the problem. How do you know what that is?

Well, for one thing, the unplugged fast made it a lot clearer. Before the fast, “proper place” was a very subjective idea and all kinds of arguments could be raised to justify spending time with the Tube. “I’m too tired to read”, “My brain is gone”, “I had a hard day”, “I want to see that big news story”, “Just a couple more minutes until I get to the next level”, etc., etc.. But during the fast, those excuses and any others were just not valid. It’s a fast – that means no, none, zippo, nada, not an option! Wow, that’s clear. How many times do I have to tell myself that?

So the fast accomplished at least one thing: It showed us how much we were deceived. We mostly thought that we had a handle on this thing. But, truth be told, TV had a handle on us.

Next post I’ll share how we reacted to this revelation.

Another Mike Mason quote:

“If you want to know God’s unconditional love, try loving Him that way.”