Future Shock or a Future Rock?

There is no question that the capacity of science and technology to impact our lives is significant and shocking in its scope. The strange thing is the way in which such enterprises often attempt to mimic or create technological realities that reflect adaptations of what should be generally a part of our life experience. For example, would you prefer to have the room you are sitting in suddenly change to reflect the words of the book you were reading in temperature, or light, or sound, or visual effect? Somehow I think I prefer to allow my mind to develop the imagery of written description without having the room “come alive.” Yet, that is a technology being discussed as available in homes of the future. Heaven forbid if we were reading an account of the Holocaust. If we read a Russian novel set in the frozen tundra, we might have “real” frostbite before we could finish the book if our home interior “cooled” to book described temperatures.

Some of our larger cities have enjoyed the views created by high-rise buildings. The strange fact is, as new buildings are built, those old views often become lost in the walled structures of neighboring high-rises that not only block out the normal sunlight and the dramatic views in the distance, but they create artificially hot climates in the summer and unusually windy environments in the winter simply by the architecture. Technology allows for many interesting changes, but with them comes the new concerns for indoor air pollution, higher rates of disease with denser populations crowded into ever smaller areas and serious questions regarding the use of basic resources like water necessary for growing population centers. Western cities in the U.S. are struggling to meet water resource needs in many states. Southern Florida is likewise being impacted with water supplies dwindling and water from N. Florida now being required in the south.

“Future technologies” indicate many fascinating capacities, yet will it be a picture of a forest that we will have to remind us of those things that once were or will it be a walk in the forest? Will it be the image of a long open beach or will it be a walk on the beach we experience? Will it be the image of an imagined reality chosen from a computer generated list of options, or will it be a thought allowed to mature and develop in our imaginations in ways that only the human mind can process and consider?

Our choices are many as we look to the future…but until we grapple with some of the basic issues once more, our technological novelties may prove little more than distractions in the face of many of the problems that remain. Unfortunately, from our affluent Western perspective, what we may find in our vast array of future capabilities is the continuing willingness of many people to reduce and restrain their own capacities to act, to respond, and to think in exchange for a new wave of narcissism and mind-numbing spectator “activity” that separates us from exposure to the most basic of human needs. Will we make any endeavor to resolve the matters of hunger and poverty and lack of education that create many of the circumstances which breed war and violence across the world? Will we be sensitive to the spiritual void in which many exist, hungering for the day when someone might share with them the message of God’s love and grace? Will we be watching our recipes projected across the walls of our kitchen, to the tune of music selected by satellite transmission from a digital bank of musical recordings, while waiting for the door to inform us which child is arriving home in time to sit down at their projection wall and have their school books read to them by the text recognition software scanner and their math problems completed by the auto-intuitive statistical analyzer and forwarded to their data correction advisor via light particles…maybe…or we may discover a world of disease, pain, suffering, and conflict continuing to self-destruct because of our failure to honor God and to love our neighbors. The stewardship of material things may bring to us opportunities, but unless we frame those capacities with the divine wisdom of our creator and the redemptive message of Christ Jesus our Lord, then we will continue to suffer the consequences of our own delusions of grandeur.

Jeremiah 2:19 pronounces the realities of experience to those who reject God in the midst of material distractions: “Your wickedness will punish you, and your apostasies will convict you. Know and see that it is evil and bitter for you to forsake the Lord your God; the fear of me is not in you, says the Lord God of hosts.”

The challenge for Christians in these days is to follow Christ in the midst of a world clamoring for us to follow everything else. Such a choice will mean the sacrifice of many lesser things in exchange for treasure in heaven. Being a part of the kingdom of Heaven is worth everything. It was worth Christ coming, his dying, and his rising again to make it possible for you. Will you acknowledge Him daily as “the Rock” of your salvation and future?

Ethics and Values in the Workplace

The cultural expectation for ethical decision-making in the workplace is often low. At the same time, new efforts to garner the strength of ethical decision-making into corporate policy and political will are often negotiable in a climate of sensitivity and awareness. As the consumer generally becomes better informed in the process of making value choices relating to products and services, there arises a consciousness of choices bringing opportunity for ethical discussion and attentiveness.

One example is the association of some product manufacturing with child labor abuses. Publicity citing incidences of such abuse typically create political and social debate that ultimately affects at some level the processes being used for making such choices at the level of suppliers and distributors. Those with a conscience about such matters will in turn modify their business decisions to reflect their values.

Equally important is the capacity of consumers to affect the market when they too join in ethical actions relating to marketplace decisions. The “Green” business revolution is coming of age in the growth of industry that reflects positive stewardship toward the environment and in the manufacturing processes utilized. Also evidenced in current trends are choices regarding renewable resources versus non-renewable resource use.

Energy choices that impact the environment negatively may be modified to utilize newer technologies and improved stewardship of the environment. Values education that grows from a theological perspective typically orients an appreciation for creation with the responsibility toward others to multiply “good works” that respect ones fellow human beings and the needs of future generations.

Equally important to the ethics and values exercised in the workplace are those that are sensitive to issues of justice and truthfulness. Market strategies that have as their underlying intent a deception of consumers or an appeal to inappropriate desires or behaviors should be curtailed and effected by the cultural demands for better. A significant reality that must be understood is the “lowest common denominator” of acceptability in practices and actions. In China, tax evasion can carry a death sentence. That fact curtails abuse to a significant degree. Cultural expectations of a rampant consumerism tend to be lowered by the “buyers beware” assumption. Better business practice that provides accurate product claims and presentation, accompanied by a high level of quality and service associated with the distribution and serviceability of the products lead to greater confidence and greater value to the consumer.

Generations of high quality effort could transform the culture to provide a generation of goods that are useful for a lifetime of service and a service mindset that sets standards of excellence that can be multiplied throughout the culture.

When Jesus implied that actions toward “the least of these” were equivalent to actions toward him, it raised the standard for us all. We should be compelled to act in good will and good witness in the workplace and beyond to share an intent to honor Christ as his followers with every opportunity, with every action, and with every future decision.

A Prayer for Newly Elected Leaders

(adapted from Psalm 37)

Heavenly Father,

Today we pray for those have been newly elected to public office to provide leadership to our community, our county, our state, and our nation.

We pray for your truth to guide them in the decisions they will be asked to make in the coming days.

We pray for your wisdom to instruct them and we pray that their trust might be in your perfect leading.

Help them to do good, O Lord.

Help them to live each day in the knowledge of your grace and provision.

Help them to trust in you and to not fret in the face of evil, but to be patient as you handle the conflicts, allowing those who look to you to refrain from anger and wrath and to enjoy great peace in your joy.

Enable them, O God, to know the wealth of your resources as the sustaining provision for each day. Help them to be generous in spirit and action, conscious that your mercies sustain and bless them in such efforts.

May every action taken be pleasing to you, O Lord. For in that measure, we are judged most perfectly.

In times of trouble, may we know you as our stronghold and salvation, our refuge and deliverer. Help each of us to ever trust you, love you, and serve you, O God, as we remember your promise to make our righteousness shine like the dawn, and our earnest pursuit of justice to be like the light of the noonday sun.

Thank you God for reminding us that there is indeed a future for those men and women of peace, to those willing to turn from evil and to do good.

Thank you God for these who have been entrusted with such a responsibility for leadership and may we as a people respect them, and encourage them in all those endeavors that will ever be ordained in your sight as righteous and good and worthy of your blessing.

Through Christ Jesus our Savior, we pray.

AMEN

Renegotiating Church Priorities

Without overt pessimism regarding the “state of churches in America” I begin by suggesting that the time is long overdue for a reevaluation of what priorities should be the central interest of congregations.

Via media, it is implied that the critical issues are the endorsement of influential political candidates in order to sustain “Christian” views in the political arenas of our time. Likewise, of interest are the widespread popularity of “success gospel messages” relating a light touch in regard to the witness of scripture and a “spoon full of sugar” to get the masses interested in what the church might have to say. In the meantime, what is often suggested is in contradiction to the witness of the scriptures, but an idea that has the enraptured interest of the masses because it is what they have been looking for…religion without sacrifice, success in the eyes of the world without accountability to God, and an easy does it frame of relationship that doesn’t ask too much, expect to much, or get too personal in terms of God speaking and leading. After all…we are busy.

On the other hand, we live in a time when encroaching secularization has ruled the day. Every other priority claims the allegiance of time and energy before Christ and the church. Leadership searches among congregations find the pool of prepared and willing workers drying up in the face of overload in the entertainment industry…Too much TV, too much radio, too much telephone, too much internet, too much of the time. The distractions to faith and practice are just too easy to embrace at the expense of everything. Families are lost in the mesmerizing agendas of our society. We are told that to be successful we must achieve in ways that the masses will understand. Bigger is always better. Bigger pocketbooks, bigger net worth, bigger stuff. It means success!

Those ideas carryover into the ideas propagated within the household of faith.
Bigger barns win out over sharing with the needy...bigger buildings with bigger crowds, with bigger bands and bigger screens make for bigger and better worship. Where in the New Testament is that idea? Should we honor God with our best…absolutely, but the reality of our commitment and relationship to Christ is measured by our hearts and actions in obedience to his commands.

When was the last time you heard of churches setting the first priority of ministry as sharing the good news of Jesus? When was the last time you saw a congregation prioritizing loving others in the name of Christ? When was it set in gold that the church should love God and neighbor as the basis for all their ministry? Rarely do we find such priorities in actual use of time and resources and capacities. We have lost a sense of congregational worship, congregational ministry, congregational evangelism, and congregational service. Instead, we have instituted a clergy-based, specialist-led, ministry-by-professional mentality. Christ calls every believer to invest themselves in the kingdom of God. Christ calls every believer to know the empowering presence of the Holy Spirit. Christ calls every believer to use their God-given gifts in service to Him. Christ calls his church to bear witness to the nations…all of them…to people everywhere of every culture-group and language. Christ calls the church to use every resource to carry out a divine mission. It is a mission that requires all of us engaged and sharing and working and witnessing and living in Christ as His people. The priorities of the church require a movement away from “churchianity” and toward Christ. We must reconnect to the model of Christ as the basis for what we do and say and how we live. It is the need of this hour…of this generation…and of this world that so desperately is starving for direction and purpose and meaning and truth and a Savior. We must point to Christ. We must share His good news. The church must reclaim its identity in the world as people of faith…following Jesus.