Tag: Story

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Gospel

There’s an app (verse) for that!

The metaverse brings a new breed of threats to challenge privacy and security gatekeepers | CSO Online

According to businessofapps.com, the top 10 most popular apps in the United States in 2022 were TikTok, Instagram, CashApp, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Subway Surfers, Roblox, Amazon, Messenger, and Facebook.

No matter what it is you want to do (dining, directions, dating . . .), there is an app for that. If you were in the dark and needed an app, there’s a flashlight app for that. If you’re lost and in need of a map, there’s an app for that.

The Bible works much the same way. Not only is it a light and a map for life, it works much the same way as a phone with all its apps. No matter what you’re struggling with: Anger, Bitterness, Contentment; there’s a verse for that.

For example, let’s say your struggle is with Worry. Have you read Mat. 6:25-34; Phil. 4:6-7; 1 Peter 5:6-7; Ps. 37:3-7?  With a good topical or life application study Bible, you can find verses that will help you with your issue.

We all have problems, faults, and hang-up’s, it’s only the Pharisees who won’t admit they have them. Until we’re desperate and broken, we cannot be revived. When we’re revived, we’ll hunger and thirst for God’s Word.

You probably know by now that Facebook changed it name to the Meta, turning the word metaverse into a household name. What is the Metaverse? Wikipedia says, “In science fiction, the “metaverse” is a hypothetical iteration of the Internet as a single, universal, and immersive virtual world that is facilitated by the use of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) headsets.” Boy, we’re not far off, are we (read my last post)?

As cool as the Metaverse could be, it will never compare to the Metanarrative, the great and grand narrative of Scripture that is comprehensive and overarching with its lesser stories of Creation, Fall, Rescue, and Restoration. From Genesis to Revelation, we come across 66 books that present to us a Great Story which includes our own stories (lives). Who or what stands at the center  of The Story? It is none other than Jesus Christ and the redemption that he offers to you and me. When we accept his offer of salvation, his story becomes our story.

When his story becomes our story, we then have an obligation to go share The Story. We do this by sharing Jesus with others! We can share the Great Story of Creation, Fall, Rescue, and Restoration or we can share our own story of the aforementioned sub-categories (that’s called a testimony or life-story).

Even when the day comes where we find ourselves in the Metaverse shopping, gaming, and living our lives through a digital avatar while on our virtual headsets, we still need to be sharing the Metanarrative of Scripture.

Some of this may sound like its coming from a land far far away on a galaxy written about in some sci-fi book. It’s not! Over 50 percent of people living on this current universe are active social media users. Technology is not going to slow down. It’s only going to speed up. There’s a verse for that: Daniel 12:4

4 But you, Daniel, roll up and seal the words of the scroll until the time of the end. Many will go here and there to increase knowledge.

 

 

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Articles

Some good news

Catholic in Brooklyn: The Message of Ascension Thursday

Scripture teaches us that churches have five ministries or functions given to them by Jesus, the Head of the Church. Pastor Rick Warrren called these ministries the five purposes and wrote books that taught both churches and the lives of individual believers should be driven by Fellowship, Missions, Worship, Discipleship, and Evangelism.

COVID-19 disrupted church life as we know it in 2020. Fellowship was handicapped when events, classes, and meetings were postponed or cancelled. Missions or service to others was limited when people were mandated to stay-at-home. Due to state regulations and guidelines, Worship capacity in our facilities and buildings were capped at a percentile that drove down attendance and required us to physically distance ourselves from one another. Discipleship turned digital, unfortunately causing the discipleship ball to be dropped in locations that had not previously readied themselves in and for the coming digital revolution. Likewise, as human contact decreased, Evangelism took on new forms.

The ministries of the church have been hurt by the pandemic, but in more subtle ways, the ministries of the church have also been helped. Churches have been able to become stronger in ministry areas they were weaker in because well, they were forced to. One ministry area the church desperately needs to capitalize on in this time of crisis is Evangelism. Currently, medical companies are sending out vaccines to defeat the evil coronavirus. Are we being evangelistic and letting the world know that Jesus has already defeated sin, death, and hell?

Are we sharing The Story: creation, fall, rescue, and restoration? Are we sharing the grand narrative of the gospel story that takes the stories of our lives and begins to make sense out of them?

Creation: This world was a beautiful place at its inception. It was virus-free!

Fall: Due to man’s original sin in the garden, creation itself now suffers and we have to deal with viruses such as Covid-19.

Rescue: Thankfully, Jesus came to heal us from all our sins and one day . . .

Restoration: . . . We won’t have to worry about the virus called sin that infects us all or sickness such as the coronavirus!

In a world full of bad news, people are dying to hear some good news. Will you be the one that shares it with them?

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Articles

A Better Story

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Much of the next generation has become enamored with the promises and perks offered to them by a political ideology that is propagated and promoted by mass media, big tech companies, and incessant ads. This soft totalitarianism has traces of socialism, marxism, and communism in it which is mixed together into a woke capitalism that catapults itself off of a materialistic and consumerist culture like ours. It’s harder to identify than communist regimes of the past because it masquerades and disguises itself in a form that the normal American is not used to seeing.

We eat, live, and breathe in a world like this 24/7, but up until this point, I have not understood why America’s next generation has bought into this semi-foreign ideology hook, line, and sinker. That is, until I read Rob Dreyer’s book Live Not By Lies: A Manuel for Christian Dissidents. In chapter two of his book, Dreyer lists some interesting quotes:

“Totalitarian movements are mass organization of atomized, isolated individuals.”

Due to the next gen’s growing isolation and anxiety in a highly “connected” world, “it is no coincidence that millenials and members of Generation Z register much higher rates of loneliness than older Americans, as well as significantly greater support for socialism. It’s as if they aspire to a politics that can replace the community they wish they had.”

“A polity filled with alienated individuals who share little sense of community and purpose are prime targets for totalitarian ideologies and leaders who promise solidarity and meaning.”

“Why are people so willing to believe demonstrable lies? The desperation alienated people have for a story that helps them make sense of their lives and tells them what to do explains it. For a man desperate to believe, totalitarian ideology is more precious than life itself.”

Did you catch the “why?” It’s really not that hard. The next gen has been swept into a narrative that promises them a utopian future for a better world and though they may not live to see everything they dream of and about this future world, they have a significant part to play.

The next gen is willing to acquiesce to socialism and surrender their hopes, their energy, and even their finances to Big Brother and Big Business because of the utopian worldview that it offers. Those who believe in this ideology will stop at no costs and even no means to— violently, if need be—set the wheels in motion for this belief system to take off in America.

This explains much of what we have seen in 2020 with Antifa, Black Lives Matter Global Network, and even police defunding all becoming prominent issues. History nor the constitution matter to these ideologues. Dreyer writes, “In 2019, The New York Times . . . launched the ‘1619 project,’ a massive attempt to ‘reframe’ American history by displacing the 1776 Declaration of Independence as the traditional founding of the United States, replacing it with the year the first African slaves arrived in North America . . . It’s goal is to revise America’s national identity by making race hatred central to the nation’s foundational myth.” Is there any need for me to mention all of our national monuments that were pulled down?

Ok, you already knew all of that . . . so, what’s the point of this post? The point is The Bible offers both you and the next generation a better story. The Bible is a book of 66 books written over thousands of years by many different authors in many different genres which has stood the test of time. Your story, my story, everyone’s story can be found in the Good Book! But, you and I must take time to read it, to share it, to teach it, and ultimately, to live it. Unlike the multitude of instantaneous satisfactions offered to us by the world, the God of the Bible is someone to be experienced and someone you can never exhaust. God, unlike man, does not even get exhausted, though he may get exhausted of his creation constantly bypassing him for ideologies that pale in comparison to his far-weightier glory.

I challenge you and I challenge the next generation to shut off all social media outlets, all of the news coverage, and all of the high-tech advertising and marketing ploys long enough to read His Story. Reading the Bible cannot and will not happen in a day. But, what you will find as you dig into it over time is a history that is proven and a man named Jesus that stands in the beginning, middle, and end of it all. This man offers a better way because He is The Way!