 In 2004, there was a young girl that walked out onto a beach in Thailand. She was only 10 years old, she was there on vacation with her parents. As she walked out on the beach, she sensed that something was wrong. Something was wrong in the scene before her. She saw boats out in the distance that were violently bobbing up and down. She saw the water was becoming foaming and the tide was going out. And instantly she recognized what it was just two weeks earlier she'd been in a geography class. And her Mr. Kearney had told her the signs of a tsunami. And she began to scream urgently. And people around her didn't know exactly what she was talking about, but they sensed the urgency that she had. Her parents sensed it and they began to holler. People began to run off of that beach and run up to the hotel, and the hotel was evacuated. And because of a little girl named Tilly Smith, no one on that beach was killed that day when a wave came crashing in just a few minutes later. A newspaper reporter interviewed her and she said this. Last term Mr. Kearney taught us about earthquakes and how they can cause tsunamis. I was on the beach and the water started to go funny. There were bubbles and the tide went out all of a sudden. I recognized what was happening and I had a feeling there was going to be a tsunami. And I told Mummy, we're here this afternoon talking about technology because we sense around us that something is wrong. We sense that the water is going funny. We're seeing young men get caught up in pornography. We're seeing young women get caught up in social media. We sense ourselves being caught up in a constant distraction around us. We're caught up in the tyranny of the urgent getting excited about things clear around the globe and sometimes forgetting things that are happening locally. Sometimes we find our lives being ruled by beeps and buzzes and vibrations and we sense that something is wrong. This afternoon as we talk about this, I want to start with two thoughts. First of all, God has not left us without hope. God has promised to be with us. We don't need to be concerned that all of this is taking him by surprise. He's known about it from the beginning. But the second point is this. I'm convinced if we're going to survive, it's going to take more. It's going to take more prayerful Holy Ghost discernment. It's going to take more commitment in local brotherhood. It's going to take more seeking of God. It's going to take more diligence, more willingness to give up present pleasure and convenience because of a pursuit after holiness. Today I want to look at five different areas. First of all, historical perspective. Just a brief look back at how fast things have changed. Second, some potential spiritual dangers. There's something very alluring about electronic technology. It's important that we prayerfully consider what's happening. Third, there's potential Kingdom blessing here. There's tremendous good. The gospel is going out today in ways the Apostle Paul could never have dreamed of. We're going to look at some positive effects of electronic technology. Facing the challenge collectively. What should churches do? What should our brotherhoods do? Should they stay removed from this? Is it up to the family? Is it up to the individual? What should our churches be doing? And finally, seeking higher ground. That's actually the only way to escape a tsunami. Let's start by historical perspective. We live in an incredible time. Our world has changed so fast. And some of you that are younger especially don't realize how fast this has happened. It's been an amazing change. We could talk about communications. Just all the ways that communication has changed rapidly. Or maybe healthcare. Dramatic changes in healthcare. Or we could think about computing power or on and on. But just for a moment, I want to think about just one area. And that's the area of transportation. You know, from the beginning of time, as far back as that is, the furthest a man could travel in one day was 40 miles. They say caravans could go about 20 miles. A horse could go up to 40. Ships could go 30 to 40 if the wind was with you. But I want you to notice on this graph for hundreds, thousands of years there was no change. It was absolutely the same. Finally in 1829 there was a contest. The steam locomotive got up to the incredible speed of 28 miles per hour. Now think about that on this timeline. That's incredible from a historic perspective. In two hours a man could now travel more than an entire day. That's amazing change. Then came the internal combustion engine and cars and airplanes. And in 1923 was the first transcontinental flight across America. Imagine this from a historical perspective. Then there was space travel. And today you can be almost anywhere on the globe in one day. But I want you to notice the brief amount of time all of this occurred in. That's sudden change. That's a change that happened very dramatically. We've grown up with it. Many of us we don't think about it. But tremendous change from a historical perspective. Now I want to look a little bit at computer technology. The heart of electronic technology is the transistor. In 1947 the first transistor was built and it was about the size of the palm of your hand. And you can look at the palm of your hand just think about the size of a transistor. A transistor is simply a little electronic valve that turns off and on. And with enough of those you can hold information or transmit information. Gordon Moore was a co-founder at Intel. He made a prediction in 1965 that in every year he felt like they were going to reduce the size of the transistor to where they could get twice the amount of transistors in any given space. And in 1975 he changed that to every two years they would double. That prediction was largely true for 40 years. 40 years every year we were doubling every two years the amount of transistors you could fit in a square inch. Now that brought the price down dramatically. You know in an Apple today an Apple iPhone you go by an Apple iPhone is 4.3 billion transistors in that little machine. Maybe those numbers don't mean anything to you but just think about this. If a transistor was still the size of the palm of your hand it would take about 6,000 acres for that little computer you have in your pocket to work. Now it's also done something else. It's decreased the cost. This isn't just an American thing. This is a global thing. It was last year I was in the country of India. I was in the city of Calcutta and I went out early one morning to an area where laborers meet and they meet there to try to find work for that day. And I went out just interviewing them trying to discern a little about their lives and how they're surviving. These individuals were out there trying to find work for the day and it was $3 a day that they could make in one day. And as I interviewed one of them this lady asked me through the translator do you mind if I take your picture? And I said I didn't mind and to my amazement she pulled out a smartphone. She was using a smartphone to take my picture and took her picture because I was amazed the fact that someone that's trying to find a job at $3 a day could afford a smartphone. Now what do we do with all this? Where's all this going? I want to say first of all historically there have been many, many false alarms. I'm not going to go through very many of them but just to give you a picture I want to go through a couple of them. Many unjustified concerns. People have been very concerned every time change has happened. We haven't been very good at predicting technology's future. Here's a memo from Western Union 1878. This telephone has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value. We haven't been good. There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home. This is from a man who was the head of digital equipment back when mainframes were the main thing. There's also been major fears. Notice this one. Dear Mr. President the canal system of this country is being threatened by a new form of transportation known as railroads. As you may well know Mr. President railroad carriages are pulled at the enormous speed of 15 miles per hour by engines which in addition to endangering life and limb of passengers roar and snort their way through the countryside setting fire to crops, scaring the livestock and frightening the women and children. The Almighty certainly never intended that people should travel at such a breakneck speed. The question today is this. Are we overreacting? Maybe we're overreacting. And we have to concede that is a possibility. The primary concern is this. You know many of our concerns are things we're not familiar with. In fact, Alan K. a computer science said this technology is anything invented after you were born. We seem to be comfortable with things we grow up with. My father grew up in a time when he was a young boy where they didn't have electric switches. He talked about the first night when they had electric switches. He said they nearly wore those switches out. They went through the house. They couldn't imagine the magic of this. Just flipping on a switch and the light went on. I grew up and didn't think a thing about that. This means that things that we are not comfortable with now our children will be comfortable with. In other words, things progress onward. Let's talk a little about defining technology. What do we mean? We're going to talk primarily about electronic technology today. Strictly speaking, technology is science or knowledge put into practical use to solve problems or invent useful tools or things we create to make our lives easier or better. Technology is more than just electronics. Technology is an attempt by man to make our life easier or better. It's taking something that we already do and trying to do it better. For example, we can see, but we want to see further. We want to see way out there. We want to see around corners. We want to see around the other side of the globe. Sometimes we want to even see things we shouldn't be looking at. It's an extension of vision or memory. We can remember things, but we want to remember better. We want to take a pen and paper and write things down to remember. That's technology. Or speaking and hearing. We want to talk to someone further away than what we can talk to or listen to things. That's technology. It's an extension or transportation to move faster than what our legs can actually take us. All of this is technology. Years ago, I found maybe some of you have seen this, a humorous little comic. It shows some cavemen standing around holding meat over the fire. One of them gets the bright idea of using a stick to hold the meat over the fire. One of them says, hey, look what Zog's doing. In this situation, stick is technology. It's what it's doing. So the question we want to look at today is, is electronic technology different? We've looked at the fears of the past. Maybe we're overreacting. Or is this different? I want to consider an example just to help stir your mind a little bit. Let's talk about a butcher knife for a minute. Maybe you don't think that a butcher knife is technology, but if you've ever tried to cut up meat without one, you'll find out it's very useful technology, actually. And yet, even though a butcher knife is technology, we don't leave it laying around, do we? Now, we put it up high. There's danger in that thing. So we don't let children play with it. We put it up maybe in a holder on the counter. Let's change this just a little. What about a butcher knife versus a smartphone? Both of these are tools. Is there a difference? Well, we could say, yeah, there's a difference. One could hurt a body, but the other could hurt a soul. Let's just say we put a good filter on that iPhone. We've got a good filter that will control this thing, and now you can get nothing on it that's bad, let's say. Now are they equal? Now, I want to propose today they're not equal. Let me tell you why. We're having some early warnings from this one. I mentioned earlier that water is acting strangely. I want to give you an example. In 2012, I was in the country of Romania. And I had been sent to Eastern Europe for a specific purpose. There's many people there who went through times of persecution under the Orthodox Church, under the Communism. And many of them were getting older, and we wanted to interview these people and just find out their stories. So day after day, I listened to stories of people who had been through torture and persecution and imprisonment. And I sat around a kitchen table in what I'd call a middle-class Romanian home. And there were three men there. It was a grandfather, his son, and his grandson. These are the three men, the grandfather's 85 years old at this time. He was raised in Roman Orthodox, Romanian Orthodox Church. He grew up with little actual knowledge of Jesus. He came to faith in 1949. And at age 22, he faced immediate persecution for his faith. Specifically from the Orthodox Church. He was shunned by neighbors and family. In 1965, Ceausescu came into power in Romania, and Marcel, on the left, was 12 years old at that time. During this time, the Romanian government was persecuting believers, and neighbors watched each other. Christians were arrested. They were imprisoned. They were persecuted. Risk was normal. It was just part of Christian life to them. Marcel decided to follow Jesus during this time. Persecution had been normal in his father's world. It was normal in his world. It was just simply a part of following Jesus. In 1975, when Marcel was only 26 years old, he decided to help smuggle Bibles. And he did night after night. He would run his little car packed, clear full of Bibles for hundreds of kilometers to help get Russian Bibles over the Danube, River, and across. He couldn't even read the Bibles himself. He didn't understand Russian. He just simply had a desire to bless believers who were in Russia. Night after night, he risked torture. He risked imprisonment. He risked death to simply help other believers. Now, both Marcel and his father grew up in the persecuted church, and yet the church thrived. They talked to me about how Sunday mornings were packed. Wednesday night services, they couldn't get everyone in. People were willing to risk. They took me out to a place where they had baptisms. There was a pond there. It was way out in the woods. They would go either by twos. They said as many as 600 people would go out there at night to witness a baptism. There was tremendous zeal and fire in that church. They said they couldn't think of any children that were lost during that time. There was another young man there. His name's Paul. Paul was 19 years old. After we got all done listening to their stories, I said, Paul, how's your life going? He said, you know, I grew up hearing these stories, but my life today is so different. It's just different. I long for the vibrancy, for the zeal, for the enthusiasm that my father and my grandfather have, but my generation just doesn't have it. Paul was very honest. He said, I would love to have a closer relationship with God. I just wish I did. And I said, what's the problem? He said, probably the biggest obstacle in my life is technology. He said, you know, I come home from school. And he said, every day I go straight to the computer and I spend roughly about six hours a day on the computer. He said, I have email. I have social media. I have movies. He said, that's probably the thing that bothers me the most, the greatest challenge in my life is movies. He said this, for me, movies are a problem. There are times when I think very seriously about this, because I know it is affecting my spiritual life. Sometimes I try making promises, knowing I have to cut out some of these things out. They take a lot of my time. Paul seemed genuinely perplexed about his inability to overcome the allure of electronic technology. I want you to consider this scenario closely. Three men. Three risks. One of them went up against the Orthodox Church and for years faced persecution. One of them faced persecution against the Orthodox and the Communism. And the third one just has electronic technology and ease. You know, as I listened, I had to ask myself this. Am I fully grasping the danger of the age? I think right now in most of our churches, if I told you that physical persecution was coming in one month, I think you'd probably do some things different. I think you'd probably pray with a little more vibrancy. I think maybe prayer meetings might be attended a little more. I think you'd be in your closet more often. Why is it we can't see the danger? What is the potential spiritual danger? You know, like Paul in Romania, we are at risk of being lured into complacency and apathy in our spiritual lives. I'm going to go quickly through these lists, but I want to just think a little about some of the spiritual dangers that we're facing today. First of all, an increasing need to be entertained. You know, boredom today is just not an option. And with that comes mental laziness. And this affects all of us. We can point fingers at other people, but I think it affects every one of us. Finally, an idol that can talk. Man has always had an inner desire to worship something. He wants to worship something. He craves that. But with God comes accountability. So man has always been on a quest for an idol, something that he can worship that does not provide accountability. He's searching for something that will fulfill that longing. Notice these words in the Old Testament. Psalms 135, the idols of the heathen are silver and gold. The work of men's hands. They have mouths, but they speak not. Eyes have they, but they see not. They have ears, but they hear not. Neither is there any breath in their mouth. In the past, idols had no life. But what if? What if a God could be found that would respond to me? What if a God could be found that would listen to me? What if a God could be found that would listen and even respond to my needs? Give me answers. What if a God could be found that I wouldn't have to wait anymore? I could have it instantly. And yet, provided no accountability for my life. Perfect. Today I want to challenge us. I think electronic technology is offering this to us. I want you to consider some claims being made about the internet today. And I wrote down some claims here that are not made by believers. These are just unbelievers who are talking about the beauty of the internet. Here's a few claims. I'm not intending today to be an alarmist. These are just simply observations that others are making. All-powerful. It's a force that's connecting all parts of our lives. Everywhere present. Today there's a tremendous global push. It's difficult to find a place anywhere on the globe where it doesn't exist. Here's a picture of Iraqi refugees. Notice down in front there's a satellite dish. Here's a little shack. But notice the dish. All-knowing. Answers to any question. Anything you want to know and you can get it quickly. No more fasting, praying, wrestling, waiting. You can have it right now. Eternal, impossible to stop. Experts are saying it's impossible to shut this thing down. The information is held in so many different locations we call it the cloud today. As you look at these attributes, is it possible that I am even subconsciously beginning to trust in technology? Is that possible? I think it's very easy to subtly begin turning to Google instead of God. Loss of desire for authentic relationship. You know, we're a weird combination. We want people but not too much. Technology promises to address both of these needs. And we see scenes like this. These are becoming common where you're communicating with the device but not with each other. I want to look at a few promises of technology today. One is it will satisfy your appetite for human interaction. As long as you can find an outlet and a charger, you'll never be lonely again. It's promising that you can maintain personal independence. You can enjoy interaction and still be in charge. You know what the problem is with people? Sometimes people overstay their welcome. We'd like to see them come, but sometimes they stay too long. Or sometimes when they get in my face, they begin to ask questions that I'm not real comfortable with. Maybe it's things I don't like to address. Sherry Turkle is a professor at MIT. She's written several books. And she talks about the Goldilocks syndrome. She says that on the one hand we were social beings. We want to interact with people. And yet on the other hand we like to be independent. And we're always at war between these two. And the Goldilocks syndrome is this. We like to have people that are not too far away and not too close but just right. And technology offers to do that. We can hold them just about where we want to hold them. This is especially true of social media. You will never be bored. This is the plague of our culture. We want to avoid that at all costs. And finally we can project that perfect image. We can put an image out there of who we actually are or actually who we want to be, but not actually who we are. What is the reality of all this? The reality is it destroys our appetite for authentic relationship. We need authentic relationships in our lives. I need people that have the freedom to ask me hard questions about my life. So it's just so much easier to get on my device and talk about somebody else over there than it is actually to talk to people who know me very well. And there's a false satisfaction that comes with that. People don't understand though why they're still feeling lonely. It raises the threshold for relationship beyond human capability. By nature digital capability has to be stronger. It has to be more interesting than surrounding reality or we'd never stare at that little screen. It's built that way. It has to be more interesting than reality. That means when you turn it off, surroundings are going to be boring. It's designed to enthrall, to encapsule. And we find humans boring then because they can't compete with this. No one can compete with that. You know, Hollywood is doing something else. They're creating false and unrealistic expectation. You know, life does not come with background music. It isn't always fast paced. Sometimes we simply have to wait and we gaze at unrealistic situations and we can't understand why our life is not that way. It creates dissatisfaction with our mundane life. People love to watch movies about the rich and the famous. But it's unrealistic. It's not who we are. A few years ago I was in the country of Bangladesh and I was in a slum area. And all around me it was nighttime and all around me there were cardboard shacks and trash and people were living in extreme poverty. And in the middle of this was a little tea shop and this little tea shop had a little television there and people were crowded around looking at it. And I went over to see what they were looking at. What they were looking at was lives of rich and famous. It was mansions and limousines and all of this. And I had to wonder, as they went back to their little cardboard hut that night, did this increase their satisfaction level? What did it do to them? How do you watch all that and then go back to your hut? Studies are showing that this media is not fulfilling its promise. Many people are feeling more lonely even as they use social media more. Usurping the kingdom of God. This one I think is huge. Sometimes it's hard to explain, but I want to just give you something to think about. God has intended that our church communities demonstrate something beautiful to the world around us. That was his intention. Now the internet started out with a similar goal. Many of those who started out, there's some books coming out now written by some of them, but their goal was to demonstrate that man is really good at heart. And they were hoping that the internet would be something that was voluntary. Everyone just contributed kind of a virtual community. It would bless the entire world and money would stay out of it. And we all know if you look at the stock market today that the largest companies are internet driven. But I want to look at a few ways that this technology threatens the kingdom of God. One of those is attacked on essential community communication. God intends that we interact with people who know our weaknesses. There's a little church problem in your community. It's much easier to pick up the phone and talk to someone a thousand miles away and tell them your side of the story than it is to sit down face to face with the individuals you're having a struggle with and talking it through. Much easier. It's so much tempting to communicate with someone else. Technology can be very detrimental in this way to church life. Poverty alleviation. The kingdom of God today should be famous for reaching out to the poor, for alleviating poverty. And for years it was. For years the church was known as a force, the strongest force on the globe for fighting poverty. But you know today increasingly technology is said to be the answer. And I hear this in seminars and conferences that I go to some times. If we can just get the internet out to everybody it will take care of global poverty. Now the internet can be a blessing in poverty. There are blessings it can fulfill there and help. But I want to say this. The answer to global poverty is the gospel, not the internet. Assisting the elderly. This is becoming huge in some areas. Especially Japan where they have a lot of older people. Robots are communicating with people in rest homes. They'll answer you. They'll commiserate with you about your loneliness. They'll remember your children's names even the one that didn't come to see you. The residents love it. They build relationships with these robots. This one is in Germany. It'll bring you food and drinks. It'll bring you medicine so you don't have to remember. It'll provide companionship when you're lonely. It'll ask you about your past. It'll remember your appointments. All of these were to be the role of the family. But people are preferring robots. No personality conflicts. They're allowing people to ignore God's original plan and forget God. Men are increasingly seeing technology as the answer to the world's problems. A growing inability to think deeply. Shorter attention spans. There was a study in Canada in 2015. Ironically it was put on by Microsoft. They found this. That from the year 2000 to the year 2015 the average attention span had changed from 12 seconds to 8 seconds. Out of this is coming shorter sentences in books and even shorter books. It's impacting the church. My question today is this. If secular researchers are concerned what should the church be saying about this? Who is doing the thinking? Who is taking the time to look into the Word of God and meditate and ask what God is saying? Who's taking the time to go back in history and learn from history? No, what we want is something that's already been chewed. Something that's fast and quick. We are being impacted by this problem. Just the use of screens is impacting us. Nicholas Carr, the author of the Shallows, said this. The shift from paper to screen doesn't just change the way we navigate a piece of writing. It also influences the degree of attention we devote to it and the depth of our immersion in it. All of this is having a large impact on our ability mentally to retain information, to process, to think. Ability to avoid personal accountability. This one also is huge. Finally now we can go back somewhere where no one can find us and access things. No accountability. You can go back in your bedroom and access whatever you want. It's all available. No one else needs to know. This simply means that evil today is more accessible and more tempting. Potential kingdom blessing. Now I've talked some about the danger here. For just a little bit I want to look at some blessings today coming from technology. I mentioned earlier we're able to reach out today in unprecedented ways. I want to compare this to Rome. There was a time in Rome a few hundred years before Jesus scored. In about 300 years the Roman government put a tremendous focus on the road system there. In fact in those 300 years they built about 50,000 miles of stone paved roads. They would conquer a new area. They would go in and conquer an area. Immediately they would put roads in there. That way they could quell the rebellion that happened there. These roads were masterpieces of engineering. Some of them still exist today. They were engineering technology. But just for a little I want you to imagine that you were a Jew. I want you to imagine that you were occupied by this foreign evil government and everywhere you looked they were putting out more roads and more roads and more roads. Rome was getting stronger every day. You saw evil getting stronger every day. Every road you saw spoke of the triumph of evil. But unknown to you God had something else in mind. You know those same roads that were built for evil God used for good. When the gospel came those same roads were able to take that gospel and go to ways that never would have happened before. You know today as I see new lines going in as I see new satellites going up sometimes it's easy to quake with fear like evil is just winning this thing. But I want us today to understand that God is also using this. Today there are persecuted countries, restricted countries that are being blessed in ways that could not have happened a hundred years ago. You know yesterday you had to smuggle Bibles in. Today you can electronically take information in. There's a friend of mine who works in restricted countries. He told me a while back that he works primarily with printing presses. He's able to take religious material in there and print presses by day that are open for secular business. And at night when the doors closed those same printing presses crank out all kinds of religious material. This is simply available because of electronics. They're able now to do this it was not possible before. Anonymous audio in restricted countries and around the globe almost everyone has an earbud in. But you don't know what they're listening to. And today there's small MP3 players being produced that can go into these countries and individuals can be walking down the street and people assuming they're listening to music and actually they're hearing the word of God for the first time. Many people today are hearing the gospel on audio. Wireless opportunities. Radio is going into places like North Korea and other countries. Again it wasn't possible not very long ago. Website witness. The same reason that pornography is easy to access because there's no accountability also means that people can go back in their bedrooms and access websites. They can ask hard questions. There's many Muslim people today they're seeking for help on the internet. Personally I think this is something we should be getting more thought to. I think there's an opportunity here to reach out in ways we haven't before producing sermons that they can understand in their own language and bless them in this way. Now what about the role of the church? Should the local brotherhood get involved? Should we just leave it up to each individual? Should each family take care of this on their own? When I was writing a book on technology recently the last couple of years I decided to do some interviews. I decided to go out and just start interviewing people in the Anabaptist world and find out how they are using technology and how it's impacting them and I'll be honest I was looking for this. There are some approaches out there that are working. So what I did is I interviewed some people on my own but also went to some areas and I had other brothers go out and find people. I wanted to do somewhat of a blind study so I wasn't influencing what I was hearing. I told them this, that I want average people, I'm not wanting someone that's wonderful or someone who's just barely surviving or having problems. Look for average people but I want at least one person in leadership in the congregation and I want two youth. I want to hear from the leadership what they think is happening and I want to hear from the youth what they say is actually occurring. And I went out and gave lots of interviews hour after hour doing this. I would put it on a dictaphone and the next day my wife then would put it on paper for me. Basically I was taking inventory. What is working? Where are we at? I told my wife one of the things that was challenging was this. Sometimes the response, especially of youth, it was difficult to keep my eyebrows level because I knew if I showed any shock I was shutting off the interview. But how do you just show no response when you see an individual dressed very plainly that admits they're watching movies in Hollywood and are rated more than they are their own pastor. They're hearing more from Hollywood than they are their minister. How do you have no response to that? There were two basic surprises that I got. First was pornography. We all know it exists but I really didn't think it was quite that bad. The second was this. That I found there is a close connection between your approach to church life and how people are doing. In fact I ended up adding a section to the book simply on this that I hadn't planned on before. Church models and methods. When I got back, got ready to analyze this. I didn't know what to do. I had a pile of papers so I took a long table and I started just laying them out and trying to make some sense out of all this data. I want to make some observations here today and I want to make a disclaimer before I do that because I'm doing this with some trepidation. I want to say this, I'm going to divide it up into four different models. There are families within each of these models they're doing well. There's families in each of these models they're doing poorly. There's exceptions and yet there was enough connection that it was too obvious to ignore. I want to look at four basic models. First, a permissive approach. This is just what I labeled it. This is where there's little focus on biblical teaching and little commitment to church community. Basically these are churches in my perspective that are moving toward the mainstream. Now all the interviews that I did were in what I would call the conservative anabaptist spectrum. In these churches there's a drift toward the world. There's very weak accountability. They tend to avoid conflict. Movies many times are pretty common. Some of these even have movie night. Heavy social media usage. Young men, I had some young men that were very heavily involved in pornography. Ironically I interviewed these young men's pastor and he thought things were going fairly well. Another one. A regulated approach. Sometimes we call these old order groups. This is where rules tend to be our first recourse. Change is viewed with deep suspicion in these groups. There's also a different expectation for members and non-members in these groups. Consequently many times youth who are non-members bring technology into the home and it's accessed by very young children causing scars that are going to last them for life. Usually there's no filter and no teaching here. There's also the intellectual approach. There's a strong focus on biblical teaching but little commitment to church community. Many of these are a reaction to past pain in the regulated church. They assume that a well presented, a well crafted lecture will take care of this issue. Now I want to say this. There are some good stories in some of these churches. Some of these churches are producing some informal, I'll call them cell groups, to get together and hold each other accountable. The spiritual teaching is being impactful on these groups. They are generally opposed to brotherhood agreements. Finally there's what I call the integrated where there's a strong focus on biblical teaching and also a strong commitment to church community. There's some beautiful examples of this out there. I had a young man come in to be interviewed. This young man uses technology constantly. He was carrying a smartphone with him but he said he'd never had watched a movie in his life. He has older men around him. There's a strong relationship there. They've built with him. They're putting time and energy into these youth. Now this one here is going to take a lot of energy. It's going to take more thought than what we've previously given. But I want to say this. If we're going to survive, it's going to take both. There's three critical elements that I took away. First of all, there has to be commitment to practical biblical truth. A strong love for the Word of God. A desire to live out the basic teachings of Jesus. Not just theology, not just knowing about it, but obedience to what Jesus actually said. Second, brotherhood. It has to be more than just a good idea. Not something we just talk about out there. I want to ask you this afternoon how committed are you locally to your brotherhood? How willing are you to receive personal rebuke in the area of technology? How do you respond when someone talks to you about your use of technology? When I was writing the book, Church Matters, I observed this. There's two ends to a spectrum in the Anabaptist world. On one end, you have a strong commitment to community, but not a lot of interest in reaching out to others. On the other hand, you have a strong interest in outreach, but the people on this end can't seem to stay in the same church for more than a couple years. And somehow we have to bridge that gap. God wants both. If we're going to survive this area of technology, we need this thing of close community. We need people willing to speak into our lives and talk to us. Where are you this afternoon? Are you willing to invest in local brotherhood? Third, a vision beyond ourselves. I noticed this. Churches that are doing well tend to have a vision beyond themselves. They know why they exist as a congregation. As an example, I want you to consider this simple illustration of a bicycle. You know, one would assume that the easiest way to stay balanced is just simply to concentrate on balancing. But you know, the fact is if you want to stay up on a bicycle, you need to be going somewhere. Churches are very similar. You just focus on preserving what you have. You'll probably crash. But get a vision for where God is calling your congregation to go. Live with clear purpose and clear vision. We're here to do more than survive. We're actually here to thrive. The kingdom of God. I'd like to leave you a picture of the kingdom of God as a reverse tsunami. This is a quote by Stephen Brubaker. He said this, The church is to be a counter community strength for mobilizing a reverse tsunami of Christ followers that fill the earth with the glory of God. I want to say this too. Maybe some of you are sitting here thinking, well, that's not my church. I'll never be in a church like that, like he just described. You know, very few of our churches, if any, are living out the ideal. But let's not stop talking about the ideal. Don't lose sight of that. So what do we do today if our church isn't perfect? If you're sitting here thinking, you'll never work in my church. Personally, how are you going to survive the tsunami? I want to think a little about seeking higher ground. I mentioned earlier that people who survive seek higher ground. Regardless of your church issues and every church has issues, what about you personally? Your personal relationship with God, what should you be doing individually? Isaiah 59, When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him. The enemy today is coming in like a flood, but God has promised to protect if, if we stay close to him. More than brotherhood agreements, we need hearts that are turned toward him. We need hearts that are purposefully pursuing God. We need hearts that are committed to following Jesus Christ. That is higher ground. The safest place to be in a tsunami few years ago was in Indonesia, and I stood along the beach and I looked up and you could still see the line where the water come in, almost a hundred foot up there that come crashing in. And I tried to imagine what it would have been like to have made a rush and tried to have make it. It had been an amazing thing. It would have taken a lot of energy and effort and I believe it's still that way today as we seek God with our whole heart. You know, Satan would love to tell us today that a casual approach to life and technology is probably okay. It's really the cry of our age today. Take life easy. Don't get too worked up about it. And frankly, technology feeds this in us. It can make us very lazy. Breaking out of Reynolds' room. In the country of Belgium in 1343, there was a wealthy man who died and he had two sons. The oldest of these was named Reynolds and he had a younger brother. And Reynolds and his younger brother fought for years over the inheritance. But you know, Reynolds had a problem. Even though he was older, he had inherited the estate to start with. He was a man that didn't have much self-discipline. He got extremely fat. He just loved to eat. Time came when the younger brother finally overcame Reynolds in battle. But he didn't kill Reynolds. He did something with him. He took Reynolds and he built a room around him. He built it in one of the castles. He put Reynolds in this room and he left the door wide open. And Reynolds could leave whenever he wanted to. The only problem was, Reynolds couldn't fit through the door. And this younger brother made sure that every day there were tempting things brought into this room. There was all the food he wanted. All the nice things he enjoyed. Everything was there at his fingertips and every day Reynolds would look out the window. He longed to be free but he just couldn't quite give up this enticing things that was all around him. For ten years he lived in this room. He just couldn't say no. Finally the time came when the younger brother was killed in battle and they tore the wall down to get Reynolds out. But he died within one year because of his health. He was a prisoner of his own appetite. Today many of us are held in Reynolds' room. It's just so nice. It's just so convenient. It's just so easy to pull up this technology. We know we shouldn't do it. We know we'd like to be free from it. But it's so hard to just give up the convenience and the freedom. I want to suggest today that in our world there's a tremendous need for personal discipline. I want to talk a little about some essential spiritual disciplines. If we're going to survive I think we desperately need these spiritual disciplines. The first is simply prayer and fasting. You didn't need to tell people in Romania to pray and fast. They knew that. Today we need to be told. And I'm not talking about more exciting prayer groups. I'm not opposed to that. I'm not talking about just getting together with other people. I'm talking about closet prayer. I'm talking about times of being alone. Turning off that device and being alone with God. It has to be an integral part of our life. Reading and meditation. Taking time to internalize the message. Taking time to hear from God himself. Praise and worship. Part of technology is we are consuming a tremendous amount of music. But how much are we producing? I'm not opposed to recorded music. I think it can be a blessing in certain circumstances. But there's times we need to turn it off and be involved ourselves in praise and worship. Silence and solitude. We become attached to our devices. Background noise just becomes normal. But it's essential that we have times of silence and solitude. Now information is coming at us today in, I'll say, three basic categories. I want to run through these quickly, but I want you to think about this in your own life. First is the destructive. We know what that is. That's pornography. That's Hollywood. That's devastating. We understand that. We see the results of that all around us. Second is the essential. This is useful information. It helps us be productive in research, in education, in reaching out to others, in connecting with the hurting, with the disillusioned and the lost. Extremely useful. But there's also the non-essential. Now I want to suggest today that possibly the most deadly of these three, the most dangerous is the non-essential. It seems so benign. But our lives are being controlled by clamor, by clutter, by constant commotion, by continual beeps and buzzes and vibrations. We're trying to stay connected all around the globe. You know, you don't need to know everything. You don't need that. Today there's what they call fear of missing out. Somehow we're afraid that we're missing out on something out there. And sometimes we're chasing things that really don't matter. We're ignoring what's essential right around us. Paul told the church at Philippi this. He said, This I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment, and that ye may approve things that are excellent. I think today we're being overwhelmed by things that there's nothing wrong with. But it's not excellent. There's a desperate need today for believers who are willing to discard the non-essential and insist on things that are actually excellent. There's a tremendous need for us today to be focusing on nature, on what God has done around us. There is more beauty, more magnificence in an apple than an iPhone. Just stop and think about what God has done in taking dirt and soil and moisture and producing something that's tremendous. But sometimes we forget that and we get enthralled with the things around us that are really non-essential. Flannery O'Connor was a Catholic American novelist and she said this, Push back against the age as hard as it pushes against you. I want you to understand today, if we don't push back, you will end up where the current is going. How do we do this? We can spend our life focusing on the water. We can talk about the tsunami and we can talk about all the evil things that are out there. But focusing on the water alone will not save you from a tsunami. You're going to have to seek higher ground. In conclusion, there's a question that's asked many times and it's this. Is electronic technology or even technology a moral? Is it just neutral? Is it just simply a tool? And we can argue that it is. We can argue logically that it's simply in the hands of the person who wields the thing. We can do that. But for just a little bit, I want you to think about the comparison between technology and money. Is money a moral? We can debate that too. We can say, well, a hundred dollar bill, it can go to something evil or it can go to something that's good. I'd like for you to back up from the topic just a little. What does the Bible say about money? What you'll find is this. There's far more warnings in the Bible about money than there is encouragement to accumulate it. I think we need to think seriously about this thing of electronic technology. It's true we can overreact, but I want to reiterate this fact. If we're going to survive, if we're going to survive what we're dealing with right now, if we're going to deal with the tsunami that's coming at us, it's going to take more. It's going to take more personal discipline. It's going to take more times of prayer. It's going to take more times of seriously seeking God on our face. It's going to take more willingness to make hard choices. Things that are very convenient, but are they actually excellent? I think it's more this way than any time in history. In short, it's going to take more reliance on God than we've ever experienced before. This afternoon as we conclude, let's stand for prayer. Father, we come this afternoon acknowledging we are weak. Lord, we are acknowledging that you are strong and we come, Lord, facing challenges that we've never faced before, challenges that our forefathers have never faced. Lord, we come today in confidence through the name of the Lord Jesus knowing that you are with us and you will be with us and you will empower us. Father, I pray for our hearts today, Lord. Would you bless us? Would you help us to make excellent choices? There's many children here, Lord. Help us to create safe paths for them. Guide us, Father, and bless us today as we part and we ask this through Jesus' name. Amen.