Turn off and tune in by E. Bridges IMB

Turn off and tune in

(Beeville.net...this article written from a religious perspective points out a lesson that applies to family, friends, work, life...)

From one of those lists that get forwarded around the Internet, here are several warning signs you may be a little too connected:

You try to enter your password on the microwave
You have a list of 15 phone, pager and e-mail numbers to reach your family of three.
You e-mail your kid in his room to tell him dinner is ready. He emails you back: "What's for dinner?"

In the future, predicts one business forecast, the Net will connect everyone through miniature units combining computer, telephone and other functions-all integrated into your clothing. Sit down for this one: Shopping will consist of "almost effortless thought‑pattern ... requests."

That's old news for folks who grew up watching The Jetsons and reading science fiction, Science fiction writers predicted brain‑implanted, computer-chip telepathy decades ago.

The question is, do you really need to be that connected?

Handle With Care

Disclaimer: This is not another anti‑technology diatribe. The Internet may be the greatest new communication tool for Christian missions and evangelization since the printing press‑certainly since he introduction of radio and television. It's "the equivalent of the first century's Roman roads, allowing the gospel to stream into places where missionaries are restricted," observed IMB strategy/mobilization leader David Garrison in this :,ace last year. Its potential for mission

Like a drug, however, it's a tool to be handled with care. The addictive nature of electronic interactivity is well-documented. One recent report from the efront: Mitch Maddox of Dallas has legally changed his name to "DotComGuy" and promises not to leave his house for the entire year 2000. He's communicating with the world almost exclusively through the Internet to illustrate its possibilities (and make a healthy profit through e‑commerce sponsorships). In response, intrepid Chicago newspaper columnist Eric Zorn dubbed himself "NotComGuy" and swore off his computer, phone and fax machine for a week.

The winner? No contest. DotComGuy is still clicking after four months. NotComGuy, meanwhile, barely made it through his measly week of self-imposed disconnection. "You kind of get addicted to being in touch with everything at all times," he admitted to TIME magazine, sounding like a prisoner who's just escaped solitary confinement.

Even for those of us who don't spend 18 hours a day online, the Net joins the legion of other media that compete for our every conscious moment. What time is left for the One who commands us to love Him with all our heart, all our strength, all our mind?

Despite reports to the contrary, God doesn't have a Web site, He doesn't even have e‑mail. A mind driven by interactive distraction and instant chat, a mind possessed by the compulsive need to check email or phone mail or CNN, cannot love Him with undivided devotion. It has become afflicted with spiritual attention deficit disorder.

Even missionaries aren't immune to the malady, regardless of how far away from high‑tech centers they serve. The old stereotype of the missionary armed with a Bible and a pith helmet is giving way to the new stereotype of the missionary wielding a laptop, mobile phone and global positioning system.

Modern communication technologies have given us many gifts-staggering amounts of information, enormous vistas of opportunity and connections to the whole world Christians of earlier eras could never have imagined. But they rob us‑if we let them‑of a more precious gift: the interior silence God alone inhabits.

"Abide in Me, and I in you," Jesus says. "As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in Me. ... for apart from Me you can do nothing" (John 15:4,5 NASB).

The vital connection between abiding and doing is clear. We must love God before we can love our neighbor for the nations for He is the source of transforming love.

The Psalms, Scripture's great songs of praise, open with the promise that the righteous person's "delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night. And he will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season (Psalm 1:2,3 NASB).

Only with the joy of his salvation restored and praise upon his lips can a penitent David promise God: "Then I will teach transgressors Thy ways, and sinners will be converted to Thee" (Psalm 51:13 NASB).

If you never disconnect from the incessantly beeping inbox of modern life, how do you delight in the Lord and meditate on His law day and night? You don't.

Turn off your machine of choice for a while and think about that. Quietly.

By Erich Bridge | ebridges@imb.org | The COMMISSION May 2000, Page 53, International Mission Board of Southern Baptist Convention

Used by Permission

Updated Thursday, December 21, 2006 21:02
Created May 16, 2000