Hey, I've been meaning to get this post up here for some time now. I have officially moved my personal blog (this one) over to.....wait for it.......Wordpress! The church worship blog I run will most likely make it there, or to a different domain at some point in the future as well, but for now, visit Borrowed Words here.
Thanks amigos.
Josh
Friday, March 16, 2012
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Book Review: The Next Story, by Tim Challies
Stephen Altrogge, The Next Story. Zondervan, 2011. 208 pages.
Thank you to Zondervan Books for sending me a pre-release copy of the book to review!
The Next Story by Tim Challies is the first book about the digital age that I've ever read. There are other books and articles, some of which Challies references (Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death, for instance), that I haven’t read, but really want to now because of The Next Story. The most interesting thing about this book, and why it makes me want to read some of the other works on the subject, is that it taps into cultural issues that affect the majority of people. I’ve been convinced that our digital devices are affecting us in certain ways, and I’ve observed some significant changes in myself since Apple products have become bigger parts of my life, and Challies does a decent job of bringing these things to light, exposing the ways digital technology is affecting our lives, and what we should think and do about it all. The benefits of “tech” are many, but so are the dangers.
Challies does a compelling job of tracing how our culture has drastically changed in the last century. He traces how technology has encroached more and more upon our personal and family lives, noting effects on us, both helpful and detrimental. The book keeps a decidedly biblical view of things, as Challies shows himself clearly thankful for the many benefits of iPhones, the internet, etc. But the negative effects of technology are also many, and as Challies says, “[w]e need to relearn how to think, and we need to discipline ourselves to think deeply, conquering the distractions in our lives so that we can live deeply” (117).
A central argument of the book is that this general distractedness, often standing in the way of deeper living, actually reflects greater root issues at play. Challies unpacks the now-popular hypothesis that “the medium is the message,” revealing that the mediums that convey information in our culture contain ideologies that affect us even more than the information itself. He says, “[w]e do not really understand American Idol until we understand how it has shaped us. We have not really understood a book until we’ve learned to recognize the ideologies buried deep within the words printed on paper and bound between two covers” (39). Challies shows us, with a convicting and critical voice, that texting and instant messaging, facebook statuses and twitter feeds, all aid in creating shorter attention spans, a disdain for any lengthy piece of writing, and ultimately a devaluing of real, face-to-face interaction between people, to name a few of the negative effects of “tech.”
The most valuable part of the book hits at the end, with Challies giving some very serious cautions we should keep in mind, especially for Christians who are called to engage with their culture while keeping themselves unstained from the world. So many of us remain unaware of the digital “trail” we leave behind us as we add to our Google search history, write blog posts and comment on others, “like” facebook updates from our smartphones, and enter personal information into digital forms. Challies cautions us to think very hard about living with integrity in the smallest areas of our lives, including our interactions in the digital world. And he urges us to try even harder to limit (if necessary) our digital interactions. There is freedom in this, he says, and that “when we know what is true, when we know what is true about our hearts and true about technology, we can be prepared to respond with wisdom and discernment so that we can live with true virtue in ... the aftermath of the digital explosion” (196).
Living with virtue is becoming more and more of a novel idea in our post-digital explosion culture. Many of us comment and share myriad ideas all over the internet, often without stopping to consider whether or not our comment conveys a greater message of integrity and holiness. We should pray hard that we engage the benefits and challenges of the digital age with all integrity. No comment made on the internet is, ultimately, insignificant – may we pray hard that we do everything with integrity and pursue that holiness, without which no one will see the Lord (Heb. 12:14).
All that to say, the book is definitely worth the read.
Thank you to Zondervan Books for sending me a pre-release copy of the book to review!
The Next Story by Tim Challies is the first book about the digital age that I've ever read. There are other books and articles, some of which Challies references (Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death, for instance), that I haven’t read, but really want to now because of The Next Story. The most interesting thing about this book, and why it makes me want to read some of the other works on the subject, is that it taps into cultural issues that affect the majority of people. I’ve been convinced that our digital devices are affecting us in certain ways, and I’ve observed some significant changes in myself since Apple products have become bigger parts of my life, and Challies does a decent job of bringing these things to light, exposing the ways digital technology is affecting our lives, and what we should think and do about it all. The benefits of “tech” are many, but so are the dangers.
Challies does a compelling job of tracing how our culture has drastically changed in the last century. He traces how technology has encroached more and more upon our personal and family lives, noting effects on us, both helpful and detrimental. The book keeps a decidedly biblical view of things, as Challies shows himself clearly thankful for the many benefits of iPhones, the internet, etc. But the negative effects of technology are also many, and as Challies says, “[w]e need to relearn how to think, and we need to discipline ourselves to think deeply, conquering the distractions in our lives so that we can live deeply” (117).
A central argument of the book is that this general distractedness, often standing in the way of deeper living, actually reflects greater root issues at play. Challies unpacks the now-popular hypothesis that “the medium is the message,” revealing that the mediums that convey information in our culture contain ideologies that affect us even more than the information itself. He says, “[w]e do not really understand American Idol until we understand how it has shaped us. We have not really understood a book until we’ve learned to recognize the ideologies buried deep within the words printed on paper and bound between two covers” (39). Challies shows us, with a convicting and critical voice, that texting and instant messaging, facebook statuses and twitter feeds, all aid in creating shorter attention spans, a disdain for any lengthy piece of writing, and ultimately a devaluing of real, face-to-face interaction between people, to name a few of the negative effects of “tech.”
The most valuable part of the book hits at the end, with Challies giving some very serious cautions we should keep in mind, especially for Christians who are called to engage with their culture while keeping themselves unstained from the world. So many of us remain unaware of the digital “trail” we leave behind us as we add to our Google search history, write blog posts and comment on others, “like” facebook updates from our smartphones, and enter personal information into digital forms. Challies cautions us to think very hard about living with integrity in the smallest areas of our lives, including our interactions in the digital world. And he urges us to try even harder to limit (if necessary) our digital interactions. There is freedom in this, he says, and that “when we know what is true, when we know what is true about our hearts and true about technology, we can be prepared to respond with wisdom and discernment so that we can live with true virtue in ... the aftermath of the digital explosion” (196).
Living with virtue is becoming more and more of a novel idea in our post-digital explosion culture. Many of us comment and share myriad ideas all over the internet, often without stopping to consider whether or not our comment conveys a greater message of integrity and holiness. We should pray hard that we engage the benefits and challenges of the digital age with all integrity. No comment made on the internet is, ultimately, insignificant – may we pray hard that we do everything with integrity and pursue that holiness, without which no one will see the Lord (Heb. 12:14).
All that to say, the book is definitely worth the read.
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Explaining the Title
Here's where the title of the blog comes from:
The title "Borrowed Words" comes from the song "Mockingbird" by Derek Webb. As a disclaimer, I don't agree with some of the views expressed in Webb's recent work. But a few years ago, he was putting out very biblical, creative material (he's still extremely creative, just less biblical). I saw Webb in concert at The Master's College with my wife, and he explained his song, "Mockingbird." The song opens the album by the same name, and says, "I am like a mockingbird: I've got no new song to sing/I am like an amplifier: I just tell you what I've heard."This idea embodies how I think about my blog, and was what I wanted the title to communicate. Basically, all of our ideas come as revelation. As human beings, we don't come up with anything that's really "original," we just think thoughts after God. He is the originator, and the source. We're like mockingbirds, never actually saying anything new. Whether our thoughts and ideas align with God's redemptive purposes and lead people to truth, or our ideas form in opposition to God, we are thinking and acting upon things that already have their form and existence in the person of God, Who "gives to all mankind life and breath and everything" (Acts 17:25).
And in case you were wondering, I still consider myself a Derek Webb fan.
Sunday, July 3, 2011
"The Light"
This is a great short film, that was the opener to the Resolved 2011 conference. I thought it was a really creative way of putting Scripture in a fresh medium, really drawing out the beauty of the opening verses of the book of John. Check it out!
Resolved 2011 - "The Light" from FlyFeNniX on Vimeo.
Monday, June 27, 2011
"Surprised by Joy"
Better World Books gave me the opportunity to write a guest blog post for them, on C.S. Lewis's Surprised by Joy. Check it out here. Feel free to comment, either here or on the BWB page!
Thursday, June 16, 2011
On the Arts:
"If you want to work on your art, work on your life."
~ ANTON CHEKHOV
Thanks to "Advice to Writers" for tweeting this quote.
~ ANTON CHEKHOV
Thanks to "Advice to Writers" for tweeting this quote.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Style of music?
The following post is from my other blog about church music and worship.__________
The following quotes are from an article on the 9Marks website, entitled "How important is the style of music a church sings?" Go check the whole thing out here - it gives some good perspective on what's really important about church music.
[More important than style] are the truth of the words being sung. Since a church sings music in order to worship God, our songs should function like a musical confession of faith. Those confessions of faith should contain substantial truth about God, or else we’ll hardly be worshiping at all.
Style is passing... It’s only worth paying attention to insofar as different styles may do a better or worse job of helping people properly conform their hearts to the truths being sung.
In short, what we sing is far more important than how we sing it.
The kicker is this: hopefully we can be selfLESS, and prefer our fellow saints as we choose songs and sing them in certain styles, rather than being selfISH, choosing and playing songs based on what we prefer. Or, being selfish by wanting certain songs in certain styles, and being bitter when we don't get to sing them. Singing on a Sunday morning is a corporate opportunity to encourage and admonish each other. So lets do that this Sunday!
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