June 17th, 2011 by Kristi Stephens

mage via Wikipedia

Social media is a fascinating phenomenon to me, as those of you who have followed my recent posts have probably figured out. With a few strokes of the keyboard, I can broadcast myself to the world – pictures, status updates, tweets, blog posts. I can fill these online spaces with me, me, ME. Those of us who are serious bloggers/ writers/ speakers face an additional conundrum – we are constantly told we need to “brand ourselves.” We need to create an online image, market ourselves, make our names recognizable and meaningful.

We human beings have always had a desire to make our names great.

Welcome to Babel.

“Then they said to one another, ‘Come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly.’ They had brick for stone, and they had asphalt for mortar. And they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.’”

Genesis 11:3-4

God is not anti-sky-scrapers. So, what’s really going on here?

One of the first things God says to Noah and his sons after they exited the ark was, Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth. (Genesis 9:1) As Noah’s family increased and multiplied, they were supposed to spread out. They were supposed to fill the earth! They had been chosen and spared from worldwide destruction, but it was not for the purpose of making themselves look special. They were chosen people on a mission – to know God, walk with Him, spread the glory of His name, and bring up future generations that would walk with Him and through whom the Promised One would come.

But instead, they chose to band together. They refused to be scattered abroad, choosing instead to make “a name for themselves” and seek their own peace and prosperity and prominence apart from God.

The spirit of Babel is subtle and sinister, and it is alive and well in our day.

The spirit of Babel rears its ugly head anytime we seek our own significance and sense of worth apart from God. The spirit of Babel lives on when we attempt to make our own names great, rather than losing ourselves in Him and making His name great. Babel subtlety sneaks into our thinking when we want good things, a good life, even to do good works apart from God.

God’s response is swift.

So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel—because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth.

Genesis 11:8-9

They refused to scatter, so He forced them to do so. One of my favorite things I’ve heard Beth Moore say was, “You can bow your knees or I’ll break your legs, but either way, you’re going down!”

God’s will always prevails!

Obviously the Tower of Babel has far-reaching implications, even to the fact that our letters to our sponsored child in Guatemala have to be translated into Spanish for him to understand our words. But beyond language, we must be on guard against this sin of attempting to live independently from God, to find our worth and significance apart from Him, to refuse to bow the knee and seek our own way in our own wisdom.

I must ponder:

• Whose name am I seeking to make great? God’s? Or mine?
• Am I seeking to have “good things” apart from God – trying to find significance and value apart from His presence?
• Are there clear commands of God that I am choosing to ignore, relying on my own human wisdom and plans for prosperity rather than obeying Him in faith?

The spirit of Babel is alive and well – in our facebook status updates, in our tweets, in our blogs, in our homes, in our workplaces, in our churches and ministries, in our hearts. But the real secret to significance and a life that matters is this: He must become greater, and I must become less.

I was not chosen and set apart to make me look special. I was not spared from judgment and shown the lavish grace of God for my own comfort and happiness. I am a woman on a mission – to spread His fame in the earth. 100 years from now, no one will remember me – but will the world know more of our great God because of the way I lived these days I have been entrusted? May I gladly bow my knees rather than waiting for God to break my legs! :)

It really is all about Him.

If you’ve missed anything in the One Summer, One Story series, you can find all the posts indexed here!

May 27th, 2011 by Kristi Stephens

Image via Wikipedia

All this week we’ve been considering some questions to ponder before we post/ tweet/ update/ share/ publish -

• We asked ourselves WHO our words are about – who are we bringing glory to?
• We took an honest look at WHAT our words really are – we need to stop fooling ourselves, and see sin for what it really is.
• We paused to ask HOW we should say what we say, and thought about what it means to submit ourselves (and our personalities) to one another out of reverence for Christ in this fast-paced digital age.
• On Wednesday, Julie Sanders shared her favorite post from KristiStephens.com over at Scripture Dig. That post was all about something I call Emotional Modesty – having proper boundaries and appropriate degrees of intimacy with people in our lives, especially online. I would say that Emotional Modesty is considering WHERE we share our words.

Now today – WHY? Why are we driven to communicate? If we had a Biblical purpose statement for our words, a theology of speech… what would it be?

Our words matter. Words communicate something. To the Christian, communication is a high calling.

We serve a God who created Adam and Eve and didn’t just leave them to do their thing and be happy without Him – He walked with them in the garden and talked with them! (Genesis 3:8-10) Even when His creatures turned their backs on Him, He was constantly communicating – building relationships (Genesis 5:22, 6:9), creating covenants (Genesis 12:1-3), revealing Himself (Exodus 3:14), giving laws (Exodus 20), sending prophets (Isaiah 6:8), inspiring the written Scriptures (2 Peter 1:20-21). Eventually God the Son wrapped Himself in flesh and He Himself was called The Word (John 1:1)- the ultimate communication (Hebrews 1:1-3), for to know the Son was to know the Father (John 14:6-10).

We were made in the image of a God who communicates. And He has sent us to communicate. We were commissioned and sent with a message – a message not about us, our daily mundane activities, our likes and dislikes, what we had for lunch – we have been sent with a message about our great God who created us, loves us, offers to save us, invites us; a message about what is truth in a world full of lies, a message of hope in a world falling apart under sin and the curse and hurtling toward certain judgment (Matthew 28:18-20).

Our words matter.

Living in our digital world makes our words cheap and easy. It takes next to no effort to send out our words to dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of people. Right now there are over 1800 people following me on twitter. What if I thought about that number as actual people? A huge auditorium filled with 1800 people – would I stand up, boldly approach the microphone, and announce that I’m having scrambled eggs for lunch?

God has given you a platform. He has given me a platform. Your “reach” might be bigger or smaller than mine, but our purpose should be one and the same if we know the Lord Jesus Christ. Am I using my words with purpose? Am I logging on each day not just seeking to make myself known, but to make Him known? Do I really believe deep down that God has purposed for me to be born in this time, in this place, be given an education, taught how to read, how to communicate my thoughts in the written word, and have access to thousands of people each and every day by pushing one button on my laptop… do I believe that all of this is so that I can tell the world about what happened on American Idol and what I’m making for lunch?

Now, I do want to say: we are not one dimensional people. My days are consumed with my husband and my children and homemaking and ministry. There is nothing wrong with talking about these things online. BUT – if we solemnly consider the eternal purpose for our lives, the fact that we are sent as ambassadors for a God who has communicated to us and sent us to communicate Him to our world… wouldn’t that change the majority of what we say?

WHO are you talking about today? WHAT are your words, if you really boil it down? HOW should you say it? WHERE should you share it? …and ultimately, WHY are you here and communicating, anyway?

Someday I will give an account. You will give an account. O Lord, may you find us faithful.

But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken.

Matthew 12:36

May 25th, 2011 by Kristi Stephens

All this week the Scripture Dig team is sharing their favorite posts from KristiStephens.com Today Julie is sharing one that is very close to my heart and a topic I refer to often – Guarding our Emotional Modesty online. It’s an important topic and goes along perfectly with what we’ve been discussing this week. Join us at Scripture Dig for a little extra encouragement in navigating social media!

I wonder how many times I’ve sent an email and wished I could take it back? Or posted a facebook update or responded to someone else’s comment and then went back to delete it? {am I the only one who loves that little “x”?} Or sent a tweet and then literally hit my knees, knowing that what I had said was wrong and there was just no taking it back?

Seriously. I’m not writing this series because I have it all figured out – we tend to write about what God has been tapping our hearts about, yes?

How much regret, how much pain, how much lasting damage would we avoid if we stopped one second to think: HOW? How should I say this? How might someone else read this? How might this come across to someone who is already broken and bleeding? HOW?

To be brutally honest, this question sometimes annoys me. In my sinful selfishness where the world revolves around me and my opinions, I want to respond to my own list of questions above with, “I’m just being myself. If they can’t give me some grace and the benefit of the doubt, then they’re in the wrong. Am I not allowed to have a sense of humor?”

Asking HOW requires that I think of someone other than myself. Asking HOW demands humility, recognizing that the world does not revolve around me and my opinions. Asking HOW means that just because I have an opinion, it should not necessarily be shared. Asking HOW means that I must consider that those on the other side of the screen may be fragile and broken – and while the truth is offensive, there is no excuse for ME being offensive in callousness and sin. Asking HOW means that I must think before I speak.

Do you see a man who speaks in haste?
There is more hope for a fool than for him.

Proverbs 29:20

My husband and I often laugh about the fact that those who know me primarily as a blogger, Bible teacher, or lay leader in our church frequently don’t realize the other facets of my personality. So, for those who don’t know the “other sides” of me – I tend to be sarcastic. I like ironic humor. I enjoy and appreciate quick and witty words. I love having a quick comeback. {And you probably already have picked up on the fact that I have some strong opinions, too!}

This is tricky… because not only can people who know me and interact with me in person be taken off guard by the other sides of my personality, it often doesn’t come across well at all online. While my husband and my best friends I have known for half my life would instantly know the intonation of my voice when I post that biting statement on facebook… the people who don’t know me well won’t understand at all.

Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Ephesians 5:21

You see, even if I intend no harm in my comment – submitting my will to others means that I MUST ask myself HOW – I must consider how {and even if!} I should say what I want to say. I must ponder how my words will come across to those on the other side of the computer.

Whether or not people fully know and appreciate ME is of no matter in comparison to whether people know Christ. No one is going to reach heaven and find themselves asking, “did I really know Kristi as well as I could have? Did I fully appreciate her witty humor?” If my words may be a stumbling block – I must lay them down.

Living humbly with one another in this digital world means that even now – perhaps especially now – we must submit ourselves (and our personalities) to one another out of reverence for Christ.

It’s a tough question, but one I think we all must ask. It’s a humbling question. How will HOW influence what words you post online today?

This post is a third in a series of questions to ask ourselves about the power of our words in social media. These posts are part of a larger series on Biblical principles for our speech through the month of May – you can find all of these “One Small Spark” posts indexed here.

May 23rd, 2011 by Kristi Stephens

Social media is such a fascinating phenomenon. In just a few short years, facebook and twitter, myspace pages and blogging have completely transformed the way we communicate with others. More easily than ever before, we can communicate with hundreds or even thousands of people with a few strokes of the keyboard.

According to facebook, there are over 500 million active facebook users, with over 250 million users logging on each day. The average user creates over 90 pieces of content each month. One billion tweets are posted on twitter each week. That, my friends, is a lot of words. So, so many words.

When words are many, sin is not absent,
but he who holds his tongue is wise.

Proverbs 10:19

How do we wisely use our words in this culture addicted to sharing every personal thought and mundane detail of their lives? This week for One Small Spark, we will be considering some basic Biblical principles to give us a framework for using social media in an uplifting and God-honoring way. It is my hope to give us some basic questions to ponder before we hit “send,” “share,” “tweet,” or “publish.”

Today’s question: WHO is this about?

What if, before we posted anything anywhere online, we asked ourselves, “Who am I bringing glory and attention to? Who am I painting as the hero? Who is this really about?”

From reading facebook posts and blogs, I often wonder if people realize what the message is that they’re sending. Sometimes the message is, “My kids are the best, most beautiful, most idyllic beings in the world.” {We talked about this syndrome last week!} Sometimes the message is, “My life is so terrible. Nothing goes well for me. I’m posting this as a desperate plea for attention and sympathy.” Or perhaps it is, “I am a superhuman parent/wife/cook/athlete/etc. Gather ’round and shower me with praise.” Maybe even, “My ex-husband is such a jerk and I’m going to tell you all about why you should hate him, too.”

I am the LORD; that is my name!
I will not give my glory to another
or my praise to idols.

Isaiah 42:8

Idolatry is rampant today, just as it was thousands of years ago. The interesting thing is that today, we don’t just set our idols on a table or hang them on a wall in our homes – we put them on our facebook wall and invite all to worship along with us.

If the only thing people knew about your life was from your facebook posts, your tweets, maybe your blog – what is the message? Who are you bringing glory and attention to? Who are you painting as the hero? Who is this really about? You? Your opinions, hobbies, or talents? Your children? Your spouse? The people who have wronged you? What is the message of your life, written out for you on the walls of these online spaces?

I’m not saying it’s wrong to post a cute picture of your kids or rave about the amazing lunch you had at your favorite restaurant. But what is the theme of your life, of your words? Who is it really about?

A challenge for today – the image at the top of this post was created from facebook status updates and tweets that I saw posted yesterday. Today, to consider the content of what you are saying and posting online, consider making a “wordle” of your own facebook statuses/ tweets or perhaps even your blog! Go here to create one free – copy and paste in your posts/tweets for the last few days or weeks… and take a look at what the recurring themes are. Who are your words consistently about?

If this has given you something to think about, would you consider sharing this post with others on facebook or twitter? Join us for the rest of this week as we consider other questions to ponder before you post!  All of the One Small Spark posts from this series will also be indexed here for your convenience and later reference.