Posted on Monday, April 13, 2015

Stop Pretending Your Marriage is Great

by Joshua Reich

Whenever I preach on marriage or any topic, the responses vary but are often the same regardless of the topic. Money tends to bring out the same in people.

Some are excited about the possibility of change. Seeing marriage, money or pace in a new light. What would it look like if a couple started to serve and pursue each other. I love this response.

Another response is one of anger. Often when something new is presented, it pushes up against what is expected or what is known. This is the response when people say, “I’ll never give, I don’t see the need.” “I won’t slow down, because that’s how I’ve always done it.” “I won’t be in community because I don’t need people.” Underneath this response is always hurt, disappointment, letdown, broken promises, but ultimately sin and fear.

When we don’t change, it is because we fear being found out that we didn’t have it all together.

Another response to me is the saddest response, although the previous paragraph is equally heart breaking. It is the response of resignation or excuses.

Stop pretending your marriage is great when it isn’t. Work on it so it will be great.

This mostly comes up in marriage topics, but easily shows itself in other places. It is the person who longs to see something change but for whatever reason feels like nothing could be different. It is the, “I wish my spouse did ___, but because they don’t I’ll start to talk about why that is okay or ‘just the way it is.'” So heartbreaking.

If you won’t be intentional in your marriage, don’t expect it to be great.

I remember talking with a couple and they had all kinds of reasons why they weren’t pursuing each other, why they didn’t spend time together, and I tried to push on it and nothing. The next day the husband was on Facebook talking about why their marriage didn’t need that, almost like a badge of honor that they didn’t date each other anymore. The comments were astounding. Person after person affirming him. “You don’t need a date night. I know all kinds of couples with great marriages who don’t have a date night.” What all those people on Facebook didn’t know was how his wife was dying. The sin no one knew about because of the spiritual facade they put on.

Do couples have great marriages without a date night or yearly getaway?

Sure.

I’ve yet to meet a couple who did that religiously get a divorce though or say they wished they had less date nights or less getaways.

I’ve met lots of couples who excused why they didn’t have a date night or getaway spend years in a mediocre marriage or get divorced.

Great things do not just happen, they happen through intentionality and through good, godly advice.

Great marriages do not just happen, they happen through intentionality.

When Katie and I first started Revolution, we knew a couple who was a leader at another church in another state, a couple many people looked up to. She could not handle money at all. In fact, the husband kept a separate account so that his marriage did not go bankrupt financially (again). Yet, they would always talk their marriage up in classes, online. And every time I thought, “if people only knew.”

So, why do couples do this?

There is a sense of failure if your marriage is not as great as you make it sound online.

There is a fear we have of being found out, of admitting we don’t have it all together.

Yet, in that fear is misery because until we admit our need for help, we can’t ever move forward.

I remember the first time I said out loud that Katie and I went to see a Christian counselor when we first got married. The person gave me a weird look for a second and then I said, “What? We want to make sure our marriage is as great as possible and we’re not faking it anymore.”

Stop excusing your mediocre life and marriage.

Posted on Wednesday, February 4, 2015

How to Make Time for Your Spouse

by Joshua Reich

Recently in a sermon I said that every couple should have a weekly date night. I also blogged about why every couple should have a yearly getaway.

As usual, the pushback I got was expected and normal.

Things like: we don’t have time, we don’t have money, we spend time when we can (when time magically appears one guy told me), we have kids so that isn’t possible, we don’t know what to do, date nights aren’t that important, we’ll get away someday or my favorite: my marriage doesn’t need date nights.

My response: you don’t have time not to. You don’t have time to not make spending intentional time together as a couple not happen. It is that important.

Let’s take a step back to when you were dating.

You spent all kinds of time together. You would sit on the couch and just be together, you would leave notes for each other, you would take walks together, you would watch movies and eat ice cream. Now, which of those cost more than $10?

None of them.

Yet, the older we get and the longer we’re married, we make all kinds of reasons (and excuses) as to why we don’t we spend intentional time together.

That’s the key word: intentional.

If you are not intentional in your marriage, it will begin to fall apart.

I don’t care if you call it date night, a weekly meeting or the 2 hours I spend with my spouse each week.

But if you don’t spend time building into your relationship, something or someone else will.

A common thing I hear is: who has the time for that? Between sports, bed time, work, school, hobbies, the list goes on and on. Again, it doesn’t have to be a lot, it needs to be intentional. I know a couple who walks together 30 minutes each day to build into their relationship. Katie and I used to spend an hour each night talking before bed. I would sit on a chair (we bought a chair that we put right next to the bed so I could sit up and not fall asleep, I’m not kidding) and we would talk to end our day.

The question you have to ask: what is getting my time that should be going to my spouse? All of the things you do, you don’t have to do. You waste time. Everyone does. Take some of that wasted time and spend it with your spouse. Stop binging on Netflix, don’t sleep in on Saturday and maybe you should quit your adult softball or soccer league, so you can spend time as a couple together.

Here’s a common one: I have young kids and I can’t be away from them for more than 2 hours because one of them is nursing.

Great. You have 2 hours. Use it wisely. Take a long walk. Go out somewhere for coffee. Hit up McDonalds. Do something out of the house. Take your child with you and get dressed up and intentionally go somewhere instead of getting takeout because you didn’t feel like making dinner. When you were dating, you would drive 45 minutes to see your now spouse for 5 – 10 minutes, just to see them. Do that now. Instead of wasting two hours doing nothing productive, build into your marriage.

I don’t have money is the one I hear the most often.

The reality is, great date nights don’t have to be expensive, they just have to be intentional. Plan them. Do it at home. Put the kids down, put on a special playlist on spotify (I made several for our date nights to rotate through although Katie can’t tell the difference), turn off your phones and notifications and be together. Eat some fancy dessert (cheesecake factory to go!) and be together. The rule for us on date night is no electronics so we can focus on each other.

Great date nights don’t have to be expensive, they just have to be intentional.

I had a conversation after my sermon and a guy told me, “My marriage doesn’t need a date night.”

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard this and every time I shake my head.

Here’s what is true about every couple who has ever told me this. I mean every because I’ve heard it so many times. Ready?

They are all either divorced now or unhappy. Every couple. The ones who aren’t are putting on a front right now. Don’t believe me? Get them alone and ask them point blank how their marriage is and push hard on it.

Did this guy need date nights to get married? Yep.

What changed? Their expectations as to how great their relationship could be changed. Their desire for each other, their need for time together has not changed.

I remember reading a mom blog once and the blogger was talking about how her parents and grandparents didn’t have date nights when they were married and how they had good marriages in spite of that, so all the talk that her marriage and marriages today needed it was not necessary.

One thing to keep in mind with this, is the time. Is marriage in 2015 and parenting different than marriage in 1985? 1965? Yes and no. But before simply taking “my grandparents did this in 1955 so I can do the same thing” make sure it is apples to apples. Email, social media, netflix binging, kids school and sports, all of those things are different than in 1985.

A few years ago a woman told me the same thing after a sermon I did on marriage. She said afterward in her pushback how her marriage was great without time together. A few weeks after she told me this, I saw her and asked how she was doing. She almost started crying as she said, “My husband is so busy with work and school, we just don’t have time for each other.”

To me, that is just heartbreaking.

I don’t care what you call it, but if you aren’t intentionally building into your marriage each, someone or something else will.

But what about later in life? The couple who says, “We are pouring our lives into our kids and we’ll be together when they move out.” First, how do you know you’ll live that long? I have several friends right now, my age, with kids the same age as mine, with stage 3 or stage 4 cancer. Will that work for them?

In fact, more and more couples are getting divorced later in life because they spent all their lives pouring into their kids or their hobbies that when it is just them and their spouse, they realize they are roommates and there is no real reason to stay together because, the kids are gone.

Again, that is heartbreaking.

Don’t put off spending time with your spouse. You don’t if you’ll get that time later in life.

I realize this is a rant and kind of my soapbox, but to me, if you are going to be married, why wouldn’t you want it to be as great as it possibly could be?

Posted on Thursday, October 30, 2014

How to Build a Team

by Joshua Reich

If you are a leader, one of the most important things you will ever do will have to do with the team you build around yourself. It doesn’t matter if you are paid, volunteer, if you work at a church or in a for-profit, your team will determine the success you will have.

Your team will determine the success you will have.

The question then becomes, how do you build a team that not only works well with you, that you will work well with, but will also help you accomplish the goals you have as a leader?

Before getting to those things, let me tell you two truths you have to know up front about being on a team:

Being on a team can be and will be one of the most rewarding aspects of ministry and life.
Being on a team can be and will be one of the most painful aspects of ministry and life.

My hope for you is that you will experience the truth of number one. Here’s how:

1. Know yourself first. I’m amazed at how few leaders and pastors are self aware. Most don’t know the gift mix, personality type and how that affects their leadership. One of the most surprising things many leaders do when they build a team is simply filling roles without any thought to who they are as a leader. Are you organized? Creative? Black and White? Extrovert? Introvert? This is basic stuff but if you miss this, you will build the wrong team, you will build a team you don’t need.

2. Build around your strengths and weaknesses. This goes with the first one and if you don’t build around your strengths and weaknesses, but simply fill roles as many pastors do (with volunteers, elders and staff), you will build a great team for someone else. Any time you hire someone, bring on a volunteer, you should ask, “What does my team need?” Recently, the church I lead hired two new staff members that would be on my leadership team. One of the things I set out from the beginning was, they both had to be highly relational. We needed to find someone who was extremely organized and strategic. Why? While we are organized as a church, we don’t have someone whose primary gifts is in that area. Thankfully, we found all that our leadership team needed and roles we had to fill.

Know yourself so you can build the team you need, not the team someone else needs

3. Have a clear vision and win (and make sure everyone agrees). This is where teams get off track, when they start building their own empires or reaching for personal goals or visions. Many times, the win for a team or organization is unclear, when that happens, people do and spend their time on what they think they should. You start pulling on the rope in different directions.

4. Be willing for things to not get done. This is crucial to building a team and incredibly difficult. To build the right team, you may need some patience as you wait for those people to come and that means some things might not get done. Now, if they are mission critical, keep the lights on kind of thing, they need to get done. But maybe you don’t attempt something or have music the way you want or kids ministry isn’t as robust as you’d like. It is better to wait for the right person than put the wrong person in charge that you’ll have to remove.

5. Have clear rules for how the team operates. Every team has rules for engagement and how they operate. Many of them are unsaid or simply made up, but have clarity on those rules. I ask each person on my team to agree to three things, three promises I make to them and promises I ask them to make to me and the other members of the team:

Always make everyone on the team look good.
Never surprise anyone on the team.
Always have each other’s backs.

If things are agreed upon at the beginning, it creates accountability and keeps a lot of hurt and frustration from happening. Which leads to the last one…

6. Be accountable. You must have a plan for how you will hold your team accountable. Recently, we began implementing an annual plan. This not only helps me know the vision and goals of everyone on my team, it creates accountability from me, but also with the entire team. Each month, we will go over our plans, see where we are and how things are going.

Posted on Thursday, October 16, 2014

Other People Determine Your Success

by Joshua Reich

The longer I’m in ministry and the larger Revolution gets I’m more and more convinced that those who can work well with others go farther and are more successful.

Working well with others determines your success

Often, the goal for many leaders or people is to show they are the smartest person in the room.

I worked at a church who had a talented graphic artist. He knew more about graphic design than anyone else in the church (and it was a large church). He also let it be known that he knew more than anyone else. He always complained to pastors about the ability or lack of ability of others. Put down what other people did, etc.

Whenever he talked about a situation he disagree with, he always made himself sound like the martyr or the only person who cared.

What was interesting about all of this was that he was not a nice person. He didn’t play well in the sandbox. Behind each ministry team he was on were a sea of bodies. All people he just couldn’t work with. People who did not understand he was smarter than they were, had more experience than they did and all around, did their job better than they did.

Why didn’t people see this? he would complain.

The reality was, people did see this. They saw how talented he was, how much experience he had, but no one cared because ministry is a team sport.

Ministry is a team sport, if you don’t understand that, you won’t make it

When we decide that we are smarter than the team we work with or the people around (and you may be the smartest person), you keep yourself from growing and becoming all that you could be, but you keep others from it as well.

How do I know?

I used to be this way and still struggle to fight against it.

Here are a few ways to know if you are hindering yourself:

1. You are the only one that cares. People with this elevated sense of themselves are the only ones who care. They are the only ones who are passionate. You may never say this, but your body language or attitude communicate to everyone else, “you don’t care as much as I do.” When a team or volunteers sense this, they check out. Why? Because they do care. As much as you? Maybe not, but they care. Your job as a leader is to help them care. Also, if you are on a ministry team at a church and not the leader, your leader cares even though you might think you are more passionate than they are.

No matter what you think, you aren’t the only one who cares about what you care about

2. No one does it as well as you do so you can’t let go. This is a struggle every leader has. Sometimes, this is a struggle people on a team have because they think (or they know) they are more talented than the leader. It takes humility to be on a team and be more talented than the leader. It takes humility on the part of the leader to have people on their team who are more talented than the leader. If you are a leader and someone can do something 70% as well as you can (or better), give it away. Stop holding them back, stop holding yourself back and stop holding your team back. If you are on a team and you can do something better than your leader, don’t passive aggressively tell them, be honest with them.

If someone can do something 70% as well as you can (or better), give it away.

3. You think others are ruining the ministry or your work. Unless a law is broken, one incident or weekend at a church will not destroy all the work you’ve done. Often though, the smartest person in the room (which is the person we’re talking about, who thinks they can get by on talent, hard work and knowledge) thinks others are ruining things by what they do. Yet, they aren’t. They are simply doing things differently. This is one reason most churches stay small, they are led by people who are not willing to allow others to use their passions and gifts.

4. You find yourself bouncing from one job or ministry role to the next. Often, when someone doesn’t work well with others, they have a history of changing teams, ministries, churches and jobs. It is always “the other people” or “the situation.” You’ll hear things like, “They didn’t appreciate me.” “I wasn’t challenged, I was bored.” “They didn’t understand me.” You’ll hear about office politics that kept them from advancing or how someone was jealous of them. You’ll hear a lot about the fault of other people and nothing about what they did to leave a trail of short stay’s in jobs. At some point if you are this person, you have to admit that it isn’t them, it’s you that’s the problem and the unhealthy one.

Until you can get past your hurt, you’ll stay stuck

5. The same problems follow you. What is amazing about life, jobs and teams is that a problem that you have on one team has a miraculous way of following you to your next team because, wait for it. You’re there. I knew one leader who changed teams and jobs numerous times in a short period of time and was so frustrated, yet she couldn’t see that she was the consistent piece in every situation. Each team she was on it was the same story, she couldn’t get along with anyone and she never understood why she kept running into the same problems. If you find yourself running into the same problems wherever you go, look in the mirror and see what is there.

If you have the same problems wherever you go, it’s time to look in the mirror.

In many ways, this blog post is are the lessons I’ve learned over the last 10-12 years of leadership. I was the guy in all of these points. I thought I was the smartest person in every room I entered and I made sure people knew it. I thought I cared more than others, that I could get by with my knowledge, talent and hard work and that would lead to success, but that is a lonely way to live because eventually you get passed over for promotions or leadership opportunities and no one wants to work with you.

In their book Tribal Leadership: Leveraging Natural Groups to Build a Thriving Organization, the authors use a phrase for healthy leaders and healthy groups (they call them tribes): I am because we are. For you or your team or church to reach its potential, you must be able to work and play well with others. You must grow in your “relational intelligence.”

But I’m an introvert, or I’m a strong personality you might say. Doesn’t matter. If you want to be all that God has called you to be, you must grow in this. Or else, you’ll never get as far as you could.

Strong leaders know, “I am because we are.”

Posted on Friday, August 29, 2014

Unexpected Seasons of Growth

by Joshua Reich

As much as I hate to admit it, as a control freak, my life is largely out of my control.

Yes, I control my reaction to things, what I think about things and how I move forward. But, I can’t control what someone else does and I certainly have no say over what God allows to enter into my life.

My summer did not go as I planned.

For some people, this is a reason to celebrate because it would mean new adventures, unexpected opportunities. The optimists in the world would dance a little dance and be on the merry way to see what will happen.

That’s not me.

What I have learned over the summer as things at church haven’t gone how I expected them, is that unexpected season often lead to greater growth.

The optimists might be right in that the unexpected really does lead to greater opportunities.

This summer I’ve learned that when something you weren’t planning to have happened, happens, it creates opportunities.

When our worship pastor, who helped me start Revolution (he came when our church was 4 months old), when he left in June it gave me an opportunity to do some things I hadn’t thought about doing when he was here. It helped me see areas of our church that weren’t healthy, ways I was leading that weren’t as helpful to our church as they could be.

It opened up new possibilities.

Could that have happened if he stayed?

Sure.

I’m not sure I would have gone looking for it, or it would’ve presented itself otherwise.

Experiences like this create in me a more opportunistic streak. I am starting to look for ways to grow now instead of waiting for discomfort to push me into it. I’m starting to ask more questions about how to improve personally or as a church instead of waiting for a crisis to push me.

Posted on Wednesday, June 25, 2014

I Know What Will Fix my Marriage, But…

by Joshua Reich

If you’re married and have encountered a challenge in marriage, welcome to marriage.

The funny thing about the challenges we run into in relationship is that we often know the way out of them. We know the things that could fix it. We know the things we do to try our spouse nuts or hurt them. In fact, if someone were to ask you how to fix your marriage or make it more healthy, chances are good you could come up with a plan.

Many people know what will fix their marriage but do nothing about it.

Yet.

Chances are very low that you would put that plan into action.

So you stay stuck.

Stuck in a marriage that isn’t happy. A marriage that isn’t affectionate. A marriage that doesn’t have an enjoyable sex life, if it has a sex life at all. A marriage that has little laughter or conversation.

It’s just there. Kind of like roommates sharing stuff. With some kids thrown in.

What do you do if you are in that place? Here are 5 ways to move forward and fix your marriage:

Stop blaming your spouse. I know, your marriage would be better if your spouse changed. Where you are in your marriage is not all on your spouse. Both of you are to blame for where you are, no one bears 100% of the blame. What is your part of it? What did you to so that you would get to this place? Admit that to yourself, confess that to your spouse and ask for forgiveness.
Admit you are here. Many couples don’t want to admit the season they are in. They want to pretend like everything is okay, they want to boast on Facebook about how much they love their spouse when they really want to kick them through a wall. Stop pretending, especially with your spouse. If you are unhappy, you both know it. Talk about it, give words to it.
Decide you’ll last. Too many couples go into marriage with divorce as an option. Don’t. Decide you will last whatever comes your way. It will be hard, you will face things you didn’t think were possible when you took your vows, but you can get through it. It is amazing what happens when you take the exit door away from a situation.
Create a plan and put some accountability to it. As you look at your marriage, get some advice. What is the thing that is harming your marriage? Is it accountability, schedule and pace, communication, intimacy? What is that one thing if you could change would take your marriage to a new level? Now, find a book or a couple that is doing that well and spend time with them, ask them what they know. Ask for their help. Create a plan out of the place you are in and share it with someone, create some accountability. When I committed to have a weekly date night with Katie and that I would plan it, I said it in a sermon. That put some teeth to the commitment.
Believe the best in your spouse. This will probably be the hardest thing to do if you are hurt or angry at your spouse. You will believe any change they make is simply show, window dressing, trying to butter you up for something. It might be. Do your best to believe the best in your spouse and ask them to believe the best in you. I’m not promising you won’t get hurt in this relationship, you will at some point as it happens in every marriage. But believe the best in them. People have a way of becoming the people we believe them to be.

5 ways to move forward when your marriage feels stuck.

Posted on Wednesday, May 21, 2014

How to be a Better Writer

by Joshua Reich

Recently, I watched the author platform conference online. This was a series of interviews with authors, bloggers, marketers and other experts to help writers, speakers and bloggers be as effective as possible.

Below are the lessons from each interview that I watched:

Jonah Berger

Create a connection with your book. Give something to people so that they make a concrete connection to what you are saying. At book events, he gave out tissues with the word Contagious: Why Things Catch On on them for his book and made the connection of “wouldn’t your like your ideas to be as contagious as the cold?”

Chris Brogan

Be married to the outcome more than you are to the idea. This will allow you to enjoy the content you create.
When it comes to branding, people think about people. The person sticks in the mind of people if you know who the person is.

Chad Cannon

Books that sell come from authors that hustle.
An author needs to provide value to the audience outside of their book.

Chris Ducker

Writing a book is not like writing a blog post. Editing is by far the hardest part of writing a book.
Just be you. Your readers and listeners will know if you are being real or not.

John Lee Dumas

Failures happen when people don’t listen to their intuition. Successes happen when we do listen to our intuition.

Carmine Gallo

Ideas are the currency of the 21st century and you are only as successful as your ideas.
Most speakers fail because they don’t have their message down, they don’t know their story.
The difference between a great speaker and a good speaker is the great speaker is always looking to improve.
The 3 components to any great presentation: Emotional, novel and memorable.

Activity always follows identity.
Offline relationships still do matter in the midst of our social media worlds.

Chris Guillebeau

A lot of people can launch a book well, but successful authors need to think about how to make it successful in 3, 6, and 12 months.

Derek Halpern

The best way to promote yourself is to help others, to give a benefit to someone else.
Content is not just about what you say, but how you say it.

Michael Hyatt

Know your audience, who they are, what their needs are, and what questions they have.

There was some incredibly helpful things in these videos.

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Posted on Tuesday, February 4, 2014

7 Reasons You Aren’t Communicating with your Spouse

by jmreich

Most relational issues come down to communication, which, when it fails leads to arguments and hurt feelings. Katie and I are often asked about how to communicate with your and how to fight well in marriage (it is possible to argue and have it be profitable to your marriage). Before you can take your communication to the next level, you have to understand what is keeping your communication from being all it could be.

Communicating well with your spouse starts with you, not your spouse.

You think it’s them. Most times when a person seeks out counseling or advice concerning their marriage it is to fix their spouse. If only they did this or that. The reality is, the first reason you aren’t communicating well with your spouse has nothing to do with them, but you. Stop trying to fix them. Stop trying to change them. You can’t be the Holy Spirit to your spouse, so stop trying.
You have to be right. Stop trying to be right and try to see from their perspective. Things change in a relationship when you try to see what the other person is seeing. Often though, we want to be right. Because, well, we’re right.
You don’t listen. Many times in a discussion, instead of listening, you simply start thinking of your response to what the other person is saying. You aren’t able to engage them. The thinking is, if you don’t have a response ready the moment they stop talking, you won’t be heard. While it makes sense in our heads, it is ludicrous in a relationship. This goes back to wanting to be right instead of to understand.
You fail to see it from their perspective. If you don’t listen well, you will never be able to see anything from a different perspective. I am amazed at how often Katie and I see the same situation totally differently. And how often Katie is correct in her perception of something or someone. If you fail to see your spouses perspective, you might end up making a mistake.
You don’t know how they listen best. Couples who fight often, don’t know how their spouse likes to discuss things. This was a game changer for us. Katie likes to discuss things immediately, she is a verbal processor. I on the other hand like to process things in my head. By the time I share any idea with someone (at home or at work), I have been thinking about it for months. If Katie gives me space, we often have a better discussion. Now, sometimes I need to bite the bullet on my preference and discuss it with her. Understand how your spouse processes information and work from there.
You don’t know what the real issue is. This is something we’ve talked about it part 1 and part 2 of our Beautiful series. Often, when a couple has a fight, the topic they think they are fighting about is not what they are fighting about. They are fighting about what the situation reminds them of. Their spouse said something that reminds them of what their parent used to say, so they react to that. We end up punishing our spouse for what someone else did.
You belittle them. Want to end a conversation with your spouse, belittle them, insult them or disrespect them. Act like they don’t do enough.

7 reasons you aren’t communicating with your spouse & what to do about it.

Posted on Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Questions to ask Yourself about Electronics

by jmreich

Many in our culture act as if electronics, social media and TV are neutral. They are simply there. That is naive at best. Electronics are not neutral. They dictate our lives, pump us with more desire for approval, and often help us waste time and miss out on relationships with family and friends. They can keep us from work and ultimately, run our lives and ruin our lives.

Below are some helpful questions from Living into Focus: Choosing What Matters in an Age of Distractions by Arthur Boers to ask yourself about your relationship with electronics:

Attention: What is the primary and ongoing focus of our awareness? Screens and virtual relationships? Family and neighbors? Voyeuristic television “reality shows”? Nature and our surrounding environment? Is our capacity to pay attention, dwell, and be aware diminishing? Are we so overwhelmed with information and stimulation that our ability to respond is affected? Are we moving from receptivity to expecting to control what we perceive?

Limits: What guides our sense of what is appropriate? Do we have the moral strength to recognize when something is beyond the pale and that we need to say no? Or does technology, which makes more and more things possible, including voyeurism, pornography, and gambling, also make all things permissible? Which taboos are worth guarding? How does technology free us from moral constraints and accountability? What is the relationship of technology to addictions? How does technology reinforce addictions? How is technology itself addictive?

Engagement: How are we coping with life and its challenges? Do we approach our day and those we love with calm anticipation, eager to be and work together? Or do such rushed and harried attention spans lead us into being demanding and curt? How does technology speed encounters, making conflicts and misunderstandings more likely? Does planned and perceived obsolescence contribute to eroding commitments?

Relationships: Do our lives include rich networks of loved ones, supportive friends, caring confidants, and casual acquaintances? Are there people who know us in our fullness, care about our hardships, and challenge us to grow in virtue? Or are our lives characterized by growing isolation and loneliness, our relationships dispersed and fragmented? What are the implications of having relationships increasingly mediated by technology while opportunities for face-to-face conversations decline and in-the-flesh friendships decrease? How does technology reinforce casual approaches to relationships, ones that are easy to enter or exit but do not necessarily sustain? What kinds of communities are created by our technology use?

Time: Do we have a sense that there is enough room in our lifestyles for the things that truly matter—work and play, rigor and rest, love and laughter? Or are we too busy to live according to our deepest and highest priorities? Do distracting demands and pressures lure us away from our highest values? How does engagement with technology make us busier? And how does technology erode and displace opportunities to pause and determine, reflect on, and honor ultimate priorities? Space: How well connected are we with the geography and places where we are located? Are we rooted in neighborhoods, connected to the earth and our environment? Or is much of our life lived abstractly in “virtual” reality?

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Posted on Sunday, December 15, 2013

Breathing Room

by jmreich

So excited for the new series we are kicking off at Revolution Church in 2 weeks.

Breathing Room.

More details to come soon.