Thursday, February 12, 2015

Church Hurts



NO PAIN NO CHURCH
I continually stay committed to running and working out. I know that it is good for me physically and psychologically. It gives me energy and builds endurance, but it just hurts and reminds me I am not a 17 year old cross-country runner anymore. Most of us have heard the old adage “No Pain, No Gain.” If I am to stay in optimal running shape, there will be a certain level of pain. That adage is true about most areas of life. If you want a great marriage, there will be seasons of relational pain. If you want to raise godly kids, you will need to lean into appropriate discipline and healthy boundaries. If you desire to excel in your job, there will be some level of pain associated with getting the best education and incorporating the best principles into your life. No Pain No Gain is generally true.

Any time you gather a group of people together, you are going to have a high potential for pain. All of us have very different backgrounds, personalities, preferences, genetic wiring, and spiritual understanding. We are male and female. We are young and old. All this creates great opportunity, but also great pain. Church hurts because conflict is always part of community on this side of eternity; when you get a bunch of different people together, there will be pain.

I WANT US TO BE LIKE THE EARLY CHURCH
Do you ever sit back and dream about the Good Old Days? When gas was only $1.00 a gallon. You couldn’t be reached 24/7. We tend to have a skewed picture of the past. If we could only go back to how church used to be, we would have no pain, no struggles, and no conflict. The good old days of the church in biblical times must have been some utopian experience. Was it? No, what we discover is that Paul wrote a vast portion of the New Testament letters to the church to help them resolve the pain, the conflict of church.

1 Corinthians 1:10-11
 “I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought. My brothers, some from Chloe's household have informed me that there are quarrels among you.”

Galatians 1:6-7
“I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ.”

Titus 1:10-11
“For there are many rebellious people, mere talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision group. They must be silenced, because they are ruining whole households by teaching things they ought not to teach — and that for the sake of dishonest gain.”

  
1 Thessalonians 5:12-13
“Now we ask you, brothers, to respect those who work hard among you, who are over you in the Lord and who admonish you. Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work. Live in peace with each other.”

These are just a few of many verses that indicate conflict in the early church. It ranges from personality conflicts, preferences over what preacher people liked, theological and financial issues, to honesty, and issues over membership, to name a few. The fact that church hurts has always and will always be true, because church is a community, and authentic community is crazy hard.

WHY NOT JUST FLEE FROM COMMUNITY?
If church has always been so painful and messed up, why not just flee church? In fact, one of the largest segments of Christians, growing every day in the United States consists of those people who say they know and love Jesus, but have given up on the church thing. Again, fleeing church is not a new thing. This is addressed in Hebrews 10:24-25.

“And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”

For multiple reasons, some believers had been wavering on gathering together as the church. The author of Hebrews is clear in verse 25 that we must not give up meeting together. You don’t give up on something unless it has become hard, and for various reasons, from internal conflict to external persecution, some had begun to flee the church. But fleeing the church is not an option, because you can’t fulfill the mandate in the verses of spurring each other on toward love and good deeds alone. You need community to have church. We flee way too easily. For many, church becomes no different than shopping at Lowe’s. If you have a bad experience at Lowe’s, you can always drive to Home Depot, and if that becomes a painful reality you can drive to Menard’s. But church is different.

When pain emerges in church, don’t flee, because if you do, you will miss out on the true wonder, joy, intimacy and power of what Christ intended church to be. If you flee, you miss out on church as community. Pain in church can be a reason to get out of, dodge, become negative, participate in gossip, create an undercurrent of bitterness, become disillusioned, or go church shopping. Or pain in church can be an opportunity for personal and corporate growth. Communal pain allows us to learn forgiveness, engage the ministry of reconciliation and grow in humility.

The bottom line is that if you stay at this or any church for a given amount of time, you will experience pain. The pastor will disappoint you. One of our other leaders will disappoint you. You won’t agree with every decision that is made. A program that you love and think is core to the church will end. The music will change. The church will get bigger or smaller. A close friend will leave the church. Someone will offend you. A friendship will be broken. You won’t get the call back. All your expectations won’t be met. This kind of thing will happen because we are broken people on the pilgrimage called Christianity existing in this community called church, and we are constantly leaking out the truth of who we must be as Christians. Church will always have some level of emotional and relational pain. Yet Jesus compels us to be unified even in the middle of the pain of church.

JESUS PRAYED FOR YOU!
In John, Jesus prayed for us, “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message”!  Never forget that Jesus prayed for you. That is amazing. Jesus knew we would get upset in church community; he knew we would be discouraged and so he prayed for us. He prayed that we would see the pain through and be unified. Is there a greater encouragement! Think about your life. Did you ever have a coach you respected encourage you on the field, or a boss give you some props, or a person you respect breathe hope into your life? Those are key moments in our lives. Jesus, the fully God, fully man, Son of God. Jesus, the central figure in all of human history. Jesus, who always was and will always be. Jesus, who died for us, who conquered death and established his church. Jesus, who will someday usher in the end inviting all followers to exist in a new heaven and new earth. Jesus Christ prayed that you would be unified, knowing the challenges of biblical church community. That’s encouragement!
           
Paul knew pain in church but he also knew of the power of Christ in church, and so we end with his words to the church:

Colossians 3:11-14
“Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all. Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.”


Jason Esposito
Lead Pastor
CrossWay Church

www.crosswaygt.org

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Pastor Jason's Winter Reading List 2014



Romans 12:2
Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

If there’s one way that I grow my relationship with the Creator of all things, it is through reading, not only the Bible, but also other books that stretch me and challenge my understanding of the journey of following Jesus.  I want to encourage you to read at least one really good book this winter that will grow you on your spiritual journey.  I have listed a few with a brief one-sentence comment about how that book has impacted my life.  Curl up in your favorite chair, grab a hot beverage, and have your mind renewed this winter!

Winter Reading List:

"Faith Has its Reasons" by Kenneth Boa & Robert Bowman Jr.
Integrative approach to defending the Christian faith

"Relaunch" by Mark Rutland 
How to stage an organizational comeback 

"Christianity 101" by Gilbert Bilezikian 
Your guide to eight basic Christian beliefs 

"Fail" by J.R Briggs 
Finding hope and grace in the midst of ministry failure

"Seven Deadly Spirits" by T. Scott Daniels 
The message of Revelation's letters for today's church 

"The Signature of Jesus" by Brennan Manning 
You're invited to a life of risk, holy passion, and unreasonable faith 

"Practice Resurrection" by Eugene Peterson
A conversation on growing up in Christ 

"Freedom of Simplicity" by Richard Foster
Finding harmony in a complex world 







Jason Esposito
Lead Pastor 
CrossWay Church 

Thursday, November 20, 2014

Swimming Upstream

Image courtesy: freeimages.com

Like most kids, I loved the water and looked forward to any opportunity to swim in our pool (summer is over L). Nothing was more fun than making a whirlpool with my friends. We would walk as fast as we could around the perimeter of the pool dozens of times until the water was flowing so fast that we couldn’t keep up with it. The real challenge was turning around and going against the flow. It would usually undercut our legs and throw us back circling around the pool. Isn’t life often like that whirlpool? There are cultural streams of water that push against us and suck us into their path. One such force is materialism. We live in an affluent culture. Each day, we are bombarded by the drive to accumulate money and possessions by our neighbors, the media, employers, and even Christian friends. This has become a spiritual virus that infects all of us and can quickly hamper our relationship with God and his dynamic working in our lives. I came across a few statistics that paint a clear picture of our affluent culture:

Ø  Americans spend $2.8 billion on Halloween candy.
Ø  Since 1978, at least 37 people have died as a result of shaking vending machines in an attempt to get free merchandise.
Ø  $1,092 annually on coffee
Ø  $117 billion annually on fast food.
Ø  $125 billion annually on casino gambling
Ø  Average household credit card debt $15,593
How can we, as followers of Jesus Christ, be good stewards of the tremendous blessings God has given us and challenge the flow of materialism that daily enters our lives? Jesus gives us a clear picture of how to overcome this spiritual virus of materialism.

1.      Claim Christ’s Friendship: Jesus says in Luke 12:21: “Yes, a person is a fool to store up earthly wealth but not have a rich relationship with God.” We can gain everything the world offers, but at the end of our lives, all that matters is what we have done for our Lord. Committing our life to the accumulation of wealth, while ignoring a rich relationship with God, is as foolish as fixing an overflowing toilet on the Titanic after it has hit the iceberg. A relationship with Christ is the starting point toward inoculation against our materialistic culture and a proper understanding of how to invest God’s way.
2.      Adjust Your Focus: In Luke 12, Jesus goes on to say that we must not set our hearts on things of this earth; instead we need to seek His Kingdom. What we focus on will dictate the state of our heart. As an archer, I was successful in hitting the target only when I focused on lining up my sights with the target. When my focus was off, my arrow repeatedly missed the target. Are we spending our days focusing on the external or the eternal? Christ tells us that when we seek His Kingdom, He will provide us with all that we need in this life. If you are wondering whether your focus is on the eternal, ask yourself this question: “What do I dream about when I am lying in bed or driving in my car?” What we dream about is often what our focus is on.
3.      Release Your Resources: The irony of the Christian life is that when we hoard, we become empty but when we release, we become filled. If you have ever mentored a child, volunteered for Habitat for Humanity, or participated on a missions trip, you understand this concept. Of all my college Spring breaks, the one spent on an Indian reservation teaching children, fixing buses, and working the land was the most memorable. Our group was not empty when we returned to school, instead we where filled with the satisfaction, joy and spiritual depth that comes with serving the Lord. Jesus says, “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted.” Everything we have is from God. When we give our resources, time and talent back to Him, we have a greater capacity to avoid getting sucked into the unhealthy values of our culture.

As committed disciples of Jesus Christ, we have the capacity in Christ to swim against the flood of materialism that daily bombards us. We must always remember that the real issue of life, as far as God is concerned, is not whether we are rich or poor. It is whether our hearts are given over to God.

Jason Esposito

Lead Pastor
Crossway Church
www.crosswaygt.org 

Monday, October 6, 2014

The Importance of Questions



A research group emphasizes the importance of questions in the learning process:

“Questions define tasks, express problems and delineate issues. Answers on the other hand, often signal a full stop in thought. Only when an answer generates a further question does thought continue its life as such. This is why it is true that only students who have questions are really thinking and learning. It is possible to give students an examination on any subject by just asking them to list all of the questions that they have about a subject, including all questions generated by their first list of questions.”

What would it have been like to actually hear Jesus tell one of his imaginative parables? To understand the nuances of what he was saying? Our challenge is that Jesus lived in a very different culture and at a very different time. His listeners would pick up on humor, nuance, and a hoard of other cultural particulars that we would never see apart from diligent study. If I were telling a story, and in that story, talked about how proud we are to be Cheeseheads this Fall, with a team playing at Lambeau and the Brewers playing at Miller Park, topping it off with a hopeful season to get into one of the big Bowls as a Badger, you would know what I was talking about. But if you said that to someone in another country, or even in our country a hundred years ago, they would wonder what you were smoking. Actually, if you said that to a person out of state, they would wonder what you were smoking, and just the phrase, “what are you smoking”, is culturally bound!

Jesus often spoke in imaginative parables revealing crucial truth about the Kingdom of Heaven, which is the will and reign of God in our life and world. He used stories to draw people in to the larger story of his life and purpose. We miss so much because of cultural barriers but also because of our pragmatism. As Americans, we come primarily from the perspective of pragmatism. Pragmatism says that if it works, it must be right. Pragmatism has value, but often ignores what is behind and before the process or choice. In a church context we are pragmatic when we just want 3 easy steps to holiness. Or 4 steps to raising great children. Or 7 steps to be free from financial anxiety. We want to get right to the practical life application with little concern about what is behind it; what the bigger story and narrative are informing the biblical truth. Becoming holy, raising great children and being free from financial anxiety are all good things, and steps can help, but what if we are often missing richer and grander truths because we are so quick to jump to the concrete and practical path forward? Could there be some benefit to ambiguity in our messages? What if asking more questions and having fewer answers forces us to wrestle with a story and allows for the application to be birthed in an authentic community of conversation far beyond our time together in the worship service or a one hour Life Group? What if the pastor were to give fewer “how to do this” steps or “how to be this” and primarily helped us to enter Jesus’ world and his irresistible influence? To simply understand the parables as Jesus’ contemporaries did and leave the primary application, the “steps” to the people in the crowd/congregation? That’s usually what Jesus did.

First we must hear the story. The Message is a translation of the Bible by scholar Eugene Peterson. His philosophy of translation was to give us a sense of what it would be like if Jesus were speaking to us today in the common language of our day. And if you are familiar with a biblical passage or parable I encourage you to read it in the Message in addition to your translation of choice to begin to “hear” it as the people in Jesus’ day did.

As you read and reread the story, ask questions of the text, long before you jump into, “what does this mean for me today?”
·         Who is Speaking in the story? (Jesus, Paul, James, Matthew, etc.)
·         Who is the primary audience? (Disciples, Crowd, Jewish leaders, Early Church, etc.)
·         What images are in the story unique to Jewish or ancient Middle Eastern Culture? (Sheep, Shepherds, Caesar, etc.)
·         What does this text say about God? (Love, Justice, Patience, etc.)
·         What is confusing me in the story?
·         What questions linger as I read this?


After reading and re-reading a portion of the text and asking key questions, invite the Holy Spirit to illuminate the truth of the text. Write down your question and take them to your home group, life group, mentor, mature Christian friend, or pastor and begin to understand and ultimately to apply biblical truth by asking questions. 

Jason Esposito
Lead Pastor, CrossWay Church
www.crosswaygt.org


Tuesday, August 26, 2014

A Few Thoughts on Postmodern Culture, Truth, the Church and Spiritual Formation




As a pastor, I often think about how the community of faith (Church) should react to the culture. When it comes to North American culture, in the famous words of Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, “We’re not in Kansas anymore.”(We haven’t been for years). If the emphasis of the modern worldview was a confidence in the ability of human reason to overcome every obstacle, then postmodernism is the antithesis. Author Heath White writes, “Premoderns placed their trust in authority. Moderns lost their confidence in authority and placed it in human reason instead. Postmoderns kept the modern distrust of authority but lost their trust in reason and have found nothing to replace it. This is the crux of all postmodern thought.”[1] A few “ism’s” that inform and flow out of postmodernism are nihilism, relativism, constructivism, and pragmatism. In most of these views the postmodern doesn’t reject truth holistically but the idea that there is a universal truth for all people and all time is deeply suspect. And even if there was a truth that did hold true in all cultures it could not necessarily be known in postmodern thinking.
           
A postmodern view of history is an important characteristic that connects to the concept of what was or is true. The perspective of the person experiencing history or writing about history informs what historical story is told. Any given historical event can have nearly limitless perspectives to discover. The birth of North America is a very different historical story taken from a Native American, Western European or African perspective. A true historical account is difficult, if not impossible to reach from a postmodern perspective.       
 The postmodern mind sees truth statements from a power-over stance. White writes, “From a postmodern perspective, those who try to tell us about our human nature are pushing one more power agenda.”[2] Moral absolutes are uncertain, as they are perceived to have a dominant and controlling agenda.

Postmodernism informs how language is used and understood. Determining concrete meanings of words that represent very real things is challenging. Words become variant in meaning, often metaphorically used. For the postmodern a discussion about the Bible being inerrant, infallible or God breathed takes on a different meaning than in traditional modern theological circles. The mere idea of a traditional modern theological circle would be doubtful in postmodernism.

Another author, Fredrick Schweitzer looks at postmodern culture through the lens of life cycles, heavily informed by the work of Erickson. He breaks down several core cycles (childhood, youth, post-adolescence, adulthood and old age) in a person’s life looking at how postmodern culture has influenced development and specifically the role of the church/religious training. The challenge to the church in regards to the postmodern life cycle is paramount. Schweitzer writes, “The traditional churches especially seem to be faced with enormous difficulties of staying in touch with the lives of those living in postmodernity…the real difficulty lies in how postmodern individuals may become convinced that staying affiliated with a religious institution is still worthwhile.”[3]
           
Postmodern life cycles have a tremendous impact on how spiritual formation is engaged and what spiritual formation is. The instability of childhood, plurality of adolescence, disaffiliation of postadolescence, ambiguity of what adulthood is, and the realization of old age, are important considerations in the formation process. A one-size fits all approach to spiritual formation simply won’t work and will exacerbate the already disenfranchised (in their perception) postmodern hoards.

Core Christian themes relating to authority, language, truth (both particular and universal) are all under scrutiny in a postmodern culture. The Bible as the source of revelation informing human history, present reality and eschatological hopes needs to be re-engaged for the postmodern mind. It is not just the process of spiritual formation, but also the very content of the process and the goals that need to be evaluated in our western postmodern age. From a traditional catechism model to modern scope and sequence, children’s ministries, and the girth of small group models, the church needs to radically adapt for impactful spiritual formation to occur.

The spiritual formation practices of the past 50 years in both protestant and catholic context are not sufficient to engage the postmodern. When Jesus Christ entered human history in flesh he did so in a particular culture. He spoke the language of that culture, was schooled in the thinking of that day, dressed in the garb of the day and understood the cultural values. Jesus was a Jewish rabbi who called disciples to follow him in a culturally familiar (though profound and outside-the -box) manner. The stories that Jesus told, called parables, built upon a tradition of parables from other Rabbis. The questions lobbed at Jesus were not just to trap Jesus, but also common debates in Jewish culture. Jesus operated in a Jewish context but also in recognition of the broader Hellenistic culture that ruled over Israel. He understood the broader context and story that was unfolding in the variant Jewish sects and the ideas about what the Messiah would do.

Postmodern culture is the culture that we reside in, much like Jesus residing in ancient Jewish culture. An understanding of the culture is not an add-on to the spiritual formation process and being church; it is the very heart of it. If we don’t understand the cultural philosophical context we are in, the efforts to engage formation will become destructive to the church body. As the church moves into the next century and postmodernism fades into a new cultural context, the church will need to adapt. It did this when the church was persecuted, it did it when Rome became “Christian”, when it fell, when Aristotelian thinking took hold, and in every subsequent cultural shift. That is the beauty and power of the Christian story: to adapt in every context and yet maintain The Story.

Jason Esposito
Lead Pastor
CrossWay Church
www.crosswaygt.org




[1] Heath White, Post-Modernism 101 (Grand Rapids: Brazo Press, 2006), 41.
[2] Heath White, Post-Modernism 101, 60.
[3] Fredrick Schweitzer, The Postmodern Life Cycle (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2004), 17.

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Faith and Facebook: Reflections on Technology






I found it noteworthy that as I read the book iGods by Craig Detweiler, about technology and theology, in a local coffee shop, several of the surrounding conversations centered on technology. One group was discussing the speed of their home Internet, Apple’s Time Machine device and smartphones. Another couple was celebrating Skype and the ease of connecting visually with friends. Technology is all around us, in us and is clearly one of the major culture creators. Books like iGods are crucial for the church today to read, digest and grapple with, as the explosive technology revolution of our age is shaping ideas about spiritual formation. As unmistakably stated in the book, technology is not neutral but is a defining force shaping how we view ourselves, community, faith, spirituality and God. Both overt and subversive, technology companies like Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook and others are impacting the church with the same force as the printing press did over five hundred years ago.

Detweiler opens his book by stating, “Our faith in technology is impatient. It does not tolerate delays.”[1] Technology trains us to move fast, think fast, respond fast and get what we want fast. If the video is buffering or the website bogs down or the computer takes too long to turn on, we grow impatient. The daily paper delivery and nightly news are dinosaurs of a day long gone. Why wait twenty-four hours or even a few hours to get the news when you can have the news instantaneously streamed to your portable electronic device. How fast is fast enough? Not even a consideration. Fast enough no longer exists in an emerging 5G world. Has technology trained us to get what we want when we want it and how we want it? It is not a stretch to say a resounding, yes. And yet, how counter to the Christian story this is. God worked through thousands of years to bring the prophecy of a Messiah to fruition and two thousand years of post-Christian history has still not seen the words of Revelation 21, with the New Heaven and New Earth, fulfilled. Peter writes that God is a patient God and that a thousand years are but a day to the Creator of all things. The lost discipline of waiting on God has been eroded away by the technological cult of fast and now. Detweiler writes, “Patience is repeatedly celebrated as a virtue. Waiting seems to be an inherent part of Christian discipleship. Speed is never held up as something valuable or desirable. In fact, the notion of eternity challenges the entire notion of faster.”[2]

Jesus took three years to focus his attention on a small group of followers called the disciples. The very foundation of Jewish disciple-making had to do with intimate time together. A disciple was not just a person who wanted to know what the rabbi knew, but was also one who wanted to be what the rabbi was. They listened to the rabbi’s interpretation of the Torah but they also wanted to see how the rabbi interacted with leaders, the government, widows, Gentiles and shepherds. To be a disciple was a complete and utter transformation of thinking and action. Faith and belief in the Jewish mind were never purely cognitive endeavors, but rather a complete change of essence. This was and is true of discipleship. Technology infects us with the idea that we cannot wait three minutes, let alone three years. No wonder many church-based discipleship programs fail to truly make committed followers of Jesus Christ when the discipleship is squeezed into a one-hour, ten-week group. If I purchase a book on Amazon through my Kindle Fire (I purchased and read iGod along with several other books on my Kindle), the expectation is that the moment I push the purchase button, I get what I want instantly. How counter this is to following Christ, which is a long, slow journey in the same direction. Amazon and Google provide, at our fingertips, more information than any one person or community could ever digest. And yet has this abundance of information created Christians who believe that discipleship is just the accumulation of more knowledge? The more I know, the holier I am. It has now moved beyond what we know to how much we can access through Google, Bible Logos, Blue Letter Bible and Bible Gateway. The more we can access, the more we perceive that we grow in our Christian maturity. This is an age-old danger. It was not created by modern technology. Our obsession over information access has poured rocket fuel on the already enormous challenge of connecting the mind and heart.

Community has always been and will always be at the core of the Christian story of spiritual formation. The necessity of community began in Genesis and continues into Revelation. The story of time, as we know it, begins in a garden with people and will end in a city with people. This insatiable need for community is birthed in the truth that we are created in the image of a God who exists in the perfection of Community. Because God is three in one and we are created in the persona of God, we need God and each other. Facebook, Twitter and other social media services have scratched this heavenly itch. And though we are more connected than ever before, we are living in virtual communities of distracted isolation. “We are hyperconnected and easily distracted, always available and rarely present.”[3] Facebook has given us hundreds of friends and in doing so, stripped us of friendship. It has created pseudo-communities of individuals sharing their lives with a group of people who don’t really care. Our Facebook friends have become our audience to affirm us, to like us and to re-post our life. The bigger the audience, the more likes, the greater value we have. Social media increase the desire to self-promote and show the world that we are important, needed, and living the good life. It is no longer enough that our identity is in the image of God or that we are part of a spiritual family (unless God and our church community friend us). As Detweiler writes, “Sophisticated Facebook users perfect the art of the underbragger[4]. Rather than tooting accomplishments, the underbragger manages to seem humble while still getting out the overall message, ‘Look at what I’m doing.’” Whether it is underbragging or sharing too much, they are both a desperate plea to be noticed. This a clear challenge to what Paul writes in Philippians 2, pointing to the example of Christ who was the ultimate servant living for the fame of his Heavenly Father.

All of this is not to say that Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple and the other technology companies have not helped, expanded and positively informed the Christian story. I am so thankful for the research, resources, communication and connectivity that each of these companies has provided to aid in the journey of following Christ. The clear vision of Christ to go into the world and make disciples has been catapulted forward by the use of modern technology. Technology has not only provided resources for spiritual formation, but has also shaped what the process looks like and the very definition of formation. And this is where the caution lies. Embrace the opportunities technology offers, but do it with an I-pad in one hand and the Bible in the other. We cannot just brainlessly utilize every technology because it seems to “work”. We must evaluate technology through the grid of the special revelation of God’s Word. In doing so we become like Daniel, knowing when to abstain and when to partake as we pursue our journey of becoming more like Christ.

Jason Esposito
Lead Pastor, CrossWay Church,



[1] Craig Detweiler. iGods (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2013) Kindle location 115.
[2] Craig Detweiler, iGods, Kindle location 3832.
[3] Craig Detweiler, iGods, Kindle location 199.
[4] Craig Detweiler, iGods, Kindle location 2867.