Two weeks ago we looked at The Problem: Connecting in a Digital Age
-Technology has many great advantages! But also comes with new and different problems. -Increased our communication capacity but decreased the attentiveness and availability to communicate well with people in front of us.
-Technology has provided a way for human beings to have more and more relationships that operate at our convenience. We are multitasking each other, safely keeping each other in our inboxes.
-Over-communicate yet under-connected. We are texting each other but not touching each other. High-tech yet low-touch experiences. We are available to the masses yet our souls wither for lack of connection. “Quivering masses of availability”- Dr Twenge
-WE NEED TO REDEEM CONVERSATIONS.
Research on the Effects of Smartphone and Social media on Relationships:
Dr. Jean M. Twenge; psychologist who studies generational differences published a study in 2017, of the generation born between 1995-2012, iGen. because they were born when 50% of Americans had a smart phone. She studied the effects of the rise of the smart phone + social media.
A. The Research
1. Suicide and depression sky rocketed compared to previous generation at the same age.
2. This is partly due to loss of conversations among younger individuals.
3. By texting and posting, we can clean up or sanitize our communication.
4. We can delete, edit, and re-edit before sending keeping the real “us” from ever slipping out.
5. Conversations do not allow this option. There is no editing and what is said cannot be unsaid.
6. If we are not careful, texting allows us to feel as though we are in constant contact while not requiring us to commit or actually give time to the relationship.
7. As relationships become more thinly spread, our holiness will increase proportionately with the number of texting or social media “friends” we maintain!
8. The great risk is our pride grows with a thin veneer of intimacy or friendship without requiring us to enter any of its sacred pain, sorrow, and suffering.
9. Technology provides the possibility of arranging our world in such a way we don’t have to experience it. (Any wonder why the virtual world is such an attractive alternative to real life for this generation.)
10. This does not even touch the issues of confirmation bias we experience when social media company’s fill our feeds with ideas and content they know we already have a bias towards.
11. Nor who this begins to to turn relationships and our interactions into a commodity to be sold and bought.
B. Translating the Research
1. We have become a world of people alone together.
2. Communication is one way we exemplify our humanity.
3. We are relational beings: that is why solitary confinement is a punishment! Why infants who aren’t held, touched, and connected have a 50% greater chance of dying in their 1st yr or suffering some mental and emotional development issues.
4. Communication is what makes relationships possible.
5. We are experiencing the reality that volume of communication is not bringing us joy or meaning to our lives.
6. We can gather or find info, share ideas, spread opinions, and disseminate lies quicker than ever.
7. The issue is not do we communicate but how we communicate! We communicate but do not converse.
We share but do not dialogue. We speak, text, post, etc... but do not listen.
8. We don’t need more communication, we need more precise and vulnerable dialogue.
The abundance of communication coupled with the isolation and loneliness means although we have more opportunity for meaningful connection we don’t really know how to communicate in a way that builds connection.
Perhaps, one reason we feel so separated or lonely is not that we lack community nor communication, but truthful common speech that informs and identifies our experiences!
We can avoid the dangers of vulnerability but we will not have the comfort of love!
God calls us to Redeem our Words (Review of Text!)
A. How we Spiritual Grow (Eph. 4:11-32)
1. The 5 ministry gifts are given to: (a) equip the saints work of ministry. (b) build up the body of Christ. (v. 11-13a)
2. Until... (a) we all attain unity of faith and knowledge of Christ (b) mature together into the fullness of Christ. (v. 13b-14)
3. Vs 14 Listening for the Truth: Part of Christian Maturity is the ability to discern the truth from deception.
4. Vs 15: Spiritual growth of the body of Christ- individually and corporately- is directly related to how we hear and how we speak.
5. We grow together towards this by.. Speaking the Truth in Love. (v. 15-16)
6. LOVE is the FILTER for our speech. A filter removes the grounds, grains, or even what might be harmful so that what is essential or pure may remain. -Filter attitudes, emotions, feelings, desire to vent.
B. Imparting Grace with Our Words (Eph. 4:29)
1. Grace= God’s empowering Presence that enables us to do what He has called us to do and to be what He has called us to be. Grace is God’s action on our behalf.
2. Grace is what saves humanity. “For by grace you have been saved...(Eph. 2:8)
-Our words do not save. God uses our words to make His grace available. He alone saves people.
3. We can speak in such a way that God’s grace is made available to those who hear. 4. This is redeeming conversation! When our conversations with others make God’s grace available to them in ways they were not aware of prior to our words.
Speaking the Truth in Love
A. People committed to the truth!
1. Committed to searching for the truth. Inwardly (honest self examination) and Circumstantially (when appropriate searching for the truth of a situation)
2. Truth is not relative but it may be contingent.
3. Committed to hearing the truth, listening for the truth..
4. Committed to the conflict and dialogue necessary to come to what is true.
5. Human’s love darkness rather than light. (Jh. 3:19) We are constantly deceived and deceiving ourselves and others. (Albert Speers)
6. Truth/reality: is what you run into when you are wrong!
7. We learn to welcome the truth more as we learn that in life pain unavoidable.
8. Either good pain that comes from cooperating with what is true or bad pain that comes as a result of going against what is true.
9. Truth helps us to cooperate with reality in such a way as to achieve certain results.
10. We must learn to become a people who are OK, even expect difficult conversations because we are committed to the truth, love, and growth. We are people who can disagree and work through issues because we have a greater and higher source of unity: our Head the Lord Jesus Christ.
B. Practical Application:
1. Love as filter: filtering unloving or unhealthy attitudes, emotions, feelings, desires, etc.
2. Not talking about suppressing feelings, but communication with the other in mind.
3. Non-Verbal- “Fine” said in three different ways.. Playful: “I got your nose.”
4. Indirect Comm- “Where would you like to eat?” Could mean you haven’t cooked for us in a long time, Or I have Mexican in mind but want to know your thoughts?, negative side of indirect as when we hint at each other.
5. The whole truth as best we know it: Pink Panther: does your dog bite?; partial truths for power: train leaves at 4:00;
6. Factual statements that creates, implies, or covers a lie! “Captain was sober today.” Or “I did not run over her with my car..” See there that is a truck!
7. Speaking the truth in love means the Christian’s are examining their motives behind the communication. Keeping our communication as pure as possible. This means confessing when our motives are twisted and asking forgiveness.
8. Christians are then willing to examine their own hearts and work to keep their love on regardless of what the other may be doing!
C. Language that is Truthful
1. Language of worship- speaking and thinking well of God is primary. We must not think or speak of God in a way that is unworthy of Him. The Creeds were historically ways that we informed and test our language.
2. Language of Lament-
3. Language of Intimacy
4. Language and Children
5. Language of Confession
6. Language of Leadership
Conclusion:
Relationships are what life is about. But they are not automatic. The currency of relationships are language and communication.
God desires that we redeem the way we speak which starts with how we listen and then how we communicate with the other in mind.
We Bring GP2RL Action Point:
Take an inventory of your words this week. Intentionally practice speaking in a way that builds others up.
DISCUSSION GUIDE FOR COMMUNITY GROUP LEADERS
Click here for a downloadable pdf file of this guide.
UNDERSTANDING THE SEASON: Words are powerful! God created everything and sustains it all by his word. God sent his WORD to redeem us and awaken life-giving conversation that transforms us and everyone around us. In this season we will grow in more effective conversation with God and with others.
God’s plan is for us to hear his voice together as a family. This is why we start each group with the first question:
DISCUSSION QUESTION:
1. Where are you reading in your Bible and what are you sensing from God?
Ask each person in your group to answer the discussion questions below after reading the verses. Don’t move on to the next question until everybody who is willing to share has had the opportunity to give their perspective.
EPHESIANS 4:11-16; 29 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.
Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. ESV
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
2. Have each person give a 60 second summary of what these verses are saying, in their own words.
3. What do these verses teach us about God?
4. What do these verses teach us about people?
5. What should you do this week in response to what we are reading and what God is revealing?
6. Who comes to mind when considering a person you might share this with this week?
We Bring GP2RL Action Point:
Take an inventory of your words this week. Intentionally practice speaking in a way that builds others up.