Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: You.
[00:00:00] Speaker B: Hey, thanks so much for listening to this message. My name is Jason, and I'm one of the ministers here at the Madison Church of Christ. It's our hope and prayer that the teaching you hear today will bless your life and draw you closer to God. If you're ever in the Madison area, we'd love for you to stop by and study the Bible with us on Sundays at 05:00 p.m. Or Wednesdays at 07:00 p.m.. If you have questions about the Bible or want to know more about the Madison Church, you can find us online at Madison Church.
Be sure to subscribe to this podcast as well as our sermons podcast, madison Church of Christ Sermons. Thanks again for stopping by. I hope this study is a blessing to you.
[00:00:37] Speaker A: Welcome to class tonight.
Those of you that are joining us online, we're grateful for your presence as well. Mr. David Tennyson is gratefully agreed to watch on our online chat. So if you've got anything to add to the conversation, we encourage you to do so. Just type it there in the chat and he will get my attention and make sure that you're a part of the conversation tonight.
This is our analog faith in Digital Babylon class. We are on week ten, I believe, which means we've got just a couple more weeks to go before we wrap up for this quarter and move on to a fresh study. It's been a very eye opening study for me. Very beneficial, exciting, really intriguing, a little bit scary. All the emotions, all the feels, as the kids used to say, probably ten years ago.
But tonight we're going to continue a little bit of our discussion from last week, which was artificial intelligence. And we're going to move into the area of virtual reality and augmented reality, because why not, right? Last week when we ended our conversation, we talked about how AI. Poses a real challenge to what is true and what is truth. And as Christians, we are truth tellers. We are image bearers of God, and therefore we are truth bearers of truth of what Jesus spoke in John chapter 14, verses five through seven. And I'd encourage you to read that entire chapter. You know what? Just go with the whole Gospel of John. It's really fun. But specifically in chapter 14, he says that he is the way, the truth and the life. It would go on to say that no one comes to the Father except through me. One of the challenges of artificial intelligence is that it is intelligence in the sense that it is sort of reflected data. It is reflected data of the collective humanity that exists digitally through the Internet, through social media, through other data sets of artwork and literature, throughout all of humanity and history. All of those things get trained. AI technology gets trained on these large language models, which then gives us answers when we ask it, when we prompt it. And specifically Chat GBT, probably the most popular one right now. When you ask it a question or when you tell it something, it will interact with you in a very conversational way. And for emerging generations in particular, just the interface is something that I think could be a potential danger if our kids grow up and they ask a question. I remember having a magic eight ball. You remember those. You'd ask it a question and you flip it over and it'd always tell you to ask again later, which just seemed like a really lazy way out of it. Never did that in the commercials, but that or Taco Bell packets there for a little while, they gave you also your future. When you look at not CGI, when you look at Chat GPT and you ask it a question about the meaning of life, and it comes back to you in a very conversational way. Kids in particular are susceptible to cultivating a relationship because of how the information is exchanged. We know it's a chat bot as adults, but those that are being raised right now, immersed in this world from a very young age, prefront frontal cortex development, right when all of the brain that is responsible for decision making and for really weighing the big picture of things, it's just not there yet. They're not equipped from a brain standpoint with the ability to navigate that without expertly, I guess. And so as adults, we have to be very wise in thinking through not just right now, but what does this technology lead to? I shared with you last week a couple of ways that AI is being used to generate online Bible studies and to generate it's combined with some animation. There's a fellow I know over in Woodstock, Georgia, that has a website called Logos Answers and he's partnered with missionaries and preachers and ministers across the globe to create virtual Bible studies with these animated avatars that look and sound like people from different parts of the world. So he can change and tweak the nuance of their facial expressions. He can control what they say and how they say it using AI technology so that their dialect sounds like they're really from that region, so that the cultural references are accurate. He partners with, again, folks that are in those regions. So that's a wonderful way to use artificial intelligence. We've used it here at Madison to create those trading cards for our kids and our older kids to collect and learn about scripture. So there's some amazing ways. The question that's been asked a lot is, is fill in the blank good or is it bad? Is social media good? Is it bad? Is AI good. Is it bad? The answer is yes, it is powerful. And because it's powerful, it's very important for us to understand as much as we can of how it works, but also how it plays a role in our life. And how it impacts us and those around us. First, thessalonians Chapter Five tells us to test all things, but to hold fast what is true. It's very important for us to spend a lot of our time in this life identifying what is true and what is biblical truth.
Because anything outside of biblical truth, well, those things should not guide our lives. We have to interact with those things. We interact with untruths all the time and people that live according to untruth, as God would say it. But if we can't identify truth, then it makes us very susceptible to drifting in that direction. Jesus was very, very plain when he said that wide is the gate, broad is the way. It's very easy, the road that leads to destruction.
It's very easy for us to develop thought processes, to develop a heart conditioned to the ways of the world, as Paul would use that term carnal. He didn't mean it in the sexual sense. He meant it in the non spiritual sense. He meant in the earthly, the worldly sense of thinking, and that the flesh is in opposition with the spirit. And so we have to be very, very wise and take a lot of time. We need to spend time in the word. We need to spend time examining our hearts and our actions as well as our motives in contrast with what Christ identifies as the world.
So that's kind of where we left off. And this is where we're going to pick up tonight. What is virtual reality? Anybody want to take a stab at a definition close to reality? All right, what else?
Anybody thinking a gimmick at the mall in the late 19 hundreds?
No, just me? Cool. Good. All right. Well, here's a working definition. The state of being virtual or being one way in power, force, or effect, but another way in actuality. Virtuality is another term that's kind of used interchangeably here. This is a lot of words to describe virtual reality. I would say reality that is not this reality. It's an animated space. It's a digital space. It is a created space that we can enter into in some way using a lot of our senses. So you can look, you can feel in a lot of instances, to some degree, this is what it looked like in 1990 if you were walking to the East El Mall in Montgomery, Alabama, right before you got to the skating rink. There were these two giant platforms with circles, with people that looked like that little boy that had these massive I mean, I think there's a whole generation that has scoliosis just because of the ten minutes they spent with this. And it was expensive, so I never did it, but I always watched them. The guy on the left is using a Sega machine. I didn't realize they had one. But everybody else that's watching the weird person with this contraption is watching what's on the monitor. And at that time, it was a series of polygons and shapes, triangles, things like that, that they interacted with. And it was lo fi, I guess you would say. It wasn't overly captivating, which that's a big reason why these machines went the way of the actual mall itself. They're not super popular, but then this is a more modern version. I don't know if you've seen Nick Saban boxing, but his daughter took a picture of him at Christmas last year, and he's wearing a more modern VR set. They haven't really changed a whole whole lot. They've gotten a little bit smaller and they've added some little bit smaller joysticks that actually look a lot more like Wi controllers. And so he is seeing something on his oculus there. I believe it's an oculus. And he's interacting with that, playing a game, boxing, as it were. He's got some pretty good moves, light afoot for his age. This is another option. What you would see here in the monitor there is what they're actually experiencing.
So with AI technology, our gaming technology has really exploded as well. It will continue to get more and more lifelike. It's still not quite there. I haven't experienced one of the new Oculus or any of the new VR headsets, but I did some of the old ones back in the day. This is a Google Glass. When it first came out, this was more, I would say, in the Star Trek lane of thinking. But this would utilize augmented reality. Virtual reality is this digital space. Real reality is us. And then somewhere in the middle is augmented reality that takes real reality and sort of overlays some digital elements to it. Think in terms of, like, Snapchat filters.
I wouldn't say really a zoom virtual background, per se, but like on a Snapchat filter, it reacts to you. You open your mouth, the dog's tongue comes out, right, and you look even weirder, right? It's something that interacts with you in a real space, but in a digital way. And so that's a little bit more in the line of thinking of what those classes were. All right, so we've kind of identified and sort of outlined sort of all on a page here of virtual reality. What are some benefits of virtual reality technology? Have you seen it in your industry or have you seen it in other industries that you thought, well, that's pretty interesting, that's pretty cool.
[00:10:05] Speaker C: So it can be a really good training tool, especially for jobs that are inherently dangerous. So instead of making someone go do an activity that could cause them harm if they didn't know how to do it properly, they use VR.
[00:10:17] Speaker A: And then if they do something wrong.
[00:10:19] Speaker D: Then they get an animation of dying.
[00:10:21] Speaker E: Or hurting themselves instead of actually doing it.
[00:10:23] Speaker A: Yes. So some would say a video game, and to some degree, they're right. Exactly. Because when you die, you just start back over virtual reality has a benefit of taking real dangers and making them animated. So we don't feel death or catastrophic injury, but we still get the exercise. Think in terms of if you are a first responder, you can simulate a natural disaster, and you can go in, and you can go and clear a house. If you're a law enforcement, you can go through and have a virtual experience that trains you. And why is it effective in training you? Why would a VR experience be more beneficial than just going through slides?
[00:11:03] Speaker C: Because you actually go through the motions. You're actually getting at least a little bit of muscle memory to help you.
[00:11:10] Speaker A: When you're in that actual situation, it is completely immersive. Right? So the cool thing about it is, when you have these gadgets on your faces, when you look around, there's something that you see in all spaces. I have some really beautiful slides, and I thank you for all of the praise for those over the year. Campus been great, but that's one dimensional, right? It's just a flat square, and you can make the most beautiful slides in the world, but they're not immersive. They don't necessarily elicit emotions or the vascular response that you would if you're actually in a situation.
[00:11:41] Speaker D: Hunter pilots have used virtual reality for flight simulation for a long time, and if you've ever been in one of those, stressful starts beeping at you and everything else. Looking at clients, I usually don't get stressed out.
[00:11:58] Speaker A: I get stressed out making them.
Making them and then not proofreading them, maybe. Yeah. That's the part that causes me lots of consternation. But exactly. In flight simulators, those have been around for decades now. It's meant to be an immersive technology. When I came to Huntsville the very first time, I think it was fifth grade field trip, and we did space and rocket center, and then we did the what's the one next to it? The aviation challenge. And that was the first time I did a flight simulator. And when you land, it shakes and it rumbles and all that, and it's an experience of, I could crash a multimillion dollar airplane. Then you're like, you're ten. You're not in a real one. But when you feel like you're immersed, then you react as though you were in that space. And this is where it's kind of interesting.
I'll give you the three reasons that I believe VR is super helpful. It's when you can experience something that's unsafe in a safe way. Like was pointed out, when something's really expensive, it's really expensive to travel, generally speaking. And so to travel to the other side of the world cost a lot of money. You got to take a lot of time away from where you are. If you did that virtually, you could travel to Rome, and you could walk through the coliseum for $399 for the price of an oculus, and then a program software to run it. That's pretty cool. Impossible. You could run with dinosaurs. You could enter into Jurassic Park and you could have a heyday running around with dinosaurs. That'd be great, Trey. I feel like you'd be up for that. That's what I thought. So when things are unsafe, it's a good alternative. When things are expensive, it could be an interesting alternative. And when things are impossible, it could be a really creative way. God has created humanity to be very creative, right? By very nature, God was a creator, and God was very creative in the things that he spoke into existence. So it makes sense that as image bearers of that, we would also be creative in what we come up with. It gets interesting though, with virtual reality because it kind of becomes its own space where things can happen, but we still have to come back to this space.
And so in that sense, it's exactly like the internet. It's exactly like a chat room where you feel like you can create another persona and you can say things, do things, that sometimes you feel like those consequences don't actually come back to you in a tangible way, if that makes sense. And that's where VR can be a little tricky. I think it's something for us to consider. I had mentioned earlier the Logos answers. When we get into some of these unsafe dangers of VR technology, I want us to keep the term reality at the forefront because I do think that oftentimes we create different personas based on where we are, and that's not necessarily strictly in the digital space. Many of you in this room have an occupation, a job of some sort. And whether you go to an office still or you work from home, you interact with that group of folks. Have you ever had an awkward moment where maybe back in the day, like school friends met church friends, or maybe work friends meet your church friends, and there's just like, oh boy, how are these two groups going to mix? Or your friends met your family and you're like, this is not going to be good. You're kind of one person over here, but maybe you're kind of another person over there. VR really takes that to a whole nother level. One of the classes that I had to take in some of my grad school was to get an account and to join a form of the metaverse. And we had to create an avatar and we had to go and have an online experience in the metaverse and kind of explore a little bit. It was a little bit clunky in my experience. It wasn't virtual. It was just on a computer monitor. But I found a church building. It was massive. I think it was a big community church and it was a Tuesday, so nobody was home, which is really disappointing. But I got to walk in and walk around and I don't know if this is an exact replica of their building or not, but I got to explore a little bit. That could be dangerous. All of our security guys are going like, we are not putting Madison on the map here. Not a chance. Probably a good thing.
What do you think about a church existing in the virtual realm?
We're going to skip the danger slide. We're going to go to this one.
What do you think?
What are some things I guess we should consider when it comes to the church being in a virtual reality space?
I'm not going to lie. When you said catering, I immediately went food. I'm like, I don't know how you do potlucks poppy, see chicken. Is it just as good virtual I doubt it.
Sorry. Go ahead.
[00:16:37] Speaker E: Are they still using it as an outreach method or is it now starting to adapt and be more of a virtual reality function and just a little bit of spirituality mixed in? Which way are they leaning towards is it streaming services? Is it that kind of usefulness where.
[00:16:58] Speaker D: You can sit in a pew next.
[00:17:00] Speaker E: To other people that are also watching this that just can't go in like a shut in, right? That would be a cool environment because you can sit next to someone even though you can't leave your bed or your house. But is it that or is it just, oh, yeah, we're here, but we'll let anything kind of go. Let the whole metaverse happen. This is just a building you can do.
[00:17:20] Speaker A: Okay. Yes, sir.
[00:17:22] Speaker D: I think of kind of the old expression for doctrine about aid in addition, but aid and replacement. So is it something that's aiding us coming together? Like he's talking about maybe people that can't come together for certain reasons, maybe those who are in situations where I know people that live certain parts of the world and they either don't have church or they have a church that they feel might be a little too liberal, a little too conservative on doctrine. They don't really fully feel comfortable going to that church. Can do that kind of thing. But a church like Madison, are we just replacing the human element or is it something that can help aid in that and also aid people that may not be able to get what they feel like is sufficient spiritual interaction in the world?
[00:18:14] Speaker A: Is it replacing human element or enhancing the human element? Is that maybe a fair summation? Okay. That's a really good question, Jason.
[00:18:22] Speaker D: It wasn't quite virtual reality we had driven underneath three years ago.
[00:18:26] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:18:27] Speaker D: When nobody could come to the church building and everybody was watching at home. It was great for some people. Some people it was very I hate to say that, but some people that will want them to leave but didn't want to leave because people held them accountable. But now that everybody was in their house, I'm out.
[00:18:48] Speaker A: Okay. Easy to be anonymous. Then once you go, we'll come back. Mike, we had two hands here, so here and then hunter I think that.
[00:18:55] Speaker D: One thing to consider, to answer your question, is how do you make it to where it's not just something to know, show up, do my service, and then leave? Versus making it something that you can be a part of, fellowship or minister to other people? It's an opportunity for us to serve each other.
[00:19:16] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:19:16] Speaker D: And not just one way.
[00:19:20] Speaker A: Go ahead, Hunter. Yeah, that's good. Sorry I didn't cut you off. Were you done? I was trying to take notes as you go so I can remember. Go ahead, Hunter.
[00:19:28] Speaker D: I was just going to say there does have to be a personal connection and a personal interaction with other members of the church to really get that fellowship. That's extremely hard to do virtually. It's very personal. No matter how hard you might try people over a zoom, call and talk to them on people's basis.
We did that for a long time. I still do that work. And it's not the same as being.
[00:19:59] Speaker A: In real online is not the same as physically, in the flesh, in the same presence.
[00:20:05] Speaker D: Mike I think my concern is it's not real. So if we're to bear one another's burdens and if we're to be real with one another, how do you do that in a virtual reality?
Jesus didn't tell us to set in our homes with an octopus on and worship virtually. He told us to go out in the mean we need to be going to the shut in. So for me, it concerns me quite a bit because I just feel like this is another step that we're going to take where we don't have to be anybody's lives. We don't have to be inconvenienced and go to someone's house or inconvenience to go to a nursing room or to get out and reach the masters. Right now, we're like, Well, I can reach everybody from my living room.
My avatar is going to have hair.
[00:21:03] Speaker A: I'm with you.
I'll go to the shop online with you. Yeah, we'll do it.
Jimmy and then.
[00:21:12] Speaker C: Just on top of what everyone else has said, part of what we do when we come together to worship is we sing together. And if you're doing it virtually, then there's no way, at least not yet, for them to bring all the voices together the way that God wants to the way that God intends, and it's praising God, but it's also encouraging to other people around you to hear you sing.
That's something that we'd be lacking.
It can be a good tool, just like being able to stream worship service is a good tool if you're at home sick or if you're not able to get out or something like that.
But it should be the exception, not the rule, that we should always be coming together because there's the fellowship afterwards, but there's also, just hearing other people sing with you can be really encouraging.
[00:22:23] Speaker A: So have you ever played anybody online video games? Are you able to hear them?
[00:22:29] Speaker C: You can?
[00:22:30] Speaker A: Is it a group setting? Would you be able to hear multiple people? No, just one person at a time.
[00:22:35] Speaker C: It would come out as a junk mess. You'd never be able to get everybody's voices synced together in the way that would have the same effect.
[00:22:46] Speaker A: I got you for two months, we exclusively did that. You could turn your TV up as loud as you want to drown out, but the physical voices you heard were exclusively in the room with you, which was limited to your household.
So we've done it for a period of time. And I know your point there was it's not extended? Playing a little devil's advocate. And there's a purpose for this, not just to pick a fight.
This is still novel for us in 20, 40, 50 years, our children and grandchildren, it's going to be normal for them.
We have to teach them how to think about things. And specifically to Mike's point, that because you can may or may not mean that you should. And we have to learn how to discern. So, for instance, I'm glad you brought that one up. What else do we do? And gosh, I haven't forgot about you. We'll come to you in just 1 second. What are some of the things that we do in our weekly gatherings? We gather on Sunday. What are some things that are part of our Sunday gatherings? We said singing, communion, Lord Supper, offering fellowship. Fellowship, prayer, sermon or Bible study class. What else?
[00:23:58] Speaker D: Reality does replicate physical touch. Like an handshake or a hug.
[00:24:04] Speaker A: Okay. If it gets to a point where if you reach out and there's and it vibrates still not the same. But it would have some form there, right?
Some people may prefer that baptisms. So can we sing together online?
Raise your hand if you think yes.
Our hands down. Raise your hand if you think no.
This is getting real fun. All right. Can we pray together online?
Raise your hand if you think yes.
Majority of the room. Raise your hand if you think no.
All right, well, now you're just scared. Okay.
Can there be a sermon online?
Okay. Yes. Most everybody bible study online.
For the most part, yeah.
Offering.
Did you know that about 70% to 75% of our weekly contribution comes from online giving? It was like twelve pre pandemic scripture reading. Can you read Scripture online in the virtual space? Can you confess sin?
Here's the controversial one. Can you do announcements?
I kind of wish we would only do that online.
What about baptism?
You could view it, you couldn't be present. You could watch a baptism. Would a virtual baptism count, you think, in the eyes of God?
Mike was right. Jesus didn't talk about the Oculus.
The word didn't exist. Technically, the word homosexuality was not in the original text. The word didn't exist.
These are the arguments that you're going to get. This is going to be the resistance to some folks that are really pushing hard. I'm not saying I'm pushing hard for us to go exclusively in a virtual world trying to get us to think a little deeper, which has been the theme of this class each week. And this is a nuanced topic that I had spent little to no time pondering and I imagine I'm not in the minority on that. Wukash. Sorry to delay.
[00:26:23] Speaker D: For example, because we're living in so much vivid and visual world, many people might be able to experience, for instance, walking with Jesus when he was preaching and teaching, or for instance, when Adam and Eve were there when God was among them. Or purpose like how to become a disciple of Christ. That would be a really good class. But there is always the difference.
You can do it virtually all of the masks or streaming. Streaming is different than a virtual we're.
[00:27:00] Speaker A: Going to come back to that in just 1 second. Yes, ma'am.
[00:27:06] Speaker F: I thought it kind of explained that virtual reality is more like the modern art form and that if you look at it as art that you can interact with, christians have throughout history, interacted artistically and focused to the masses through art. Even if they couldn't read, they so I think that we would be remiss to not join in. We don't want to twist off and not walk into a virtual reality that comes from us. I'm not sure about worship because at the same time it's not true reality and we should know about truth and be able to offer real reality and truth. But as far as art, we can speak to people and be there and offer something beautiful in an ugly world.
And I think maybe if you're walking through an artistic landscape and interacting that way, you could meet people who know. Steph I love how she said offer different artistic experiences.
[00:28:11] Speaker A: Okay.
Very interesting. Yes, sir.
[00:28:15] Speaker G: I think she brings up a really good point when it comes to thinking about how our adversaries are also going to be using these same tools to accomplish negative things in the world. And like she's saying, you want to put something beautiful in the world using these tools.
[00:28:29] Speaker A: Right.
[00:28:29] Speaker G: So in some ways, yeah, it takes away the elements of realism to a lot of things. But if we don't figure out a way to adapt to use these tools, then the adversary is just going to have a leg up against us in terms of just finding and discipling people.
[00:28:50] Speaker A: Counterpoint. I'm just kidding.
[00:28:52] Speaker H: What I was thinking about and I loved what Mike said, or is the adversary trying to get us to come into this world and bring us into this completely fake reality that's going to become a reality to some people, like.
[00:29:04] Speaker A: A shut in.
[00:29:05] Speaker H: Like, is it better for them to try to get involved in the people that are actually around them, or is this virtual reality going to become their reality and they're not actually interacting in the way they should in the real world?
[00:29:17] Speaker A: Yeah, I think you could take that and apply it to video games to really any other vice to some degree. And one of the things that we've talked a lot about in this class is brain mapping. Basically the way our brain develops and works and interprets things. If virtual reality would put us in a situation and causes us to have all of the physical biological reactions to that virtual situation as we would in real life, then I think it's something that we need to take note of, that we need to be very aware of and how it's shaping and forming us. Julie I was going to say something.
[00:29:50] Speaker H: Similar to what Sarah Ann just said, but when you think about it, I mean, a lot of people talking to people who have healthier relationships with their devices than people my age and younger. And you talk so much about just how much depression and anxiety has increased with social media usage and kids my age, and I think about people gen, Z, whatever the next generation is.
[00:30:18] Speaker F: Them.
[00:30:18] Speaker H: And their approach to having a virtual church and a virtual reality in the church. I think a lot of the depression comes from, like she was saying, you've immersed your reality in something that isn't fulfilling, and you look for your social interactions online and in your social media, and it will never satisfy you. So each time you put down your phone and you're forced to look at the real reality, it's not enough, because you haven't gained any satisfaction from what you poured your time into. And I think about kids growing up and trying to invest their reality in a virtual church and just the depression that will come when you turn off the oculus, you turn off the computer and you look around at the world around you, and it doesn't satisfy.
I don't know. I mean, not that that necessarily will happen, but I see that being a reality for a lot of people.
[00:31:12] Speaker F: Younger people, younger generations don't have a.
[00:31:15] Speaker H: Healthy balance with real reality.
[00:31:18] Speaker A: I got you. It's an escape. Then they use that almost as a crutch or somewhere. Mike and then we'll come up front.
[00:31:23] Speaker D: Hunter you asked all those questions. Here's my question.
[00:31:27] Speaker A: I don't answer. I just ask.
[00:31:29] Speaker D: Can we worship? Mean, you mentioned all the elements of worship, but can we do that online? Can we truly worship in spirit if Jesus is there with us when two or three are gathered in his name, is Jesus going to be there? Mean I just keep going back that if we think those seven things you mentioned, those acts that that's worship, and we come in and we do those seven things and we walk out. If we think we check the box off, then we're really missing what worship is, period.
[00:32:00] Speaker A: Right. You've read some of my notes. One of the questions I originally had on the slide was, does God exist online? And do Christians exist online? Well, Christians exist wherever they are. God created the created order. Right. Virtual reality is a technology that humanity has developed. So, yeah, there's no spatial separation from that standpoint. Hunter, you had something I was just.
[00:32:26] Speaker E: Going to say, one of the challenges with virtual reality and the church is and would be the more it grows.
I don't know about y'all, but church for my two year old at the time and my four year old was not a great experience virtually with the COVID years.
[00:32:48] Speaker A: Right.
[00:32:49] Speaker E: And school for teachers and students alike was not great during the COVID time.
[00:32:57] Speaker A: Every teacher in here just amends you on that one.
[00:33:00] Speaker E: Little kids especially.
I don't know how you get the impact of a Bible class on a Sunday night or a Wednesday night. I don't know how you do that virtually for a three year old, week after week.
[00:33:15] Speaker A: Right.
Something to consider as this technology continues to grow and to develop, and it becomes more lifelike, and some of the hiccups that we experienced three years ago are already ironed out with some of those platforms, does the same logic still apply? We'll go, Jeff, real quick, and then we got somebody online, and then we're getting close to time to wrap up.
[00:33:42] Speaker D: The world.
How can you convert?
[00:33:51] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:33:55] Speaker D: Everybody.
[00:33:59] Speaker A: So by nature, technology is its own limiter, essentially. David, somebody online. Yeah.
[00:34:05] Speaker D: So Joyce Online is saying it's tough even in this class. Livestream with the audience at home being at the disadvantage. They're not able to hear all of the audience participation. But you're also not getting the look to your left. Look at the person who's speaking and see how they're saying the things that they're saying.
[00:34:23] Speaker A: Ms. Joyce, we're working on that. We're going to get a 360 camera. No one's going to come in class anymore because they're for fear of being on camera.
Yeah, that is definitely another limiter. A few things that I want us to think about, a few of the other shared experiences that we have as a part of the church. And tonight, your homework is to answer the question, what is the church? And to search the scriptures to find that answer some of the things that we share together as the family of God. Funerals.
How do you currently use technology to reach out to someone who's lost a loved one? You probably use your phone, might even use email. You might even go to the next step and use an emoji. And we've tried to find ways as we develop these new platforms and new means of communication, these new spaces to communicate, we try to find ways to communicate what actually happens right here. So we come up with these little emojis, right? A heart or googly eyes or weird ones that nobody understands, right? Facebook created the poke button in the beginning just to confuse everyone, and they were very successful. But then the like button came so that we could communicate something. But then the like button actually took on a life of its own. In these digital, non physical, non real spaces, we still try to reflect reality. And it's amazing how much effort and energy we put into creating a non real space to only try to make it reflect reality. Have you ever thought about that?
Like, the best video games are the ones that the most liked? Like, mostly because I would much rather control someone that looks just like an NFL player rather than to be someone that is tackled by an actual NFL player. So there's a lot of reasons why we do that. But from the beginning, I feel like there's been this desire to sort of escape reality in some sense. And now that we have the technology that really feeds that desire, it's not always good. And to be entertained it's probably fine, but to be consumed by our entertainment is not good. So that's a really big one. How should the church exist online? Mike referenced Matthew chapter 18 and verse 20. Wherever two or three are gathered in my name, there I am with them. Do you know what the context is for that statement?
It's really reconciliation.
Go back and read Matthew chapter 18 and see where that comes in line with what Jesus was saying there.
The presence of believers together gathered in the name of Christ seems to indicate also the presence of Jesus in that place. And so therefore, if two or three believers are gathered in a Facebook chat room or Facebook private group, is Jesus there? If they're gathered in his name, so to speak. One of the things that we really had to challenge in 2020 was everything our dictionary. What does it mean to gather?
We said it. I said it over and over again. Thanks for gathering with us. I say it on Sundays when I do the thanks for gathering with us online. If you're joining us online, the word gather and our definition was challenged, and we had to refine that, and we had to check it a little bit. To me, one of the greatest benefits of the COVID era for the church at large was we really had to examine what was, to use the popular term at the time, what was essential and what was tradition.
And if we rightly identify tradition, then you know what we have? We actually have freedom. We have the ability and the liberty to tweak and change.
And so we adapted some things, and it was a really challenging time for me, as it was for all of us. But in my role specifically, I had people say, thank you so much for whatever. Putting it online, that was my only connection to the church. And that was intended to be a compliment, and I was thankful for the encouragement, but I was also heartbroken because that means at that time, we had one layer of connection to the church, at least in how we articulated it, and that was first day of the week worship assembly. First day of the week worship gathering.
I think part of the challenge for us today that will directly impact the church of tomorrow is do we make our in person gatherings worth being a part of?
Is there something that's actually real in our connection here? Because otherwise the virtual connection that reality is going to be just as well. Ukash real quick.
That's right. Which was not all bad, actually.
That's right. You got yeah.
[00:38:43] Speaker D: Online. It should not be a substitute of gathering because you still have to have somebody, even though, as you said, if we're going to vibrate, you might be able to hear a person, maybe virtually, but it's still in 3D, still not physical, although you can feel it in your own home, but you don't feel the other person.
[00:39:05] Speaker A: The reality is us being in this proximity really does have a different impact than being in a digital space when there's a screen, when we're looking at pixels, because that's ultimately what it is. We kind of talked about that when we talked about pornography. And really what people are training their brains to operate and to respond to are pixels.
Pixels that come together. It's like pointalism. You remember art class, we talked about pointalism. It's an image that was created by a bunch of different dots. That when you get really close, it's like little dots, but when you span out, it's an image. That's kind of what we do there, too. It's not real.
If there's anything that Jesus came teaching, it was to bring a real kingdom. In fact, I would say that he brought the reality of a new kingdom. He didn't, and I've said this before in this class. He didn't come teaching a new moral ethic, a new way to be good. He came teaching a new way to experience life. The Kingdom of God is not church that you go to. The Kingdom of God is something that we are about, something that is in us. His spirit dwells within us. That's why our bodies have tremendous value. They house the spirit of God. They are created in the image of God. Screens bear the image of the image of God when they have our faces on it. So there's a person on the other side of that. But the technology is a conduit, I believe. My conviction is that technology in all circumstances, and I believe it'll scale up. I believe it scales backwards in history. The telephone was a great, great helper in making the world a little bit smaller so we could hear people's voices, and now we have where we can see their faces and hear their voices. So when someone's deployed in Afghanistan, halfway across the world, they can talk to their kids at night and they can sing them to sleep.
But if you ask either side of that conversation if that's the same thing as being there, the answer is absolutely not.
And it won't be. The existence online, our existence online should be a reflection of us in that if there's an opportunity, if you're a gamer and you have an opportunity to talk to somebody about the gospel, absolutely, you better take it, right? If you're in the line at the grocery store and you have an opportunity to talk about the gospel, absolutely, you better take it. We don't change who we are. We always reflect the image of Christ. We always reflect the image of God. Acts, chapter two, three and four. You see people that sell their real stuff for the sake of giving the proceeds they sold home or property, not for the sake of then moving on up in the world, not for the sake of buying new property for the sake of giving that money to other people who were in need.
There are two very visible wars going on on our planet right now. Those are the two that the news are picking up on. There's wars all across the continent, africa on a regular basis that we have no clue about, but there's also a spiritual war that goes on every second of every day for our hearts.
And how we see the world and how we interact with the world plays a major role in the success or failure of our battles that day.
I believe that God has called us to proclaim the gospel, to spread his kingdom and to glorify his name. And I'm going to do that on whatever platform I'm on, social media, whatever, even in the virtual space.
How should the church exist online is a very nuanced question right now from the Sake of Madison congregation. We're on Facebook, we have a public profile there. We have a public Instagram profile, we have a public YouTube channel. Those are essentially the three places that we are. We're not on TikTok, we're not on Snapchat, probably never will be, not going to be on a lot of the others that come out. Those are three that we feel like are good places to amplify what we are trying to speak as a congregation. People can contact us and we have a website as well. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. That's technology.
But I think it's important for us to spend time thinking about where we should be, where we should not be. I think it's important for us to think through, as the congregation what translates online and what does not. Where are the limiters? And then we have to be very good at articulating that to the next generation because I don't think it's a really easy conversation to have with someone who has been raised to do virtually everything online.
Now we have people that are being educated online from kindergarten on. So why would church not fit into that? They game online. Well, why would the church not fit into that? Work from home virtually. Why would the church not fit into that?
These are not easy questions, and if you're a parent, we got to figure it out. There's no answer in the back of the book, essentially, but it's all throughout Scripture. We have to identify what is the reality that we are called to live today? How do we bear that out in whatever space we're in? Where do we need to draw the line? Because the world is not going to draw a guardrail for us. Government is. If they do put up a guardrail, it's going to be a generation or two too late. We are responsible for how we live and exist in this world. We said it before. We could move to Tennessee and live on a farm with the Yamash folks, right?
They share our hairstyle, but they grow it out here. It's pretty cool. So we could fit in. We could choose that. We could choose to limit everything, or we could choose to learn to discern and to use wisdom and to navigate in a healthy way. Jim, you got 10 seconds.
[00:44:24] Speaker D: Funny story. I mean, not funny because we were online for about three or four months. I turned on Captain Dollar store and I saw the beard Thomas Turner, Tim and Nancy were selling.
[00:44:38] Speaker A: You said beard with a D, right?
[00:44:40] Speaker D: Beard.
[00:44:40] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:44:41] Speaker D: Tim and Nancy were selling barbecue. I zipped down there and turned around and there was about twelve of us from this congregation there to get barbecue. The interaction with each human there, we've been missing that. Been missing that. We've been in our house not doing that.
[00:44:58] Speaker A: What's different, though, Jim, is you've existed for a few years because you're very young, in spry with exclusively analog connections.
What happens when your grandkids that have had almost exclusively digital connections get to that stage? I say that just to keep in mind when you have those conversations, keep in mind where they're coming from because it is different. We've talked a lot about how the age gap is something I think Satan uses, but there's also a reality there in our thought processes and how we actually engage. So couple of things to consider. There Acts chapter two, three, and four in particular. Go through and read the entire Gospel of John. You're welcome. All right. Love you guys very much. We will see you next week.
