Paradigm Shift Ministries

Fall: Week Six
Blessed Are the Merciful:
“Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.”
~ Matthew 5:7 ~

This is coming from a recent experience on a long cross-country flight. I have traveled quite a bit during my short life, but with the recent digitalization phase I have been going through, I couldn’t help from having feelings of detachment and withdrawal. In my backpack, I have a laptop, a Blackberry and another cell phone, but I could not use any of them to connect to my new digital world. It didn’t help that I was reading a book about the postmodern context of the 21st century Church.

But while reading that book, my mind wondered off to how my generation (currently in our upper teens / early twenties) is often misunderstood by the Church. It could actually be argued that we are also quite misunderstood about ourselves. We are a generation of stories, and we want to share our stories with others while also participate in their stories. This is what has led to the rapid rise of blogs, texting, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, etc. We want to constantly commune with others, and the technology we have today makes this easier than ever before.

Many older adults cannot see this. The culture that they have experienced was nothing like that of today. They see the rise of wireless communication as a breakdown of personal communication. They don’t understand the reasons behind our constant need to be connected to the rest of the world.

The internet really is quite a new thing in the context of human history, but for my generation, we grew up along side of it. As it grew, we grew; as it opened doors, we walked through them. Same goes for video game, music, photography and video technology. The last twenty years have seen this world change dramatically in regards to technology and the possibilities that comes with that change.

I’ll leave you with this: Now while we have the ability to be constantly connected to our brothers and sisters worldwide, we need to be careful not to squander the opportunity that is in front of us. We live in an age where everyone can have a voice, these new technologies are not controlled by corporations or governments, they are equally controlled by anyone with internet access. They messages that we transmit will naturally reflect what is in our hearts. For the Church, I challenge you to embrace these new technologies as open doors into the personal stories of my generation. For those outside the Church, I challenge you to simply be real and to be open to hearing the “Good Story” that Scripture reveals to us.