This past Sunday, Sandy Beauchamp, Tim Bradley, Ryan Kelly, and Nathan Sherman hosted a panel discussion with parents of youth on the topic of our engagement with technology, devices, and social media. In proportion to how much we engage with tech, our thinking about that engagement is actually quite small. For Christians, this is an important context in which to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, strength, and mind.

To that end, after Sunday’s panel, Ryan drafted the following 20 questions to help us evaluate our use of technology.

1. Is this device/app a tool or an idol? Is it serving me or am I serving it? Am I exercising dominion over it, or does it have dominion over me?
2. What happens when I give up _________ (device/app) for a day? Do I even know?
3. Does it serve/promote God or self? What’s the %?
4. Does it serve others or me? What’s the %?
5. Am I mindlessly following the world’s trends or am I thoughtfully analyzing, monitoring, evaluating, and adjusting my usage? Simply put, am I asking enough questions?
6. Am I often living life through a device or an app (live-tweeting, Instagraming, Facebooking) rather than enjoying life through human eyes?
7. Have my relationships becoming more shallow (even if I have more of them because of social media)?
8. Am I growing less comfortable and/or less capable with face-to-face communication?
9. Is my phone a crutch in more socially challenging environments?
10. Am I doing confrontation or otherwise hard conversations through email or another electronic medium?
11. Am I growing in true knowledge, wisdom, and discernment more than just bits of information, headlines, factoids? In other words, is my concentration, interest, and pursuit of “substance” growing or waning?
12. Has picking up my phone, opening it, checking apps, etc, become thoughtless or merely instinctual?
13. Am I setting purposeful limitations and boundaries on my tech use, or am I approaching tech-use with sheer pragmatism and/or hedonism?
14. Does the fear of “missing out” on what’s going on socially significantly drive my use of tech? What’s behind that fear emotionally and spiritually?
15. Am I confusing my true identity with the public identity I portray through social media? (Note: Our real lives are often uglier than the idyllic life we portray, but our identity in Christ is far greater than anything we could capture with social media.)
16. Am I making public things that should be kept private? What parameters have I determined for what not to share?
17. What does the biblical virtue of modesty look like on ___________ (app)? (Note: modesty relates to skin and clothes, but also to speech and attitude.)
18. How might 1 Thes. 4:11-12 (“…aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, …so that you may walk properly before outsiders…”) apply to my use of social media?
19. Am I evaluating my “need” for and time on social media in relation to my need for and time in Bible and prayer?
20. Will this next tweet, photo, text, or post demonstrate love for my God and love for my neighbor (Matt. 22:37-40)?

At Wednesday night’s Lord’s Supper service we played a video testimony produced for a conference recently held in Louisville, KY, Together for The Gospel.

Watch, and remember Paul’s words from Romans 1:16, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.”

[RSS and email readers, click here to view this video]

On Sunday, April 13, we had the joy of witnessing the baptism of eighteen brothers and sisters between two Sunday services. Baptism, as Scripture teaches, is a symbolic picture of the work of salvation accomplished by Christ in the life of a Christian. Below are the video testimonies from our baptism service. As we listen to these testimonies, let’s praise God for his salvation of these people and remember these words from the Apostle Paul for all of us who are in Christ:

. . . all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
— Romans 6:3-4

9:00 AM – Jessy Garcia, Lorna Kindel, Ben Valdez, and Bradley Wood

9:00 AM – Hannah Hickman, Autumn Kelly, Drew Sowers, and Andrew Ward

10:45 AM – Alicia Crossland, Shane Crossland, Tyler Crossland, Kelly Murray, and John Snyder

10:45 AM – Caleigh Ellison, Halo Gatt, Page Gatt, Dalton Tidmore, and Dillon Tidmore

[RSS and email readers, click here to view these videos: Video 1, Video 2, Video 3, Video 4]

If you are discontent, then you need this post. If you are perfectly content, then you need it too.

The good news of the gospel is that Jesus came to die for our sins of discontent. But he also came with thirst-quenching living water. He came to satisfy us with the bread of heaven—that is, himself. He promises that one day he will satisfy us completely in a whole new creation. Rick Phillips and Thabiti Anyabwile recently joined us to address the theme of contentment in the Christian life at Clarus ’14.

Click here for photos from this year’s conference, here for songs we sang together, and here to download the song “My Father Planned it All.” This is an old text to a new tune recorded live at this year’s conference and a great match for this year’s theme.

Thabiti Anyabwile

“Contentment Consummated: The New Heaven and New Earth” - Revelation 21:1-22:6 (video, audio, blog recap)

“Contentment with Our Possessions” - 1 Timothy 6:3-10 (video, audio, blog recap)

“Contentment through Communion with Christ” - 1 John 2:28-3:3 (video, audio, blog recap)

“Contentment with Christ’s Body, the Church” - 1 Corinthians 12:12-27 (video, audio, blog recap)

Rick Phillips

“Contentment Lost: Sin and Restlessness” – Genesis 3 (video, audio, blog recap)

“Contentment Found: Jesus Saves and Satisfies” - John 4:10-15 (video, audio, blog recap)

“Contentment with Our Weaknesses” - 2 Corinthians 12:1-10 (video, audio, blog recap)

“Contentment with Identity” – Psalm 16 (video, audio, blog recap)

Panel Discussion

Thabiti Anyabwile and Rick Phillips (video, audio, blog recap)

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.
– 1 Corinthians 15:3-4

This Friday evening we will gather to remember the death of Christ and on Sunday morning we will gather to celebrate his glorious resurrection from the dead. To help you prepare, here are details and sermon texts for each of this week’s services.

Good Friday, April 18 (6:30 PM)

On Friday evening Ryan will preach from John 19, the account of Jesus’ crucifixion.

Childcare will be provided for children four years and younger.

Easter Sunday, April 20 (7:30, 9:00, and 10:45 AM)

On Easter Sunday Ryan will preach from John 20, the account of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead.

Child care will be available only at the two later services.

A Special Request: If Possible, Please Attend the 7:30 AM Service

Imagine that you come to church once a year and this year a friend from DSC invited you to church. You plan to arrive when service starts. You show up maybe even five minutes early, but you are directed to an overflow room to watch the service on a TV. This is too-bad at a number of levels. But it is preventable if several hundred of our normal attenders attend the 7:30 AM service instead of their regular service.

If you have young children, this may not work, as we don’t provide childcare for this service. Or if you are inviting a friend or family member to join, 7:30 AM may not be the better time. But if it’s a matter of convenience we would ask that you do come early to ensure a seat for our many guests who will attend the later services. Thanks for helping us be hospitable.

And, of course, don’t forget to invite someone to our weekend services. Here’s a digital invitation to make that easy.