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Hyperconnectivity is Damaging the Church

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The church makes a big deal out of its members being connected with each other, and for good reason. I have heard it argued that we should want to spend time together more than we should want to spend time with worldly people. I suppose in some cases that is true. Who would not want to spend more time surrounded by people who think and act in similar ways and who believe in similar ideas? We are drawn to that kind of group behavior as humans. Forming tribes of sorts is what we are all about. However, when we get to a point of hyperconnectivity, it can actually start to become a problem.

What happens when connectivity goes too far?

What happens when we get too connected? I can tell you my own experience and also what I hear anecdotally over and over again from religious people. Being hyperconnected is draining people physically, emotionally, and mentally. In some cases, it is even draining them financially. They get worn out with constant, unnecessary demands on their times from so-called Church events. Now I know how that last line sounds, and I am not trying to say that church events are unnecessary. What is unnecessary, however, is to create a bunch of pseudo-church-related activities that simply disguise socialization.

Social gatherings are what many “Bible studies” or other weekly activities become, and you can easily see if you attend these. You quickly notice that the intention was not to have a great Bible study, but instead to have a mini devotional and then spend the next two hours conversing about trivial matters.

Sure, there is nothing wrong with conversation and socialization. But let us not just try to make ourselves feel better by calling this a religious activity. I think we somehow believe we will get extra points if we throw in a second-grade level study into our dinner party.

Why not just admit that you simply want to socialize with fellow Christians. Is Christian fellowship not honorable as well?

But no, we feel the incessant need to constantly spiritualize every event we create, even if those events are only 5% spiritual and 95% social. I am often reticent to speak for God, but I can assure you that God will not get mad if you admit you simply want to socialize and forgo the ill-prepared, kindergarten-Esque devotional you were planning to have at your next church-related gathering.

Personally, I find most events emotionally and mentally draining most of the time. That is simply by nature of my personality. I am not complaining about it, that was the hand I was dealt and so I deal with it. Therefore, I am always reluctant to attend these “Bible study” type events because I know what they really are – a cover for socialization.

These studies are the equivalent of opening a bag of chips only to find the bag is filled with 70% air. Except, in this case, the Bible study itself is filled with 90% air (socialization) and 10% Bible.

I am not a fan of social gatherings. In fact, attending worship services on Sunday is sometimes the most emotionally draining hour of the week. But perhaps that is the way it should be. If you are truly focusing, concentrating with the power of your mind, and exerting effort in that way, perhaps we should be tired afterward.

I – We are more connected now than we ever have been.

We not only have regular church services but also lunch groups, study groups, and a host of other groups (the necessity of which is arguable). These groups are sometimes created without thought and without purpose. How many people in your group, if you asked them, would be able to simply and clearly articulate the primary purpose for the various groups in your church? Most people would stumble around with their words then give you some vague, emotionally saturated answer befitting their religious nature.

It is my proposition that connectivity simply for the sake of connectivity is a waste of time. There must be a higher-order purpose to these gatherings because they are costly to the mind, as well as literally costly, requiring payment in the form of a person’s time.

In addition to that, we are in constant connection with one another through our phones!

This is one of the big focus points of this section. We are far more connected to each other than first-century Christians could ever hope to be. You might say that is a good thing, but I am not so sure. If God had wanted us to spend that much time together, would He not have commanded it in some fashion? Or perhaps some of the New Testament Epistles would have made mention of it?

While it is true that in the early church people were going into one another’s homes and breaking bread, we do not have a specified frequency for this, unless you make the cause that this was an everyday occurrence. There is one instance where we are told the following in Acts 2:46.

“And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts”.

So, you could take this verse and argue that we should be in each other’s home every day. But I think there needs to be more context for this verse. Is everyone eating in everyone’s home every day?

Sure, there is the importance of spending time with Christians, eating in one another’s homes, and so on, but with the advent of the smartphone we are far more connected than would ever be beneficial. Most people are “connected’ with the brethren 24 hours a day, seven days per week.

Some people are even taking the brethren into bed with them (via their phone)! If you want to talk about something weird, just talk about that fact for a few minutes.

Because of our constant hyperconnectivity through technology, we are never getting any real, meaningful breaks from one another.

We are suffocating each other with togetherness!

Say you and I are in a church together. That means that once or twice a week, you have to deal with whatever annoying personality characteristics I have. I may get on your nerves in some way, but you can tolerate me because we are all human beings pursuing the same spiritual goals, and you do not have to see me that often. You can handle one or two days a week dealing with me (even though that itself may be quite a stretch).

But if we are both on social media, now you are reminded of me multiple days per week, if not multiple times per day! Now you are thinking about me, remembering how annoying I am, and having those thoughts marinate in your mind. This is the breeding ground for long-term resentment. You should only be required to deal with someone as annoying as me twice per week at the maximum.

II – Familiarity Breeds Discontentment

Too much time together means we do not value the time together that we do have. If we are continually bombarded with one social gathering after another, we will soon become desensitized to these events. They will not longer have any specialness to them if they ever had it before. This is just a simple fact of human nature that can be studied even on the biological level.

If I drink 3 cups of coffee per day, eventually I will not get the same “buzz” that I was getting before simply because I have become desensitized to it. I have sizzled off the caffeine receptors, so I cannot take up and use as much caffeine in my body. Everyone knows what it is like to build up a tolerance to something. And I argue that we can build up a tolerance to social gatherings. The church events can lose their specialness, even if you are an extrovert.

We are not taking advantage of our time apart. I call this time “recovery time”.

If you are introverted or even if you simply do not like people, it takes a large amount of recovery time to recuperate from spending time with large groups of people. This is simply another component of human nature. It is amoral, being neither good nor bad, but is simply a fact that we have to contend with about ourselves.

We need to be regularly taking advantage of recovery time and enjoying time alone. We cannot make good progress without recovery. Every period of intense focus or socialization requires a period of rest and recuperation. Without this, our fatigue will accumulate and eventually turn into resentment. If there was anything we would ever want to avoid, it is a resentful attitude towards the church.

Many times, small, trivial matters can start to annoy us. This annoyance later blossoms into full fledge resentment towards having to wake up Sunday morning and head to church to deal with “the most annoying people to walk the face of the earth”. It is critical that we avoid this attitude of the mind.

III – Solutions

So, what is the solution here? It is actually quite simple. We need to be incredibly mindful of the time we are spending together. If you are in a church group, do not mindlessly create more social gatherings just for the sake of having a social gathering. And certainly, do not call it a “Bible study” if it not really a study. Many people create bible studies that are social gatherings in disguise and then guilt other people into coming because after all, it is a bible study.

Focus on your recovery time. An easy way to help correct the hyperconnectivity disorder that we have is to quit social media. I have written about this before, as I do not believe that social media is useful for anyone. Especially for Christians. Completely disconnect from the outer world. It is not doing you any favors.

Sit down and write a list of all the benefits that come from using social media. Then cross off the items that you can tell are just excuses that allow you to maintain your social media addiction. Then on another list, write down all the benefits that would come from quitting social media. Of course, not even the least of these is the elimination of the hyperconnectivity problem that we have.

It is our job as human beings to develop our own identity, and constantly modeling ourselves with one other over the internet is not useful for this.

Do not be too connected to the people around you, it will drain you and lead to resentment.

Accountability is Overrated – Develop Strength Alone

This section is meant to show you why accountability is overrated and why you should build strength alone. In a world where group effort and feeling good about yourself is praised, we are going to focus on developing our own strength. If we improve our personal strength, we increase the overall strength of the group if and when we return to them.

“Only in solitude can any great work be done”
Pablo Picasso

Always use your own mind. Do you think accountability is overrated? Why or why not? What are the pros and cons of accountability?

I – Religion overplays accountability because it is easier than personal responsibility.

When I am with the group, I feel better, have more focus and more motivation. When I am alone, I feel weak and have to rely on my own strength. Relying on my own strength is hard because it requires me to hold up all my own weight. I cannot go to a friend for help, I cannot lean on an ally. It is much harder for us to rely on our own strength, but it is much more beneficial as well. This is one of the reasons that religion places such a heavy emphasis on accountability and group strength.

It is easier to perform well when I have friends around me. If I am the average guy in the church, I do not want to contribute much effort to holding myself up. And if I have the group to support me, I do not have to! I do not have to worry about one single thing when I am with the group because I absorb their strength. This may feel good in the moment, but it is disastrous in the long-term.

It is easier to stay motivated when I have support.

When all my friends are training or “being spiritual”, it is easy for me to be motivated to do the same. At that point, being spiritual is equal to being part of the group. Best of both worlds in the minds of some.

But what do you do when are alone? Where do you go to gain strength when there is no one around you?

What are you capable of doing with your strength alone? Accountability gives the illusion of strength and comes at the expense of any kind of personal development.

When we are part of a group, the group’s strength masks our personal weaknesses. We never have to fix the chinks in our armor because our allies are covering those chinks for us. This is great for group warfare, but again it is dangerous for individual battles. As we will discuss later, we are almost never attacked when are with the group, we are almost always attacked when we are alone. And at that moment, we cannot rely on the group, can we? They are not with us and we are alone, so where do we go for strength? If we cannot rely on ourselves and on our own personal strength, we will be crushed.

When I am with the group, it is easier to delude myself into thinking I have strength when in reality I am feeding off the strength of my peers.

Just like a student can trick themselves into thinking they have mastery over a certain subject matter because they continue to read it and think “I understand this”. When in reality they have not been tested and therefore do not know their own level of knowledge. The same is true for the man who thinks he is strong because he spends much of his time around his friends. He does not know that he is simply leeching the strength from his peers and that he himself is actually quite weak.

These are a few reasons why accountability is overrated. And we are just getting started with this subject matter. Again, the religious world spends far too much time on accountability and group effort and far too little time on individual effort and personal strength.

II – I know what you will think, “Well how is being stronger as a group a bad thing? How do you know that accountability is overrated?”.

It is certainly not a bad thing to be stronger together. The problem is that is simply unreliable because you will not always be with your allies. Again, I am not saying to never use accountability, but I believe it should be used sparingly, at a rate of 20% of our training time. By that I mean when it comes to training, 80% of the time we should be working on building our individual strength. The other 20% of the time can be used for accountability. No more volume of accountability should be used because then we begin to develop the illusion of personal strength rather than genuine strength. We mistake the strength of the group for our personal strength.

It is not bad to use accountability, but it should only be a small percentage of our training.

The religious world has gone in the opposite direction. They spend 80% of the time talking about accountability and group strength and 20% of the time on developing personal strength. Then they follow that up with plenty of material about guilt and repentance. Usually because spending disproportionate amounts of time on accountability inevitably leads to failure. The reason this is unwise is because it does not reflect real-life combat scenarios, as we will discuss in the next section.

III – The Enemy Attacks When You Are Alone.

The reason it is inefficient to train as a group is that we are almost never attacked as a group. The enemy always attacks us when we are alone, isolated away from our fellow men. Let me ask you this, what good is group strength at this point? Is accountability going to help you when you are all by yourself?

You may say “Yes, because I know I would have to report back to my fellow men about if I failed or not”.

And that may be true, but that is assuming you both have a group of men holding you accountable, they are willing to actually hold you accountable and you are willing to tell them the truth about what happened. There are multiple ways to disable the effectiveness of the accountability group and lies are one of them.

Any time I attend some kind of church camp I always end up making the statement in some form or another that the camp is like an oasis from temptation. The levels of temptation you face at camp compared to the temptation you face in the waking world are like night and day. Of course, you will still have your bad apples who like to spoil the event for everyone else. But overall, there is almost a protective field around the event that keeps the adversary at bay.

This is excellent and a reprieve from the war of life. The problem is that it is not real life.

Camp demonstrates an important point, that we are almost never attacked as a group. We are always targeted as individuals when we are separated from the rest of the group. In those moments, what good is the strength of the group?

We come and train at these camps to improve, but we end up focusing on the development of group strength instead of individual strength. As a result, the gains we make do not carry over to our individual life. Sure, we learn a little more, perhaps we are “on fire” for a few weeks, but we come down. We have to go back to our individual lives and wage war all alone once again.

This is why there is the classic “repentance parade” on the last day of these camps.

On the last night, everyone and their grandma come forward to repent of some vague, unspecified wrongdoing like “being mean to their friends”. A few weeks after the repentance party these people are living exactly the same as they were before they came to camp. Because camp is not reflective of real life. That momentary motivation will not last, just like in every other facet of life. What these kids need to discipline, not to be fired up, highly emotional feeling they get from camp.

The question is, do we have the strength to fight this war while we are alone? Not is the only training we engage in is group strength training. There has to be a shift in focus from group strength to individual strength.

IV – 3 Quick Exercises for Personal Strength

A – Sitting with the adversary.

Simply sit and endure a wave of temptation. One of the reasons we fail is simply because we cannot sit still and handle a wave of temptation. It does not matter what the evil is, we fail to win because we feel the need to move or do something.

Think of being tempted as being shelled with mortar fire.

You simply have to sit there and wait it out. By developing the patience to just sit with temptation, you can defeat any temptation.

So, the next time you are alone and tempted, just sit with that temptation. Detach and consciously observe the feelings going through your body. What do you feel? Where are your thoughts going? Here is a checklist for you to observe your body during a battle of temptation:

What do I feel in my head? Is it hot? Throbbing? Tingling? What is the sensation?
What do I feel in my chest?
How fast am I breathing?
How deeply am I breathing?
What do I feel in my gut? Am I breathing into my gut?
What do I feel in my junk (penis/testicles)? What temperature are they?
How tight are my muscles? Am I tensing muscles anywhere from head to toe? Am I gritting my teeth?

Just by running through a short checklist like this, you not only sit with the temptation, but you detach from your body. This detachment allows you to distract yourself and ride the wave of temptation instead of being pummeled by it.

B – Detach from emotions.

If you run through the checklist above, you will be able to detach from your body. But what if you want to detach from your emotions? We fail because we get emotional. When we get emotional, we cannot see the long-term or even short term-consequences. This is a spiritual fog of war.

By detaching, taking a few deep breaths, slowing the heart rate we can elevate our perspective. When we elevate our perspective, we can see those future consequences and begin to weigh them rationally in our minds. Weighing the positive and negative consequences of any action is critical. But this evaluation cannot be done if we are waist-deep in our emotions. To detach, ask yourself the following questions:

How am I looking right now?
What are the emotions I am feeling right now? Are those emotions useful?
Am I being weak at this moment? Do I look like the hero I want to be?
Am I feeling “hot in the head”? What temperature is my body? Is it getting warm?
Am I maintaining perfect control over myself right now?
Where is the enemy? What is my position? What is the best decision to make?

Again, these questions are nothing special. But having a brief protocol that you can use will allow you to break the attack of the enemy and reestablish an advantageous battlefield position.

C – Affirmations.

We all talk to ourselves, so we might as well be intentional about what we are saying. Write some affirmations for yourself. I like mine to be in the present tense and describe what I want to be, instead of what I already am. So, If I get nervous and anxious about events, I could make my affirmation “I am calm and in control of my emotions”. It is as simple as that. These can seem silly, but they are very helpful especially over the long run.

Try the following:

I am stronger alone.
I can crush the enemy, bring him to me.
Now, I am in total control of my mind, body, and emotions.
I am unmoved as the waves of life crash upon me.
Today, I bring the purest elements of war to the spiritual battlefield.
I am the champion warrior of my own soul and cannot be moved.
No weapon on the earth can touch my skin, I defeat all who oppose me.
My strength and power allow me to withstand every enemy assault.

Again, reading, saying, or listening to affirmations is going to feel pretty silly for a while. But your subconscious mind is going to hear these statements and make you better for it. Try these three tips out for a week and see what you think about it. Do you think that accountability is overrated? What are the pros and cons of accountability that you think about? Leave your comment below.

Tips for Improving Bible Class

Here I will provide you with three critical tips for improving Bible class. When applied, your personal knowledge will skyrocket.

During the Corona Virus pandemic, many churches moved their services entirely online, at least for a few months. While everything was shut down, we all became accustomed to worshipping from home. As of this writing, many churches have opened back up, at least partially. Where I worship, we have not yet moved back to a full class schedule, instead, we simply have morning worship and Wednesday evening Bible study. There is no class period on Sunday morning and no Sunday evening worship period.

I believe this has been a good thing.

I have argued before that one of the purposes of the dual Sunday Bible class was simply so that people who were working the morning shift at the factory could worship in the evening and people with the evening shift could worship in the morning. It was simply a matter of allowing everyone the chance to worship during the Industrial Revolution when everyone, even children, had jobs every day of the week. But in the modern world, we have turned every small detail into a competition of righteousness.

“I’m better than you because I go to both Sunday morning and evening services”. And here I was thinking that righteousness is determined by behavior, not by how many times per day you can warm a pew.

Most people no longer work 12-hour shifts in factories, so they have the freedom to attend both services if they want. Then if they attend both, they are considered the “cream of the crop”. I always argue that if lifestyle does not match convictions, the number of boxes you check on the worship schedule means nothing.

Aside from all that, with churches opening back up, many are considering adding the Bible study and Sunday evening sessions back to the worship order.

This may sound strange, but I think this is actually a poor idea simply because it is done for the wrong reasons. Why do we want to add classes back to Sunday morning? Because that is the way it has always been done? That is never good logic. The problem is that most bible classes are producing zero results. The audience is learning nothing, and the teachers lecture on “milk of the word” topics.

Let me ask you this if you were working out for one hour per day and seeing no results, would you get excited and blindly add another hour of training to your schedule? Or do you think it might be better to address the hour you are training, improve it and increase the intensity of it so you actually begin to start seeing results? This is what we should do with our bible classes. Before we go from learning nothing for one hour to learning nothing for two hours, let’s correct that first hour and make it a time where we can actually learn something.

Churches are wanting to blindly add more volume of class without first improving the quality of the classes we already have.

This has been my primary problem which much of the modern church in recent months. So many teachers are so poorly prepared or have studied so little that Bible classes end up being a waste of time. If after ten years we are still learning the same basic, rudimentary concepts that we have been learning since grade school, there is a problem.

The class session of a Bible study should be an extremely high-level lecture tailored to the audience’s age. But I continue to find time and time again that while sitting in the adult class, I am embarrassed at what we are learning. The same basic concepts are rehashed over and over again without any form of progression. This is what Paul criticized the church for when he said, “By this time you should be teachers, but you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God and have come to need milk and not solid food” (Hebrew 5:12).

My point today is that before we mindlessly add more volume of lectureships, we should first increase the intensity of the lectures and classes that we do have. A greater volume of time spent studying is not useful if the quality and intensity of the study are low. 30 minutes of intensity will decimate 2 hours of passivity. So here I will give my tips for how to increase the intensity of classes in your church to make for a more efficient lecture period.

3 Tips for Improving Bible Class

I – Objectives

When you open any class syllabus, you will inevitably run into a list of class objectives. This is a bullet point list that lays out what you can expect to learn from the course. In addition, many college lectures have similar objectives that are given in a list before the lecture starts. Textbooks also have objectives at the beginning of each chapter; describing what you can expect to understand after reading the chapter.

Now, why are there objectives everywhere when it comes to learning? Because we must have a goal for which to aim. Without an objective, there is no way to tell if I am actually improving or not. Without an objective, I cannot measure my progress and course correct if I am failing to improve. Objectives are simple tools that allow us to ensure we are actually making progress instead of just walking on a treadmill.

So, the first tip I have is that every Bible class and every lecture should have a list of objectives so you can know what you are expected to learn.

This does not require much more work on the part of the lecturer. In fact, he can simply thumb through his class outline and pick out the most important bits of information that he wants to leave with the audience, and convert them into objectives. There should be small objectives for each individual lecture, and larger objectives for the entire 8-week or 16-week class (or however long the class lasts). It should look something like the following:

After hearing this lecture on the book of Genesis you will be able to do the following:

State the chapter and verse containing the promise of Christ’s coming.
Know how many years Noah Preached to the world while building the ark.
Discuss why Cain’s Sacrifice was inferior to Abel’s.

That is simple enough, right? You could have three objectives per lecture, and 48 objectives per 16-week class. Imagine if you could actually get people in the church to learn that much about the bible. They would be infinitely better off compared to what they are currently learning. The majority of them are not even bothering to read their Bibles on a daily basis. Objectives will give them some way to measure how much they are learning over time.

Objectives also allow for the application of active recall, which is critical when it comes to learning.

We commonly think of learning as something that happens when we put information into our minds, but this is not true. We actually learn most rapidly and effectively when we are pulling information out of our minds by recalling it. Recall is the secret to learning anything at least three times faster than usual. So, audience members can use the objectives given to quiz themselves on their knowledge of the lecture. They can do this daily or throughout the week and will see much greater results than the passive learning they are so used to.

So again, the first tip to improve any Bible lecture and long-term class is the use of objectives.

“Without an objective, the objective will not be reached”
Jocko Willink

II – Testing

I bash the education system for ineffective teaching and learning protocols, poor application of standardized tests, and for generally teaching a massive steaming pile of useless information. However, testing is still a decent measure of the level of understanding that someone has. If I want to know what you know about a subject, I ask you questions about it. That seems to be reasonable. What is a test but a collection of questions?

The utility of questioning is the reason why the second tip is to actually employ testing in your Bible classes.

Now sure, you do not have to force everyone to take a standardized test, there is no need for that. I am all for embarrassing myself and others in order to create the motivation to improve, but there would probably be a significant problem if you start handing out scantrons and multiple-choice exams in the middle of Bible class. This is mostly because we would be forced to realize we know almost nothing about the Bible (myself included) and we will find that to be extremely embarrassing. But hopefully, for many of us, that embarrassment would also be the impetus to change for the better.

Therefore, optional exams or even simple test questions should be provided to people before and after a lecture or long-term class in order to gauge learning. It would be useful to have a pre-test in order to assess current knowledge going into the class and then retake the same test at the end in order to assess improvement in knowledge.

This would also make use of the active recall principle. By forcing ourselves to try to remember, or recall, what we learned, we improve the chance of that information sticking in our long-term memory. Even testing ourselves before we even learn information or trying to remember something we do not already know increases the chance that the information will stick in our minds when we hear it.

So, the test is not a tool to embarrass anyone, even though a little embarrassment about poor levels of Bible knowledge would probably be good for all of us. But rather it is just a tool to improve learning.

Also, we can keep the test questions and study them later. By continuing to recall that information at lengthening intervals, we embed it even more deeply into our long-term memory.

One final tip, the exam questions should be short answer, not multiple choice. If the questions are multiple-choice, you do not really have to learn that much to perform well and trick yourself into thinking you are learning. The knowledge level of any college student is evidence of this.

This is because, on a multiple-choice test, all you need to be able to do is recognize the correct answer. That has a more limited carry over into regular life when comparing it to short-answer tests. If I ask you a question, you have to reach into your mind and pull out the answer. If someone asks you a question about God or the Bible you cannot say, “Wait, give me four choices and I will pick the right one”. You need to have the knowledge already in your mind so you can whip it out at any time. That will guarantee rapid improvement in your Biblical knowledge.

III – Accountability

Most of you already know what I think about accountability. I call it a crutch because most people rely on it far too much. They rely on it to the point where they cannot function without it then fail to develop their own strength.

That being said, most people still do need accountability. And I am not against accountability when it is used in the most efficient way – as a temporary tool to use while we gain personal strength. Once we develop the strength of will, we do not need accountability anymore.

When it comes to our classes, there does need to be some level of accountability. Because all the objectives and tests in the world will not do one drop of good if no one is actually using them or if they do not feel the pressure to improve and perform.

What we need is positive peer pressure to perform.

It is not enough to simply want knowledge; we must also want to avoid the shame and embarrassment of not having any idea of what we are talking about and/or having an embarrassingly small volume of knowledge of God.

There are multiple ways to generate accountability. The first is to simply assign accountability partners. Easy enough. Pair people up and have them quiz and check up on each other to see if they are learning and improving. This is that integrated side of Christianity that no one wants to talk about.

We all love having our little bible studies, social gatherings, and playdates together. But when we actually want to push each other to higher limits, it starts to get awkward. Everyone wants to talk about accountability, but no one wants real accountability because that will involve frequent embarrassment. But it is the only way to really take your knowledge to the next level if you do not have the ability to stand on your own two feet.

Another way to create accountability is through groups.

I would prefer to call them “Accountability Tribes/Units/Platoons/Phalanxes” because those sound cooler than “groups”. To do this you simply put a bunch of people in a group and have them hold one another accountable. It is quite simple. Perhaps they could get together once per month and quiz one another on their knowledge or on the topics they are learning in the lecture periods of class.

This is not a social gathering; it is a sparring session. Everyone in the group should be looking for weaknesses in both his own and his friend’s knowledge. Hold one another’s feet to the fire, that is how you are going to improve. Crush one another. Train how you intend to fight in the world: with focus and ferocity.

Of course, one of the big problems is actually getting people to push one another.

Most of the time we do not like doing this because we have to generate some form of stress or pressure on our friends. That is not exactly enjoyable and not something that the modern religious world would be interested in.

Most people do not want to get together and spar, they want to get together and do the spiritual equivalent of a prenatal spin-class. Most Bible studies and accountability groups lack the intensity to generate any kind of real results. In any endeavor in life, the level of intensity is going to be the determining factor. Maybe you have gone to church for 20 years, but if I handed you a comprehensive questionnaire about the bible, you would not be able to tell me the subject matter of 75% of the books of the Bible.

Gentlemen, we have been spending our entire lives in low-intensity mode, and this needs to change. We need to apply massive levels of intensity both to our individual Bible studies and also to the group learning we engage in on a weekly basis. Without this pressure, there can be no improvement.

So, take these three tips for improving Bible class I have given you today and see if you can work them into your local church.

Get them to apply objectives, testing, and accountability to class sessions and see what it does to the levels of learning. You do not even have to try it for that long. Do an 8-week test run, see what kind of results you get and then make the decision to continue or not.

If you are put in charge of teaching a class, you can always work these tips in. Just give your audience small sheets with objectives and test questions, then ask them to hold each other accountable, at least in the family unit. See if these principles do cause you to learn more about the Bible in 8 weeks than you have in the past 8 months.

Peacemaker – Peace Made Through War

Summary: It has traditionally been assumed that there is one definition of a peacemaker: one who makes peace between warring parties. This may not be the complete story. There is more to making peace than simply breaking up a fight.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for the shall be called sons of God”
Matt 5:9

Some Men Make Peace Indirectly Through War

Peace does not exist if a war of some kind does not exist either. Just as there can be no concept of darkness without light. What is darkness but the absence of light? What is peace but the absence of war? While that is an oversimplification, the anaolgy still works to help us understand what we are talking about when ti comes to war.

If a man is going to make peace, there must be some sort of conflict that he aims to end. The peacemaker may aim to end a conflict that is already occurring between evil and innocent parties. This is the basis for America’s involvement in the Middle East. Radical, evil men systematically rape and abuse both women and men and have no desire for peace. These are men who must be destroyed because of their actions.

When they are destroyed, peace is made. When evil men are killed, peace fills the land.

Some peoples may be entirely unwilling to consider peaceful negotiation, therefore peace is made by the application of violence against those peoples.

Do you think that the doctrine of Islam that has one goal of world domination, do you think those men are interested in peace negotiation (Surah 9:12)

So when you meet those who disbelieve [in battle], strike [their] necks until, when you have inflicted slaughter upon them, then secure their bonds, and either [confer] favor afterwards or ransom [them] until the war lays down its burdens. That [is the command]. And if Allah had willed, He could have taken vengeance upon them [Himself], but [He ordered armed struggle] to test some of you by means of others. And those who are killed in the cause of Allah – never will He waste their deeds.
Surah 47:4 (that is, to quote from the Quran):

This is the religion that the media wants you to believe is completely peaceful. In the old testament when men were instructed to kill the inhabitants of Canaan, it is because those inhabitants were evil. They offered their children as burnt sacrifices to pagan gods and had no moral code. However, when the Quran commands violence, all it takes is a disagreement. That seems like a rational way to deal with people who disagree with you, just kill them off.

Some Men Make Peace By Preventing War From Occurring

At times, a threatening presence is all that is necessary to deter evil. The best way to stop a criminal is through the perceived threat of violence or punishment. We deter ourselves from evil simply by thinking about the punishment that would result from taking those actions. Where there is no threat of punishment, crime increases.

Just as cars slow down when passing a police officer, evil is deterred by the highly apparent presence of imminent punishment. This is why we have the death penalty. It actually has very little to do with death, but rather the simple fear of death. We kill criminals so that other would-be criminals decide not to engage in criminal activity. When the rod is spared, crime soars. You can pretty much do anything in the modern world and you will not get the death penalty for it. If there was ever a time to be a criminal, it would be now.

A peacemaker holds the threat of violence in his coat and causes others to fear.

Without the possibility of punishment, there is no fear of consequence. When there is no fear of consequence, no one does what is right. This is true of everything. I will go far and make a very bold statement and say that religion cannot exist without hell. Without the possibility of punishment, there is no motivation to be righteous, at least for most people.

Some call this the wrong motivation. I say that motivation is entirely irrelevant. As you know as a reader of SC, emotions, motivations, and feelings are all irrelevant. It is only the action that matters.

To make peace is to end violence. Sometimes it takes violence to end violence. Consider that the next time you read the Sermon on the Mount.

Complaining – An Anti-Gratitude, Anti-Masculine Attitude

Complaining is the verbal manifestation of the victim mindset. When we complain, we admit that we lack control over ourselves and our circumstances. We complain about the way life is working out for us or what the government is doing on any particular day. Through words, we point our fingers at others to justify why our lives are not the way we want them to be.

While I tend to lean conservative, this is one trait that conservatives and liberals both share in common: the victim mindset. Here is the basic flow of thought: if I complain about something I am saying that it is bad in some way. As a result of that thing being bad, my life is not as good as it would be. It is literally the act of blaming my current situation on outside circumstances that I cannot control.

Men must take complete control over their lives.

They must take ownership of everything they are and everything they have done up to this point. If my life is not the way I want it to be, it is no fault of the government, my parents, or society. It is my fault for basing my actions on the ideas and expectations of others rather than forging my own path.

As men, we must get out of the habit of complaining and be better leaders. Many times, people do not notice when we do not do something. They certainly notice when we take action or make mistakes. Everyone knows when someone in the church gets pregnant or has engaged in some other unsavory behavior. And everyone knows when people do good deeds such as feeding the poor or studying scripture with people (mostly because the people who do those things cannot help but boast about it to others). But very rarely is it noticed when some behavior, specifically a negative behavior, is lacking.

For example, how many people notice when someone does not gossip? We certainly notice when they do gossip, but do we ever take the time to appreciate when they avoid that behavior? What about stealing, do we ever notice when people do not steal? Usually not, but we certainly will have something to say about it if we found out they have been stealing from their work or from the church.

The point is that we rarely notice when people are virtuous because of the negative behaviors they avoid engaging in.

We do not notice when people do not complain unless we are actively looking for it and appreciating it. Becoming a man who never complains is often a thankless task. People will not pat you on the back for it like they will for the man who lost 50 pounds. The reality is that many may actually dislike your change because you are refusing to indulge in the effeminate behavior or complaining that they enjoy.

Whenever we as men make a change, it may spark some admiration, but it will kindle a forest fire of envy, jealousy, and backstabbing. That is the unfortunate plot of men and success in the modern, hyper-safe world. We are constantly jockeying for position, for a better place in the dominance hierarchy, so to see other men climbing the ranks touches the nerve of jealousy within us. It should not be this way, as a better-skilled man is worth more to the tribe and to the camp. We should be glad when other men improve their skills and are better able to contribute to the whole. But because the world is safe, there are no wolves outside the camp, and no shortage of food, we become jealous of those men who ascend the ranks of society when we should be congratulating them.

As they climb the ranks, we start complaining behind their backs.

We can talk about their lack of character or their negative personality. Or we can use one of the favorites of the greedy poor which is to say that a man who is becoming successful in the world is doing so because he is materialistic and worldly. “Yeah, I would be that successful too if I were not so busy focusing on the Bible and spiritual matters. If that guy spent half the time that I spent in the bible, he would not have time to be that successful”. The greedy poor love that false logic.

Complaining is the antithesis of gratitude.

The grateful mind is focused on what is going right, on blessings, and on positivity. The complaint-filled mind is focused on what is wrong, what others are doing that is damaging impacting society, on curses and negativity. It is a mentality that the God of War hates. Remember that God has killed his people who complained in the Old Testament (1 Corinthians 10:10, Numbers 11). That should give you an idea of how seriously the God of War takes the evil of complaining. Despite everything He has done for the Israelites, they still found something to complain about.

So, what do we do to change our negative, anti-masculine habit of complaining?

I – Awareness

It starts with awareness. We can never stop a behavior if we are unaware of it. The problem is, like with most of our behaviors, we have put the habit of complaining on autopilot. It has entrenched itself so much into who we are that it has a mind of its own. If we cannot go even a few hours without complaining about some situation outside our control, then we need to cultivate the habit of awareness.

Becoming more aware is as simple as saying to yourself, “I am becoming aware right now”. Or you can set an intention in the morning to catch yourself when you start to complain. It will be hit and miss at first, but over time you will begin to cut off the habit of complaining more frequently. If you continue to command your unconscious mind to become aware of when you are complaining, you will soon build the habit of becoming aware of your complaints rapidly.

II – Replacement

Habit change does not occur in a vacuum. So, what are you going to replace complaining with? As mentioned earlier, the antithesis of complaining is gratitude, so why not start there. Once you catch yourself in the complaint habit, stop yourself and list 2-3 things you are grateful for instead of complaining.

If you are deep into the habit of complaining as most people are, you will not see any change for a reasonably long time. You will not feel different by practicing gratitude for two days. But given enough time, if you continue to cut off your negative behavior and replace it with gratitude, you will start to rewire your mind. You will train it to be more grateful and thankful for blessings. You will begin to take more ownership of your life and understand that there are things in this world that are completely outside your control. This a mentality of power, not one of weakness. Most men in religion do not have this mindset, so you will be one of the few.

III – Get Away from People who Complain

You have to control your environment. The alcoholic will not recover from his alcoholism if he hangs around alcoholics. The drug user will never dry out if he hangs around his drug-abusing friends all day. Even so, the person who complains will not recover from his habit unless he can put some distance between himself and those who indulge in that negative behavior of complaining.

Do not think you are more powerful than you are. You are subject to the negative influences of those around you. So, if you are trying to fundamentally change yourself, you need to give yourself time away from these people to allow for maximum progress. If you cannot avoid them completely, minimize the time you spend with them and do your best to direct the conversation to positivity or something that they cannot complain about.

Simply talking about the Bible may be enough to cut off their habits. This also may get you uninvited from a significant number of events. Sadly, even many Christians do not like people who talk about the Bible, especially if those Christians are in the habit of complaining. Your spiritual focus is a burning light and makes them uncomfortable.

Controlling this habit is an exercise of self-control. If you can master the habit of complaining, you will be better skilled than most men in religion. You control your life and run your day, not vice versa. Train your self-control by never complaining again.

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