tim chester

Porn Free Church

/ David Thomas / Leave a comment

Do you think your church is a porn free zone?

A life-with-porn versus a life-without-porn is a poor choice. If you set it up in these terms then you won’t produce lasting change. We need to set it up (as it truly is) as a choice between life-with-porn versus life-with-God. We need to show how God always offers more than porn.

Tim Chester writes here how finding lasting satisfaction in an awesome God through the good news of a crucified, risen Saviour, is the only means of creating deep rooted heart based change that shows pornography up to be what it really is – a cheap, unsatisfying, imitation.  We need to overwhelmed by the fact that Christ is better.

Sadly our churches are often far too respectable for us to face up the the reality of the problem of porn.

The quote above is taken from Tim’s contribution to a book, Porn Free Church: Raising up gospel communities to destroy secret sins, that’s free to download – at least for now, from the CovenantEyes Internet Accountability web site

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12 guidelines for Facebook

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Following on from his recent articles on Facebook, Tim Chester lists 12 guidelines to consider in using social networking.

  1. Don’t say anything online that you wouldn’t say were the people concerned in the room.
  2. Don’t say anything online that you wouldn’t share publicly with your Christian community.
  3. Ensure your online world is visible to your offline Christian community.
  4. Challenge one another if you think someone’s online self reflects a self-created identity rather than identity in Christ.
  5. Challenge one another if you think someone’s online self doesn’t match their offline self.
  6. Use social networking to enhance real world relationship not to replace them.
  7. Don’t let children have unsupervised internet access or accept as online friends people you don’t know offline.
  8. Set limits to the time you spend online and ask someone to hold you accountable to these.
  9. Set aside a day a week as a technology “Sabbath” or “fast”.
  10. Avoid alerts (emails, tweets, texts and so on) that interrupt other activities especially reading, praying, worshipping and relating.
  11. Ban mobiles from the meal table and the bedroom.
  12. Look for opportunities to replace disembodied (online or phone) communication with embodied (face-to-face) communication.

Will you be my Facebook friend – Part IV

/ David Thomas / Leave a comment

The final post in Tim Chester’s series on Facebook and social networking can be found here.  Again I recommend you read the whole thing for yourself if only for the highly amusing (and highly accurate)  paragraph on Facebook being the creation of nerds for the generation of nerds.

If you don’t get that far consider these words Tim closes with:

Think about what you have written and read on your Facebook wall this week. Think about the tweets you have followed this week. Imagine reading them in six months time. I am guessing, but I suspect that most of what is written will be drivel. Trivia. Empty. “Eating egg on toast. Yum.” “On my way to the station.” “Great party last night.” “Jack just fell over. LOL.” “Love the photos. You’re so gorgeous.” Poke. Listen to the prophet Isaiah:

A voice says, “Cry out.”And I said, “What shall I cry?”“All men are like grass,and all their glory is like the flowers of the field.The grass withers and the flowers fall,because the breath of the LORD blows on them.Surely the people are grass.The grass withers and the flowers fall,but the word of our God stands for ever.” (Isaiah 40:6-8)

The Facebook comments wither and the tweets fall,  but the word of our God stands for ever.

Will you be my Facebook friend – Part III

/ David Thomas / Leave a comment

Tim Chester has been keeping busy writing some really engaging stuff on Facebook.  In his next two articles, here and here, Tim deals with the issue of our craving for “digital disincarnation” in cyberspace.  Both articles are really worth reading in their entirety.

We were created to be embodied beings but social networking, and for that matter online gaming, encourage our desire to leave the constraints and problems of our actual circumstances and become someone else – freed from my constraints, freed from the reality of the person God has called me to be.  Tim  says

You are opting for disembodied life over embodied life.

Now disembodied life is easier. But it is less fulfilling, less real and less satisfying.

Embodied life is harder. But it is more fulfilling, more real, more satisfying. It is more substantial – you can touch it, feel it, embrace it!

He concludes with some insightful contrasts between life online and life within the actual, touchy-feely, kick it and it hurts world where God has put you.

Facebook encourages you to live elsewhere. The gospel encourages you to live life here and now.

  • You can tend your Farmville farm or you can get an allotment.
  • You can catch up with friends on Facebook or you can go out on a cold, dark night to see real friends.
  • You can catch up with “Friends” by watching the latest episode on the television or you can serve your neighbours.
  • You can build a new city on Sims or you can be the city of God set on a hill with your Christian community.

Here is the test: Am I using Facebook to enhance real world friendships or to replace them?

Will you be my Facebook friend – Part II

/ David Thomas / Leave a comment

A while back I posted a link to a couple of articles Tim Chester has written on the good and bad of Facebook.  Tim has been busy – you can now find his third and fourth articles on the subject here and here.

The third article addresses the concern that the medium of Facebook (and indeed online social networking in general) is inclined towards projecting positivity.  Tim asks,

Is your Facebook self more attractive than your real world self?

The real question is: Am I trying to do self-identity or am I finding identity in Christ? Or, Am I looking for approval from others through my words or approval from God through his gospel word?