What makes a new innovation worth pursuing as we strive to create resources that will help others grow in their faith? For many years we have assumed that if a new technology comes along we should use it to reach out and share the Gospel with others.

In most cases we have used very little discretion as we apply various technologies to the communication of God's vision for the world. Sure, there were always the laggards in the adoption cycle that said that this technology or that was "of the Devil." But for the most part those concerns were reactionary rather than well thought out.

That lack of discretion has caused our message to be impacted by the technology that we use. Think about how television preaching has impacted our standing with nonbelievers and our approach to that time of teaching?

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A few years ago, I was speaking at a college event in New York City and I was introduced as being a 'Christian activist'.

This gave me pause and made me think about a variety of nuances on the topic of activism.

For example, can you be a Christian and not be active? Is there such a thing as a Christian 'non-activist'?

Of course, being introduced as an 'activist' sounded better than being introduced as a non-activist, but what is activism?

So, the -ism for this week is activism and it's in the news in a myriad of ways. In a recent op-ed piece in the New York Times, Bono, co-founder of the advocacy group ONE and (Product)RED, writes these words:

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A while back I wrote a blog called American Idol: Good for TV, Bad for Church which came to the attention of MTV Senior Writer, Gil Kauffman. Gil wanted to know why so many Christians were not only tuning into "Idol" this year, but also performing on the show. He took a couple of quotes from our conversation and put them into his story for MTV.com. Here's an excerpt:

Just as this season kicked off, freelance writer CJ Casciotta penned an essay for faith site ConversantLife.com titled "American Idol — Good for TV. Bad for Church," in which he questioned whether the show's shunning of the "awkward, the socially inept, the ugly, the difficult" during the often cruel early rounds shouldn't be a call to action for the rest of us to embrace those whose lives are a struggle.

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On the heels of a new year with hopes for a more prosperous, less chaotic tomorrow, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button debuts with a timely and sobering declaration: “You never know what’s coming to you.”

…bummer. So whether we brave the recession storm to see our 401k’s intact, whether our facebooking efforts successfully manage to adjust our identities as they appear to others, or whether we blanket our emptiness with credit card purchases collecting more stuff to fill the void, there will come a point where we cannot control the life, the ambitions, the relationships, or the bank accounts we’ve worked so hard to maintain.

And that’s where the tale of Benjamin Button begins, at the apex of this conundrum…a hospital room.  A deathbed provides the backdrop for the film’s narration where an old woman with a faint and withering breath admits, “I’m curious what comes next.” What follows is a stylistically unconventional narrative about the significance of “letting go.”

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