Archives: March 2010...

Editorial...

Jesus, me & YouTube

Whoever invented YouTube is an evil genius (allegedly)*. Believe it or not the video sharing site is just five years old, and I guess over those five years, like me, it’s become a big part of life. I’ll just sit for hours watching old music videos, cartoons from my ‘80s youth, movie trailers and vlogs (that’s video blogs for the un-initiated) from random and strange characters who think randomly strange things.

But I guess that’s the beauty of the internet. Free speech, freedom of expression and the rest (unless you check the North Korean news service site which seems to sort of skew stuff a bit). In fact a recent theory from my head suggested that the internet was actually the Holy Spirit. They’re both everywhere (with WiFi), know everything, and help you find answers to stuff. As I was sharing this groundbreaking, ‘Da Vinci Code’ Vatican concealing conspiracy, with a friend they quietly reminded me that not only was I bordering on heresy, but that it probably wasn’t true. On a very basic level, if I spent the same amount of time inviting the Holy Spirit to be in my life as I spend surfing the world wide web I’d be much more like Jesus and much less like, well, me.

The point is the Holy Spirit draws us to God - in fact he is God, or an aspect of God. It’s a marker of our ‘adoption’ by our loving heavenly Father (Romans 8v23), a helper (John 16) and the way we know God. But that’s not it. The Holy Spirit isn’t just about us. The Holy Spirit calls us out of ourselves to be like Jesus to the world around us, empowering us to act on behalf of others. A little bit different to the internet then which just fills my time and sometimes makes me laugh.

None of this means the internet is bad, just that maybe I should spend as much time praying for God’s spirit to help me (and then acting on its direction) as I spend watching old episodes of ‘The Family Ness’ on YouTube. It’s about knowing my priorities and acting on them, giving God and other people at least the same attention I give to my computer screen (that sounds like something my mum would say... but still, it’s kind of true. Wait, I’m turning into my mum. Weird. Help!).

Saying that, don’t turn off your monitor yet. There are some great new articles this month that will hopefully keep you glued to the internet for a few more minutes. This month we’re welcoming Ben Cantelon back into the fold with open arms and he has some great advice for worship leaders (that is also pretty much applicable to us all). But that’s not it you can read about how football is making and breaking lives in South Africa, find out how you can work with God to write the story of your life and ask the question with Craig ‘what’s so great about failures?’. 

We’ll be back next month, but let us know how you’re getting on and if there’s any stuff you’d like us to cover.

Cheers

Dan
editor@soulsurvivor.com

*We have to put in ‘allegedly’ as if the YouTube inventor read this he could take us to court for slander. Sorry we don’t really mean it.