Sometimes you need to stop and look back. How did you get where you are and how did you become who you are today? Last week was one of those times for me.
I read an article by Jake Meador reflecting on fractures in Evangelical Christianity over the last ten years. Much of his article reflected on the Young, Restless and Reformed (YRR) movement from the mid-2000s until about 2014. In an interesting convergence, two podcasts I regularly listen to, For the Church and Life, Books and Everything, also reflected on the same thing.
The YRR movement was built on a resurgence of Reformed Theology with emphasis on church planting. At its best, it provided historical roots, a big vision of God and a global emphasis on missions and evangelism.
My growth as a Christian and development as a pastor is directly tied to resources that came out of the YRR Movement.
Now, not everything that flew under the banner of YRR was healthy. The Life, Books and Everything episode is really helpful for working through the good, the bad and the ugly of YRR. I don’t want to get into those details though. What I want to share is one note of thanksgiving and one word of caution as I reflect on this movement's influence on my life.
One Thanksgiving: Bring On the Books
I’m thankful that a lot of great books came out of this movement. There were conferences, podcasts, and websites, but the primary fruit of YRR is the books. The authors and the books that most shaped my life and thinking are rooted in this movement.
For Christmas, my wife got me a personalized book embosser for my books and it gave me a chance to go through every book I own. The three authors who take up the most shelf space are John Piper, Tim Keller and Kevin Deyoung. John Piper’s The Pleasures of God has formed me more than any other book besides the Bible. The God-centeredness of God that Piper introduced me to has spilled over into my preaching, pastoring, parenting and everything else. Counterfeit Gods, by Tim Keller, changed the way I think about sin and idolatry. Any time I’m asked to recommend a book on the trustworthiness of the Bible, I hold up Kevin Deyoung’s Taking God at His Word.
Many of my convictions about theology, family, ministry and culture, trace back to books I got my hands on because of the YRR movement.
Not every book connected with YRR is great. But on the whole, looking at my personal library, God gave us plenty of good books. These authors pushed me into sound and rich theology and into worship as they leaned into the goodness and beauty of the gospel. I thank God for such a gift.
One Caution: Don’t be Naïve about the Internet
Reflecting on this movement makes me more cautious about the internet.
Jake Meador wisely points out how the internet was different at the start of this movement and why that created problems in later years. “The mid-2000s was a very unusual time on the internet. Podcasting was established enough that you could grow, by the standards of the day, quite a large platform via sharing your sermons. And yet social media had not yet emerged as a tool for flattening hierarchies and bringing institutional leaders into more direct contact with their audiences. So the positive reinforcement one gets from possessing a large platform was there for these young pastors, who could generally have a decent idea of how many people their sermon podcasts were reaching. But the negative feedback and critique one can get from social media were not yet present.”
It’s probably not a coincidence that the internet, which brought all kinds of great resources into the lives of many Christians, played a key role in pushing people into their respective corners. It's part of how the internet works. The tool that gave this movement prominence eventually aided its division.
Chris Martin’s book The Wolf in Their Pocket is insightful about how the internet promotes and rewards conflict. “The social internet has given rise to an entire genre of Christian content creators who brand themselves as some form of ‘discernment blogger,’ which practically manifests as they criticize the theology or practices of ministries with whom they disagree.” The result is a web of influence that draws people away from other movements, organizations, or personalities, rather than a witness to the gospel.
This is one caution as I look back on this movement. Jake Meador described it as “an era marked by a false hope that recognized the reach of digital media but did not perceive the spiritual dangers of it and was, technologically speaking, largely insulated from the negative feedback mechanisms that became unavoidable in later eras.” It doesn't help to be naïve or defeatist about the internet.
Being cautious doesn’t mean ditching the internet (after all, I am using Substack). It means cutting against the internet’s priorities with Biblical measures for Christian ministry and maturity. As a pastor, my primary emphasis shouldn’t be my blog but should be to “Shepherd God’s flock among you, not overseeing out of compulsion but willingly, as God would have you; not out of greed for money but eagerly; not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock” (1 Peter 5:2-3). Ministry requires ordinary faithfulness in the place God has you in and to the people “among you.” Ministry is being more intentional about people around me not about followers on social media.
Christian maturity is stoked by friendship, hospitality, and physical presence, the “one another's” of the New Testament. Playing silly games with my family after dinner, and saying hi to my neighbours instead of hiding under headphones while shovelling snow are simple ways to push back against the isolation and combativeness rewarded by the internet.
Every so often it is good to step back and take stock of how you got where you are. We look back to give thanks to God for his providence in our lives, and we look back to learn lessons so that we can move forward with greater wisdom.