Our Facebook account has been hacked, and now they’re tampering with personal info on our account. I’ve been trying for the past two weeks to contact Facebook but have been unsuccessful so far.

If we were connected on Facebook before, please know this is no longer us, and you might want to “unfriend” us for now to protect your personal data.

You can still reach me through Twitter, email, or this blog. Lord willing, we can get this sorted out!

A pastor friend recently shared an interesting article: “Post-COVID Perspective: Pandemic Catalyzes Churches to Cast Evangelistic Net With Online Services.”

I enjoyed reading about various church experiences over the last three years as livestreams, chat rooms, and other online services were added to churches’ more traditional options.

At Crossview Bible Church, COVID catapulted us into the 21^st century. Within just a few weeks we scrambled to add a Facebook livestream, and for a time had hundreds watching online, whereas before we didn’t even offer an online option. We had little budget or manpower to dedicate to this, but a couple of dedicated volunteers, the grace of God, and COVID helped us to think outside the box and make some quick adjustments. I think it was a step forward for many churches.

At Immanuel, online services were already well underway. COVID simply brought more attention and traffic to these platforms. There was also experimentation and growth with new hybrid options, pre-recorded classes, RightNow Media virtual studies, Zoom gatherings, and more. One of the lingering benefits is we still have some members who attend Bible Studies and prayer meetings via Zoom — some who now live in completely different states!

Some believe there is a strong outreach benefit. One pastor in the article remarked, “We have people who have never set foot on our campus and that is their church service. We weren’t thinking about that before COVID. Now, we’re constantly trying to figure out ways to make it better.” I wonder, to what degree can we call such people actual church members? Are these people being shepherded? Is there accountability? Is there a discipleship strategy? How are they participating in the ordinances? How are they practicing the “one anothers“?

On the other hand, I knew of some churches who never offered online services at all, or shut down them down as soon as possible as a way to emphasize the importance of in person worship and not use online ministry as a substitute.

I do think there’s a benefit in online ministry. Some members are physically incapable of attending, and online has been a tremendous blessing. It can also be a helpful first impression for those just starting to check out churches. But in the end, we do need to be thinking of ways to engage online viewers and bringing them back in person. Families have admitted to me it’s a temptation to enjoy that extra sleep, not worry about getting the whole family ready, and just watch online rather than in person. Some have finally recognized in-person is better, but others still need the encouragement.

What has been your own experience and thought process for online ministry? How have you leveraged it for discipleship, and what have you noticed are its pitfalls?

2020 took a toll on all of us, and many have still not recovered. It has been almost three years ago since COVID was declared a global pandemic and the world went into complete lockdown. Our need for community and our desire for connectedness took new forms, including a turn to social media. But this was not the cure we had hoped for. In fact, in many cases, it only exacerbated our longing for human relationships.

In the summer of 2020, Alan Shlemon from Stand to Reason explained why so many people were feeling exhausted in 2020. He doesn’t mention the word COVID even once. In his article, “How 2020 Is Taking a Toll on Your Soul,” Shlemon suggests it was actually the 24 hour news cycle, and constant exposure to tragedy all over the world that was sucking the life out of us. Has anything changed? He writes,

“Through the internet and social media, technology has given us ringside seats to every event, tragedy, and evil act that happens in any part of the planet. That’s not something we’re created to handle. It’s made possible, though, because of the internet. Though technology often helps us, it also creates two problems that hurt our soul: faux omnipresence and faux omniscience.”

Yes! I guess I’m not the only one who closes Twitter or Facebook feeling more anxious than I started. I told a friend the other day that social media is like meth. It is self-inflicted, highly addictive, and deadly. First, you are drawn in by genuine interest in others and a natural curiosity of our world. Soon, the social media diet turns more insidious, fueled by anxiety and anger. The breaking news, the death tolls, the political corruption, the conspiracy theories, the constant need to be “in the know” keeps pulling you in. And then it kills you.

The digital age is taking its toll. Shlemon calls this “faux omnipresence and faux omniscience” because it’s as though we are playing God, trying to be everywhere-present and all-knowing, yet without the power to do anything about it or the wisdom to understand how all things work together for good. He then closes with four ways to escape social media meth:

Perhaps, then, we should take better care of ourselves. Here’s what I suggest. First, unplug from the internet and/or social media. This is mandatory. Set up times when you walk away without taking sneak peeks. Second, spend time in nature. For example, take a hike through the woods and observe the simplicity and beauty of God’s creation. I love to notice delicate flowers or watch the gentle dance of birds in the trees. It helps me escape—for a time—the harsh reality I must eventually return to. Third, pray and discern when and where you can shoulder other people’s burdens, and find friends who can help carry yours. This is a biblical mandate. Finally, develop a habit of giving thanks to Jesus, the one who took on our burdens.

I commend the whole article to you, including a great quote by Charles Spurgeon and an interesting reference to the Scopes Monkey trial. You can read the whole thing here.

Have you developed any strategies to limit your social media intake and remain joyful and at peace? If so, share below!

(I first shared this post in a blog called “Shade for the Shepherd” that I briefly started in 2020, but then I decided to stick with my existing blog “Pinch of Clay.” Thanks for reading!)

If you’re a subscriber to my blog, you probably received a deluge of emails into your inbox the past couple days. Please accept my apologies!

Last week, I inadvertently *deleted* my blog account. That’s right. I deleted it. How, you may ask, did I manage to do that? Well, it’s sort of a long story, but a couple years ago, I changed my blog address from PassTheCloak.com to PinchOfClay.com. When the previous blog expired recently, I just let it cancel out. What I didn’t realize is that my current blog was a secondary account still attached to PassTheCloak.

When my old blog cancelled, the other cancelled with it. As soon as I discovered my mistake, I bought back the domain PinchOfClay and changed it my primary account. As it turned out, this actually made matters work. It created a database conflict and caused me to lose my entire archive of old blog posts. That’s over ten years of work and 700 posts, suddenly vanished into cyber oblivion.

I spent an hour on the phone with Bluehost Thursday night, but we were not able to restore any backups. Thankfully, I did discover a workaround export from an old WordPress blog of mine. The remaining posts from 2015-2017 I have to add manually from individual blog post emails I received and filed away. It is a slow, time-consuming process, but I am gradually getting my blog back up and running. The main downside is that as I post old articles, they appear in your email inbox as a new posting.

So, please bear with me as I continue to get my blog back in order. Moral of the story is, always backup your work regularly, and never delete a self-hosted blog unless you make absolutely sure all the content has been saved!

Photo credit: Leo Reynolds via Flikr

A friend has been studying the Book of Nehemiah and asked me about the size of Jerusalem during that time of Israelite history. He even tried looking it up in Logos Bible Software, but wasn’t able to find much of anything.

There’s nothing more frustrating than owning a powerful tool but not knowing how to use it. So here’s a step-by-step guide on how to answer this question in Logos…

First, open your Bible to the Book of Nehemiah. The word “Jerusalem” first appears in verse 2.

By running a Passage Guide on these opening verses, you’ll get a full report with commentaries, maps, and other helpful information.

This question relates to culture and background, so try opening up the IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament (this hyperlink will open the resource in Logos if you own it). It says:

1:2–3. condition of Jerusalem. Jerusalem still lay in ruins from its destruction by Nebuchadnezzar II 140 years earlier. A city that had its walls and gates broken down was entirely vulnerable to outside aggression. The book of Ezra describes an earlier aborted attempt to restore the walls during the reign of Artaxerxes I (c. 458 B.C.). Thus it is apparent that the individuals were describing this most recent endeavor which failed. Some have suggested Persian action against Jerusalem during the reign of Xerxes, but the evidence is scant, though fighting between the Persians and Greeks in the southern Levant is attested.

Helpful, but it doesn’t give any measurements. But then I found this note by scrolling down a bit further under Nehemiah 2:13-15:

2:13–15. topography of fifth-century Jerusalem. It has been very difficult to locate the places mentioned in these verses. The walls and gates inspected by Nehemiah on the north and west sides no longer exist, or are buried under Herod’s temple platform. The King’s Pool on the eastern side is probably to be identified with the Pool of Siloam. The valley referred to here is most likely the Kidron Valley. Excavations have shown a strewn mass of stones, which are at least like the ones that blocked Nehemiah’s path. Nehemiah had evidently chosen to abandon the eastern slope of the town and to build the new city wall there. Thus the city was certainly smaller than in pre-exilic times. It is estimated that the circumference of the city at this time was about one and a half miles, enclosing perhaps eighty or ninety acres.

Now we’re getting somewhere! But perhaps you also want a map. You can right click on the word Jerusalem, then click “Place” at the bottom of the menu. You will then have different resources on the left side where you can learn more about Jerusalem.

To generate a full report click Factbook in the top left corner. Once you open the Factbook, you’ll find lots of maps, dictionary entries, and alternate names. Under “Library Results,” you will even find this map called “Jerusalem in the Times of Ezra and Nehemiah.” Perfect! Just what we were looking for.

I think you can see Logos Bible Software is a great investment with many ways to get the information you need.