Towers recently caught up with Abraham Piper, web content editor at Desiring God, for 3 questions.
Question: What passage of Scripture is God most arresting your attention with right now?
Abraham Piper: Mark 1:25-28. Here is an excerpt:
‘But Jesus rebuked him, saying, ‘Be silent, and come out of him!’ And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying out with a loud voice, came out of him. And they were all amazed, so that they questioned among themselves, saying, ‘What is this? A new teaching with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him’’ (emphasis mine).
Jesus gave a guy a seizure simply by speaking, and not just a seizure, but a healing seizure.
And what was the people’s response to this marvel?
They were impressed by His words, His teaching. They weren’t amazed at His raw power, which is what you would have expected them to be amazed by. Rather His power – the things He was doing – showed that what was truly awe-inspiring was what He was saying.
Q: How should local churches view the Internet as they think about ministry?
AP: I think that churches should think of the Internet as a neighborhood, not mainly a tool. There are many things you can use the Internet for, but it is increasingly a place where people simply spend time.
When there is a concentration of need near a church or when many of a church’s members live in a particular area, the church will often have a neighborhood pastor, or at least an emphasis on serving that neighborhood.
Well, near every church there are people online in need. And most churches’ members live at least some of their lives online. Therefore, rather than seeing the Internet as merely a convenient place to advertise for things, see it as a place to meet and serve others.
Most practically, this means (in my non-church-leader opinion) that we ought to see churches hiring ‘Internet pastors.’ Web departments (and if your church is big enough to have ‘departments’ at all, then it should have a web department!) should not be primarily about technical upkeep, but about frontline ministry, just like the departments that focus on children, music or small groups, etc.
Q: What’s your favorite thing on your iPod right now?
AP: I don’t have an iPod and all my CDs are either lent to friends or in the basement. I‘ve probably bought less than an album’s worth of songs for myself in the last five years.
But I love music!
I just prefer to let God, the radio DJ, my wife or my son decide what the next tune is going to be. For me, choosing what song I‘m going to hear takes much of the joy out of it. But hearing a perfect song at the perfect time serendipitously – that’s musical euphoria.