Issue 68 - From the Editor
By Jonathan Ho
When I was first sent home from work in March 2020 due to some virus called “COVID-19”, I had no idea what was going on. I thought we’d be back in the office in a week or two. I suspect many in our church circles including our friends and family thought the same. As weeks turned to months, we started to see a rapid rise in infections and deaths. It was then that for the first time in a long while, I had a lot of spare time. Before office workers figured out how to use Zoom or Microsoft Teams, many of us had a lot more time on our hands. Life slowed down. I could sit and read a book and have a completely open week without social commitments.
Since that time, it feels like this trend has completely reversed. As my boss recently told me, “I now schedule meetings five minutes after the hour or have the meeting end ten minutes early because there’s no more time between meetings. In the past, we would drive from one office to another but now we just click into the next meeting with no breaks in between.” In the same way, I’m now more able to meet with someone even if the weather is bad and to connect with more people on a face to face basis than ever before. Natural slowing rhythms such as weather or distance have been replaced by the power of technology. While this virtual technology can be good, we humans seem to have a knack for twisting something good into something bad by allowing it to gain too much priority.
This maximizing of life isn’t a new phenomenon. Someone once observed that when the microwave was introduced, it saved us time. Instead of heating something up on the stove or in the oven, you could zap it in the microwave in one tenth of the time. You would expect this to save us time, which it did, but at the same time, we just found new things to fill in that saved time.
While maximizing efficiency can be good, it also can reflect a deeper issue in our hearts. How do we know when we’ve maximized our efforts (aside from completely burning out)? And how often do we put a burden of guilt on ourselves that comes from expecting godlike results from our own human efforts?
In this edition, Rev. Dr. Clement Wen wraps up his three-part series with a dive into what it means to be a human. Jesus showed us true humanity, but does it differ from how we see it today? Are evangelism and vocation two competing and different segments of life? What does it mean to be made in the image of God? We follow this with reflection questions from the Project Arctos Team and a poem by Mayowa Sanusi about our current times. Matt Reffie closes this edition with an interview with two pastors who are part of a ministry to local youth, demonstrating what it means to live as Kingdom citizens.
In a world where we’re busy rushing from one thing to another, may God help us to see what it means to be called children of God and not just workers of God. In a world where we have internalized many of the values around us, may God show us and give us discernment to learn what is of Him and what is of this world. May God take us in these times and renew us by His Spirit, that we may be lights in this world, holy, and set apart.
Jonathan Ho
P.S. Have thoughts you want to share or ideas for future editions and/or workshops? Email us at hello@projectarctos.com. We’d love to hear from you!