Mississauga Worship

SUNDAY Worship Service: FEBRUARY 16, 2025

Formation In The Digital Age

Romans 12:1-2

Rev. Charles Lee

1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Oxford Word of the Year 2024?: “Brain Rot”

Definition: the supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as a result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging.

Four harms of the phone-based childhood:

1. Social deprivation

2. Sleep deprivation

3. Attention fragmentation

4. Addiction

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:2)

Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. (Romans 12:2b, MSG)

Do not be con-FORM-ed to this world, but be trans-FORM-ed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:2)

“I think the devil has made it his business to monopolize three elements: noise, hurry, crowds.” (Jim Elliot)

“God walks ‘slowly’ because he is love. If he is not love he would have gone much faster. Love has its speed. It is an inner speed. It is a spiritual speed. It is a different kind of speed from the technological speed to which we are accustomed. It is ‘slow’ yet it is lord over all other speeds since it is the speed of love.” (Kosuke Koyama, Three Mile an Hour God)

“To walk with Jesus is to walk with a slow, unhurried pace. Hurry is the death of prayer and only impedes and spoils our work. It never advances it.” (C.S. Lewis)

Do not be con-FORM-ed to this world, but be trans-FORM-ed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:2)

“I think the devil has made it his business to monopolize three elements: noise, hurry, crowds. Satan is quite aware of the power of silence.” (Jim Elliot)

Do not be con-FORM-ed to this world, but be trans-FORM-ed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:2)

"All of humanity's problems (or unhappiness) stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” (Blaise Pascal)

“Let him who cannot be alone beware of community… Let him who is not in community beware of being alone… Each by itself has profound pitfalls and perils. One who wants fellowship without solitude plunges into the void of words and feelings, and one who seeks solitude without fellowship perishes in the abyss of vanity, self-infatuation and despair.” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

Do not be con-FORM-ed to this world, but be trans-FORM-ed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:2)

I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. (Romans 12:1)

I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. (Romans 12:1)

I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:1-2)